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97406

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Posts posted by 97406

    More model ideas

    in Accurascale / Irish Railway Models

    Posted

    6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

     My all-time favourite diesel was the Hymek, and I was lucky enough to be able to work on them at Canton in the early 70s.  The perfect combination of ride, quiet cab, cosiness, visibility, and they looked superb in the original two-tone green 'Deltic' livery with white window surrounds.  Pocket rockets, they were initially used at Canton to replace Kings on top-link passenger jobs, and managed albeit with savage thrashing, and it is a shame that most enthusiasts never got to see (and hear), as I did, them lifting 900 tons of loaded presflos and vanfits up the slope out of Aberthaw Cement works, Maybach screaming and sanders blasting; awesome! 

     

    Just as Beyer-Peacock went under, an order for a further 100 of these locos was in progress, presumably to be the D7101-D7200 series.  These were to be lower geared for a top speed of 70mph and were intended to replace steam in the South Wales Valleys, work eventually done by 37s drafted in when the order collapsed, effectivly the death-blow to Swindon's hydraulic aspirations.  My observations at Aberthaw suggest that they'd have been as capable as the 37s on Valleys work despite the loss of two powered axles, and they were at least a loaded hopper better on paper.  A further 100 would probably have been needed to satisfy the traffic demands in South Wales in 1963, but the coal traffic was diminishing by 1964 and those would almost certainly have been cancelled.  They might even have been better in some situations than the 37s. which cut out readily when overloaded (as did all EE locos except the 08s) and didn't give the driver the option of caning it a bit when he was up against it!  The same weight and about the same size as a 25, but the similarity ends there.  There replacement at Canton with 25s on passenger jobs was ill-advised, but there was nothing else available; their freight work was taken on by 37s.

     

    I never understood the WR's reluctance to use 37s on passenger work; they did eventually but that was well into the 80s with eth stock.  The ER, NER, and ScR used them very effectively in this way and found them satisfactory, but the WR mindset was that they were freight engines, perhaps because the initial allocations were specifcally for Valleys work to replace steam.  I liked the 37s, and the experience of riding on them double-heading the 1,600ton trailing Waterston-Albion bogie tanks up Stormy or Llanvihangel was a privilege, to be savoured window open and head hanging out listening to the NOYZE!!!  Then there were the triple-headed Port Talbot-Llanwern iron ore tipplers, 27 of them @ 100tons a go + 315tons of locos, 9mph blowing 3 holes in the sky at the summit of Stormy Down from a standing start at Margam Moors.  You could sit in the beer garden of the Angel in Mawdlam village overlooking Water Street Jc. on a summer evening and savour it, the heaviest freight train in the country at the time and the heaviest diesel-hauled working in Europe, and against that steelworks & mountain backdrop they looked perfect.  Steelworks pollution makes for excellent sunsets...

     

    I really miss the regular loud diesels that you could hear rumbling in the distance from miles away. The current crop of over-silenced locomotives just doesn’t do it for me, Class 68s being the exception.

     

    For many years my only exposure to a Hymek was a Triang one until I visited the East Lancs Railway where there was D7076 freshly restored in green. It was a lovely site and sound. It is a shame they didn’t last in squadron service.

     

    37s weren’t originally all that popular in the North West due to the prevalence of the 40s, but that soon changed after the 40s had all but disappeared and 37s started being shown some love at Crewe works, being refurbished and painted in nice liveries. They have basically the same cab and I’ve spliced Bachmann 37 cabs into a Lima 40 before. There was that sweet spot between 1985 and 1987 when you could still have 25s and 40s alongside the newly-released 37s. 47s also became more interesting with Large Logo, Railfreight and the especially nice Executive and Scotrail liveries, all of which I have in the fleet. The aforementioned Banger Blue 47 with plated headcodes is all I am after to complete the collection.

    More model ideas

    in Accurascale / Irish Railway Models

    Posted

    10 hours ago, The Johnster said:


    An interesting viewpoint, and very much a trainspotters’ one IMHO.  They were common, 509 in service in the 70s, and perhaps looked a bit dull; they were - are - a well proportioned and neat design and not unattractive in the original two-tone green livery, at least when it was clean (again, IMHO).  But they didn’t have the brutal presence of a Deltic or the elan of a Western.

     

    But some the other classes you mention were also pretty ubiquitous; over 300 37s and nearly 500 Rats if you include the 24s and the 25s as all Rats.  There were 200 40s and nearly 200 Peaks (44/5/6, three classes that looked more or less identical).  Come to that there were well over 200 20s.  Perhaps the outline of the 37s, 40s, and the Peaks, with noses, was more inspiring; by the 70s noses were out of fashion and ‘classic’ or perhaps ‘retro’.  The 40s and 20s made interesting noises, and the 37s growled nicely.   The Rats rattled, failed to pull the skin off the driver’s milk, were spectacularly uninspiring lookers, and utterly horrible to work on; we used to reckon the 56 miles between Cardiff and Gloucester with the 00.35 Peterborough parcels, 4E11, at an attempted 90 mph would shorten your spine by at least an inch.  
     

