CloggyDog

This pic by Robert Peach recently popped up in a fb group and shows a subtly different finish where the yellow meets the side window, not noticed this on any other 24/25 and it is possibly only this window on 25241... The other end looks normal on other contemporaneous photos.

Once you're happy with them, I'd be interested in 3 sets for 25/1s.

The literature with the model says 'researched and designed in Great Britain, manufactured and assembled in China.'

The BIS cover is a separate part which unclips to reveal the BIS gubbins beneath! Picked up my blue/em/noisy one from the post office earlier, it's now sat on the rolling road just chuntering away to itself. Initial impressions are very, very good - the shape and proportions are good, the model captures the feel of the 24 well. Colour and finish are very good with both blue and yellow shades correct. There's a scattering of other printed labels and the like which are all legible. The flat cabside handrails are metal, correctly, as are the cab front and assorted other small grabs. The detailing is excellent - easily the best I've seen on any UK RTR diesel (and better than most US or Continental models). There are some add-on parts (undercab tanks) and it's nice (as a screw-link man) not needing to detail up the bufferbeams, it's all there ready to go and in very fine detail too. The MU cables will even unplug from the socket. Solebars, bogies and undergubbins are exquisite, though the sandpipes are a ways from aligning with the wheel/rail interface. Only had a quick play, but the running quality is top-notch and the sound utterly convincing in both the noise itself and how it ties in with the movement of the loco. Will hopefully get some quality running in very soon. Onto the negative - the big rad grille does jar. The horizontals are too few and too skinny and the verticals are in the same plane. Will have a go at weathering the grille down to see if that changes the appearance. Perhaps weathering and then dry-brushing blue onto the slats. The smaller side grilles were a little patchy in terms of paint coverage, but again will see what some weathering does. All were applied square and true on mine, no issues there. And the glazing does suffer a prismatic effect. Will try the black pen in due course. Small points, which may or may not be relevant to all, but the grille is the one that irks me the most. Hopefully, RE/SLWs stated aim of continual improvement will see these small issues corrected on future models. Despite this being easily my most expensive single loco purchase (by a factor of at least two... and I model German HO, US HO and UK O!), I definitely feel I have got value for money and a high quality, high value model. My only fear (in the nicest possible way) is RE/SLW will start producing all the many, many Class 25s I'd like to have!

Having done a 25/3 cut n shut (Bachmann cab fronts inserted into Hornby cabs attached to a Bachmann centre, which all works well) I did make a start on something similar for a 25/1 (Bachmann cab fronts into a Hornby 25) , but found a slight disparity between the Bachmann and Hornby corridor profiles (even though I'm doing a sealed front). So while the tail lamps are right, there's something not quite right further up. I'll see if I can dig it out when I get home and post a pic or two.

Fox transfers have had a set on the market for some years, covering the full life of the DBTs from all-over green to the last knockings of banger blue, set FRH4949REV is the 4mm sheet. There's a supplementary sheet containing additional yellow panels to make more economic use of the main set. A pity you don't do the blue era John, I 'd send a fair chunk of cash your way otherwise. I'll PM you the data I have which has been cross-referenced against as many photos as I could find. As for photos - there've been plenty posted or linked to earlier in this thread.

I kinda get what you're saying, but the comparison isn't really relevant. Leonardo's ML is a one-off, antique artwork, held in a museum. I have seen it in the flesh, wasn't all that impressed tbh. So many other great artworks in the Louvre that everyone just rushes by to see ML (or try to see her through the throng all trying to take selfies...). Meh. The SLW 24 is a mass-produced toy train which is, to my mind, just the starting point (albeit a very good one) to recreating a miniature of a working locomotive to run on my small scale representation of a railway. The cost of the model is irrelevant in that regard, it's what I can do with it (weathering, further detailing, repaint, modification) that represents it's 'value' to me. In this case, the base model will greatly reduce/simplify the time and effort I'll spend bringing it up to my personal standard - that saved time I'll 're-spend' on something else that may need more work or something extra that might not otherwise happen.

