fiftyfour fiftyfour

But the "new era" branding was a very short-lived interim and probably never saw passenger service (and could only have done so on debranded GWR slam door stock prior to the power cars being overhauled)- hardly worth modelling such an obscure lash-up, especially when the six-years of service by 40% of the fleet FGW "Barbie" blue with pink swoosh has NEVER been done.

What depot were the W region ones based at? My earliest book (1988) shows them all being at WB in one big pool shared with WCML examples.

Pet hate of mine- I prefer a bog standard un-named one, and if the model is a bog standard un-named one its easy to name it whilst renumbering it, whereas its a pain to have to try and remove a name from a brand new model.

Tangent subject- does anyone make the replacement SLE/SLEP coach ends for the OO Lima or Hornby models? Hurst used to do a resin "paint it and swap it over" replacement end incorporating the built in lights, their website (last updated 11 years ago) lists this item but out of stock.

Thanks for the info, two packs on order from Precision for now while I assess the quantity in each pack and the scale of the issue! I keep doing this; ordering two packs of something from Railtec only to find something else they do that I need a week later.

No, that's just the lights- earlier in this thread you said they also did the emergency door releases to go on the bottom of the carriages near the doors but I cannot find them on the Railtec website and I need these more than the lights. I home made my own CDL lights by cutting up sheets of plasticard but the Lima and Lima derived Hornby stuff (eg Mk3 Sleeper) needs the red handle in white housing to complete the job.

Indeed they did- the old #31 set had 2xTS which had been hacked about with twice since being in the 252 set! Along with set #12 and set #17 which must have fallen out of favour for some reason or other. IIRC the power cars had to have an even spread of major exam dates as it would have been no good them having them all due a G-xam within six months - initially GW loaned them a "courtesy power car" when one of the WCML ones was at Laira on a major, that only lasted for the first two to need overhauls though.

Old tread bump- what is the Railtec item number for the emergency door releases for CDL please?

I would hope that RE wouldn't object to a reproduction of a 21 year old edition of their mag- and if they do the legal work 'round is that we are showing a part of it for the purposes of "review". And my review is that they are a heck of a lot better than other general interest titles at reporting model railway stuff.

Initially, yes. Subsequently, no! From the start of the Euston to Holyhead service it was formed of "any" WR set which came onto the WCML having worked an up service into Padd, then empty via Old Oak and then the NLL into Euston. It would stay on the WCML for two days (eg an afternoon, a full day and a morning) before returning home via the reverse method. When I say "any" WR set it would have always have been one with a 407xx buffet as the WCML services called for dining. Then, from May 1995 a special separate pool of three sets, seven power cars was reallocated to Longsight to exclusively operate WCML trains- the reason for this was impending privatisation and the realisation that the WCML would have to have its own trains and not continue to borrow the WR ones. This arrangement lasted until May 1998 when Virgin put everything together in one pool; whilst the trio of WCML trailer sets generally stuck to WCML duties you could get any of the 57 Virgin power cars working them.

43002 re-livery was May 2016. 43185 (into InterCity livery) followed in August. 43002 could never ever have run with another blue/grey power car from 2016 by virtue of it being unique in that scheme, until LNER did 43206+312 (as 006+112) in December 2019 for the final runs long after 43002 had retired to a museum.

take the springs out between the bogie and the body frame. It might not tilt any more but it will stay on the tracks coming out of corners, unlike mine when first operated.

Does anyone have a list of all the 50's that wore black roofs with large logo (BR era only please). Planning to change one of my old Lima models (I'm a traditionalist!!) to represent that livery but want to avoid the well trodden Ajax route!

Trouble with endlessly chasing "current scene" is that we now have a myriad of units most of which are confined to a relatively small geographic area. I can see more 800 derivatives coming (even if they are shorter than they ought to be) as there are already prototypes on GWR, LNER, Hull Trains and TPE- before long there will be EMR and Avanti variants as well as the one off livery variations already being done now for LNER and probably will get done for GWR. Beyond them what to do- plump for a CAF 195/331 and its only got limited regional appeal, same goes for an Aventra which are not widespread either, go for an Electrostar and you get a few more livery variants but still all London centric.

Err, West is best, obviously! They did already did a GNER pair, the Virgin ones were more geographically widespread but I'm still cheering on a First pink-swoosh one as per 2001-2006 style, even if First are weird about their heritage.