    Which leaves the 50s, and the popularity of these amongst spotters has always baffled me.  A class of 50 long-distance express engines used specifically on the WCML initially and later on specific routes further southwest becomes a very common sight on those routes, and one would have thought they were only really excitement-generators to spotters from outside their area.  They were probably the dullest example of loco styling in their era, like a 47 (not the most inspired looker) but even boxier and plainer, boredom personified.  I hated them for finally killing steam in 1968 and then my beloved Westerns, but in general the spotters went nuts over them.   
     

    My opinion of 47s was that they deserved more respect than they ever got from the numbertakers; once they were made to run reliably by derating the engines by 100horses, they were the best all-round mixed traffic general purpose locomotive ever devised for use on Britain’s railways.  The cabs were draughty and the ride was horrible, too soft and rolling, but they could pull anything that was coupled to them, and pull it to time; 95mph passenger, long-distance Motorail (with double fuel tanks), Freightliners, TEAs, block coal trains, MGRs.  They could be dual-braked, fitted with ETH, and they were probably signed for traction knowledge at most depots throughout the country, so they were pretty much operable anywhere at a moment’s notice, a true workhorse, Control’s favourites.  And the horns sounded nice.

     

    The irony is that the 47 that I am after is the plain Banger Blue one, plated headcode panels and a square headlight. I only need one though. Or maybe 2..... (stoppit!)

     

    A few reminisces:

    Rats were so underpowered and ramshackle that they had to be thrashed within an inch of their lives to do anything of merit and that was much of the attraction. One of them still managed a loaded train of PHVs (just). The sheer noise belied their lack of power.

     

    40s were overweight and underpowered (not unlike myself), but their stance and the sound was what did it. How anything with a diesel engine could sound like that was a mystery when I was a kid.

     

    I like the Logs too, though Banger Blue wasn't particularly flattering on them but Large Logo made them. They sounded a lot more rateable than a 47. Small Sulzers and large English Electrics always sounded the best to these ears.

    • Like 1
    • Agree 1

    Model World Live 27 / 28 April 2024 NEC

    in Exhibitions

    Posted · Edited by 97406

    10 hours ago, John M Upton said:

    I'm sorry? A model wagon with a rotation counter is more accurate than a proper tape measure?

     

    What a load of utter nonsense!!!

     

    The track has curves so you can’t simply measure from end to t’other in a straight line and get an accurate distance. Also think about trying feeding a tape measure around curved track under model OHLE. 

    More model ideas

    in Accurascale / Irish Railway Models

    Posted

    18 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

     

    TBH, the older Bachmann model was already the best OO Class 47 out there. 

     

     

    Plus are people as passionate about 47s as they are with other diesels? I have several 47s and will no doubt get a couple more, but they were exceedingly common in the 70s and 80s and a duff turning up didn’t attract the same excitement as a 37, 40, 50, Rat, Peak or whatever. I still view them as a timeless design classic but they don’t stir the blood as much as other more rateable traction does or did. I’m quite happy to collect far more 37s than I need but not so much with the ubiquitous Duff.

    • Like 1

    Accurascale on tour

    in Accurascale / Irish Railway Models

    Posted

    14 hours ago, D400 said:

     

    Now then. That looks an awful lot like 37350/D6700 in late 1980s "celebrity" livery.  Is this a hint for a future Accurascale Exclusive? 😉

     

    If so could you let us know before I take a scalpel to one of my existing ones! 

     

    Cheers! 

    Bruce 

     

    37350 and a Red Stripe Railfreight split box 37/3 as released from Crewe in the mid-to-late 80s are both ones I’m after. I remember seeing them ex-works at Crewe so an excuse to run them like that.

    • Like 2

    Class 31 111

    in Modelling Questions, Help and Tips

    Posted

    On 23/04/2024 at 06:14, sb67 said:

     

    I found a couple of photo's of it, looks an interesting loco to model. What was the story with the drivers window at the front? 

     

    It’s a toughened glass windscreen. Quite hideous looking and accurascale are modelling one, albeit 31432 which had headcode boxes. I just had to get one! 😈

    • Thanks 1

    Class 50, By Accurascale

    in Accurascale / Irish Railway Models

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, brushman47544 said:

     

    No..... without the radio pod on the roof please, and preferably with the original round crest too. I like it but already have the Hornby Laira Blue version (R3050) so couldn't justify that.

     

    I was meaning more from the livery point of view - I also failed miserably to find any earlier shots as I was after one without the orange cantrail stripe ideally. I’m not too fussed about the roof pods as they can be removed if need be, or added for that matter. I have a set of moulds made from silicone putty from a Hornby example. 

    Kader reduces its losses

    in Bachmann

    Posted

    36 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

    Oh no, they are so very useful for a thousand and one other purposes.

     

    I find I need most of them or the body doesn’t sit quite right, alas!

    • Informative/Useful 1
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