Why?? It is just a model Just had an email to say my 24081 is now 'Packing', so should be in my grubby paws soon. Plan is to renumber it - choices are either of the other 2 last survivors, 063 or 082. Front and side numbers off and new side numbers on. 082 would be my first choice, as it would neatly replace my decades-old Hornby 25/Craftsman conversion, but would require a boiler water tank. Whereas 063 was, like 081, sans tank. But 063 had lost at least one of the cab vent grilles by the end... So, if the Brassmasters tank passes muster, it might be 082 after all. I'll be carefully examining all the photos I can find of both 063 and 082, but it will be one of those. Either way, it will get a bit of grot applied and generally tarted down for service. 081 was kept in fairly clean condition in the last year or so, but the other two were fairly grubby by their respective demises in early 1979. I doubt that spare detailing parts would be freely available - having invested in the high quality tooling, I can't see RE/SLW wanting to see their parts used to simply tart-up inferior models. I have no problem with that, protecting one's investment makes proper business sense.

Again, courtesy of an aquaintance who bought one, the documentation with the model indicates that Phil welcomes constructive criticism and is seeking improvements and refinements to make the models even better: Thank you for supporting this bold venture into R-T-R model manufacturing, with its radically different philosophy that flies in the face of current trends. We need the support of every single customer to thrive in a crowded market dominated by large multinational and foreign concerns. Making a success of these first few releases will ensure we can tackle even more projects. Please do not hesitate, in fact we positively encourage you to contact us with areas for improvement. It has been a steep learning curve, so we welcome feedback and sensible suggestions for future model variations. We have also adopted a policy of correction and continuous improvement so let us know if you feel we’ve dropped the ball anywhere. Very encouraging.

Don't have my Derby 2 manual to hand, but I'm pretty certain the prototype is all 4 on or off, not individually switchable. But that didn't prevent some drivers flipping the disc up to close. EDIT - I've been assured by someone with a SLW 24 that both upward- and downward-flipped closed discs (in the appropriate colours) ARE provided with the model.

Is it possible to plug in the 'closed' discs upside down, to recreate the oft-seen (especially on ScR) trait of folding the lower disc up?

The rad and boiler grilles are the sole niggle I have with what is otherwise a superb-looking piece of kit. On the model's rad grille - the vertical bars sit on the main plane as the horizontal slats, so the eye gives them the same prominence. The prototype has the vertical bars behind the horizontals. On the the Darlington grey finish at new, the verticals do appear as prominently, but far less so on plain green or blue coloured grilles, hence the odd look to those livery variants. The verticals are barely noticable in this pic. I had an invite to the launch, but was already booked away all last weekend and so had to decline. I'm sure I'd have come home with at least 1 blue 'un otherwise.

Just had an email from Key Publishing with pre-ordering details for the 3 green versions at the 'pre-registered' price of £22.99. Those with a pre-register code can also present the code at the Hornby Magazine stand at Warley this weekend to purchase their tender(s). Blue one (the one I want) is still 'Coming Soon', so I'll hang fire for the moment.

They look like 2' self-contained buffers, 13" round head. A number of the 8 shoe clasp vac-fitted (and 8-shoe clasp unfitted*) 16 mins had these buffers. The hook was mounted through a 2" extension bracket on the headstock to keep the slack distance constant. *the decision to halt vacuum-braked 16t mins, following problems with the infrastructure at some unloading facilities ripping the yokes off, meant that some batches already under construction were finished with 8 shoe clasp, but sans the vacuum cylinders and pipework.

Seated figures - I recently picked up a couple of bulk-packs of seated figures via a well-known online auction site - 100 painted seated figures for just under a fiver, including postage. They aren't brilliant - pretty basic mouldings (6 different ones) and simply painted, but once sat in a coach they don't look so crude and do make the trains look loaded

Oh dear... Break Tender... Seriously?