Already answered (amid 31 pages!!)- 43002+LA72+43198 are the train which worked the last passenger service from Paddington and the specials a fortnight later, the latest GWR carriage numbers announced make it possible to form up the exact 10 vehicle train as worked on those days. I shall take marks off for anyone not forming them the right way 'round with 43198 on the standard class end...

Yes, Feb '96 until Jan '97 under Cross Country TOU and Jan '97 until Nov '98 under Virgin Trains. A better "solution" would be 1x buffer, 1x standard front in Virgin Trains livery, and then 1x buffer, 1x standard front in GNER. People would want the coaches to go between them and I don't know if the market would bear another release, especially as some HST power car liveries have yet to be released (eg all the privatised GWT/FGW styles until Dynamic Lines, of which there were four main ones for the power cars and three main ones for the coaches)... I can see some people splitting the set for the purposes of running 1x Class 91, 8x HST Swallow livery trailer and 1x buffer fitted power car to replicate the "super power" 8,730hp combo on the ECML in 1989- more power to weight than your APT's or 800's!!

Yes, both of those went to GNER, and both painted into GNER livery for their stint there. Not as spares but as daily use refurb cover whilst another two ex Virgin cars were put through works upgrading them to GNER's standard. If you are thinking of doing two and putting them either end of the same GNER rake then don't- they were not allowed to run together as neither had the reliability mods!

IIRC only 43014 and 43123 wore executive with buffers- and WCML West Midlands-Euston modellers may wish to know that they performed the TDM trials in that livery prior to the Mk3 DVT order. Note that those two also had extra ETH jumbers (just about visible in the shot of 123 above the right hand buffer). The other six were converted in 1988 so would have had full yellow front swallow, from around 1991 repaints omitted the yellow around the windscreen and the new Hornby models are right for c1992-c1998, except that 065 wasn't named until February 1996. 065 went Virgin in November '98 (and 123 went Virgin in Feb '99) so without mods the duo in the 2020 catalogue are correct for Feb '96 to Nov '98.

All the BT10's were kept when the Sleepers were disposed of back then as they were needed for the rest of the Mk3 fleet. Now who thinks Hornby would be onto a winner if they added an InterCity Swallow livery Mk3 sleeper into the 2021 releases? It would be so easy to turn out the standard issue version and the land cruise version as (I think) the only difference is that the land cruise livery ones had white roofs- as luck would have it the Lima tooling for the Mk3 sleeper has a separate roof.

I'm also amused by all the comment regarding the Hungarian Class 56. It's a "novelty" loco for the UK market and a keepsake/compromise for the Hungarian market but despite that it will probably sell quite well. If someone decides its not for them then they know what to do. For my money anyone thinking of buying the APT either has a massive layout based on the WCML in 1984/5 capable of accommodating a 14 car train or they are planning to buy it purely because of the novelty value, and over £500 is a lot to for an occasionally run extravagance, yet there has been far less adverse comment on that release.

That train (43002+LA72 set+43198) is the exact set which ran the last ever down passenger service HST from Paddington- put the 43198 on the standard class TGS end and the 43002 on the first class end and you've got exactly the right formation assuming you buy all 8 new release GWR livery coaches and marshal them in numerical order!

HST coaches in Swallow livery- I can see I'm a lone voice here but Hornby's researchers are absolutely rubbish in this department and have scored another own goal. Again. Before the time that set received Central Door Locking it had been cascaded down to Cross-Country, 41086 knocked out, and 40436 inserted in place of 40703 (which had found its way into LA35). They **could** have used their four window buffet car moulding to correctly represent XC69 as a seven car rake to go with 43065+43123. We still have not had a 4-window HST buffet which anyone modelling Cross-Country in ANY era needs- if only that poxy 40703 model had been 40436 with the correct moulding that would have been a really good train... The nameplate on 43065 dates the pairing after February 1996, much as last years nameplate on 43078 dated that pairing into a very narrow timeframe right at the end before Virgin took over- my second pet hate on HST models is insistence on modelling a "namer"- it means trying to colour match to conceal a nameplate on a brand new model if your era is pre 1996 in this case.

The main issue being that you cannot cut standard Mk3 window sized holes into a Mk3 sleeper bodyshell without losing the structural integrity. Other smaller issues like the lack of spare CDL equipment were surmountable, the window layout was the show stopper. By the time GNER realised this it wasn't too long to wait for ex Virgin XC HSTs to become available to extend the GNER HST sets.

apologies, tried to delete a posting 'cos the discussion had moved off into the UK prototype page! Be gentle, I'm still new...