Very neat job with the panel! I reckon just 4 switches are required?? 1 for the initial cross-over, 1 for the parcels road (which should also throw the trap), 1 for the 2nd cross-over and finally 1 for the pfm 2/3 point.

Incidentally, there's a 15% discount offer at the LTM online shop until this Saturday (31 Oct) - discount code is CGE15 at the checkout page, which saves a decent £65+ on an 8-car 'bundle'

Before the era of interest, but nevertheless a cracking 1974 photo of 2 x 4-car sets: https://flic.kr/p/6Pvntr Nearest the camera is a later BRCW set (TOPS 110) 3-car, augmented with what looks like an earlier BRCW (104) TSL (the lack of prominent window frames is the giveaway) with the trailing set a NER 4-car early BRCW (104). Moving into the mid-80s, mixed formations become more common 101 TCL in a 120 cross-country set: https://flic.kr/p/faLCj6 And here's a cracking hybrid Parcels set - Cravens 105 DMBS in blue with a Met-Cam 101 DMBS in blue grey, 1986: https://flic.kr/p/buZtXe Others that spring to mind are the use of Cravens 105 TSLs between a Met-Cam 101 DMBS and DMCL in Scotland - IIRC, these handful of Cravens TSLs were the only Cravens cars to receive blue/grey, to match the Met-Cams. And of course a late-surviving hybrid set of the 100 DMBS/105 DMCL power-twin which worked out of Longsight in the late-80s and early-90s. Also, try a search on Flickr for 'hybrid DMU': https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=hybrid%20dmu

For NEM-pocketted stuff, NEM Kadees are a simple plug-in which works well - my Bachmann Cravens and Derby LW (2nd type) fleet has Kadees inter-unit and most have them at the outer ends too, Kadee #17, #18 and #19 are the ones to go for. The plug-in nature of NEMs means you can swap them around to get the optimum close coupling. Brings the corridors 'reet close' and buffers almost touching between 2 cab ends. At Aylsham show last Saturday, I also had the Gloucester DPU screw-coupled to a 'dummy' Bachmann DY LW (2nd type) and that worked well too - our curves are much the same as yours. The other advantage of Kadees is that the units move as a unit, rather than a collection of loose-coupled cars. I have some MJT suspended gangways and plan to have a trial with those on a bog-cart of some description, possibly a Limby Met-Cam with Kadees and sprung buffers.

Clive, my dear chap! Have you considered using foamcore to make the carcass of your retaining wall? 'obbycraft sell A1-sized sheets (33" x 24") of 5mm thick foamcore for around a fiver a pop. http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/advancedsearchresults.aspx?query=foam-board Oooh... they do it in black as well now. If you were closer, I'd drop off a sheet or two for you to have a play with. Cuts with a Stanley, glues with PVA and is much stouter than card. Brick-papers stick to the stuff with PVA or spraymount. The 5mm thickness gives nice depth to arches.

Very useful Cap'n, will aid my EM conversion (also using Branchlines wheels). One minor detailing point - the sandboxes weren't universally fitted to 128s - based on photographic evidence I think they were only fitted to a couple of the late surviving WR batch. Haven't found a pic of a green one from either batch with them, nor any LM ones in blue. Definite sandboxes 55993 1975 (gone by 1987) 55994 1975 (gone by 1986) I'll do a bit more digging and see what I can uncover. Edit - Green 55991 and possibly others in green in the mid-late 1960s (with and without yellow gangway covers), so quite possibly from new or an early mod to the WR batch.

I think a E03/Br103 is listed on the site as being one of the models. Personally, I loathe the bulbous devices...

Photo 3 looks best to me - as Pete 75C said, well-used trackwork does have more of a blended uniform colour than we often appreciate. And This! Definitely this. Also, if your trains have toilets, don't forget the small clumps of white and brown in the four-foot... And discarded newspapers, cigarette packets (fag ends would be too small to see in N Gauge!), pop cans and other commuter detritus scattered liberally along the platform roads.