BrushVeteran

The only thing I can see that is in the picture of the blue one the lubricator drive has come unclipped away from the frame, but as I was part of the team that measured the real thing everything else looks as it should be. We measured 07010 at Bitton and received other measurements from the East Lancs for the extra air brake version. As far as I know the wheels are correct.

I think I would sh*t all over the place if I had something of that relative size trying to end my freedom! As a side I have spent the last six months of this year trying to make our bus storage barn pigeon proof. The cheeky try to pull the netting down as soon as you put it up and of course they leave their calling card absolutely everywhere....................and it's nasty stuff! As much as I like our feathered friends I am tempted to practice my soldering ability around their nether regions at times! Sorry to go OT Tony.

We usually test the Heljan diesels with 8 pin sockets with Bachmann 36-554 decoders. Ensure that the pins are not pushed in too far and as a precaution a piece of insulation tape under that part of the circuit board should ensure that no metal contact can be made with the decoder

I had several Lima class 47's in two tone green and they all differed in livery rendition. I seem to remember that I had the following;- L205103 D1111; L204904 D1524; L205215 D1574; L204718 D1664; L205219 D1842 and I always thought that the livery on D1111 look the most realistic. It's a pity that Vi-trains never developed this further and backdated their version with a decent chassis.

Well it all looks very nice to me but I think my two will take much longer than that to build................being a relatively in-experienced brass kit builder. Still I must have a go otherwise Mr Wright will start beating his drum at me! I'm sure though that with all the advice he has given and the great help from this thread I'll be able to achieve it but I'm not in a rush. I will though try and post a few images on here if I feel I have made the right kind of progress!

I remember seeing 1200 inside Stratford DRS on the wheel lathe in either March or May 71, I think it was March, but unfortunately had run out of film. I'm pretty sure also I saw it there again and think it may have been in 1973. Having seen and photographed Falcon many times during its life I never wrote it down as it was easy to remember at the time....................now 40 years on I wish I had made an exact note of it...........and everything else!

I think the chassis block is the starting point as the original material has failed. I think anyone in a position to want to re-chassis a Lima will already have the rest of the parts available, if not most of them can be obtained as spares. So yes I would say we need chassis blocks, that would certainly suit my requirements.

I've also got two of these to build and as I 'm a relative novice at brass kit construction I'm sure that I'm going to find this thread very informative. I hope to finish one as D2999 and the other as D9998.

I think we should encourage Hornby to release R3470, D5509 discontinued from the 2016 releases, then they can encourage us to purchase some chassis at reasonable prices to put right our investments from them in previous years. I don't think it is morally right for us to crowdfund a product that has potentially 'failed' in such a short timescale. Whilst I appreciate the desire for people to be able to cure their existing models' problems, I feel that Hornby should be offering more of an incentive to attract people who wanted a perfect product in the first place. At the end of the day it will be a 'win win' for Hornby.

If the price was right I'd probably purchase a dozen or so to resurrect some old Lima Brush Type 2's and improve the running quality.

If using DCC you can change the polarity of the decoder to correct the running direction.

I've scanned some of my images that I took and some I own copyright on to demonstrate the weathering effect on electric blue over a four year period on a diesel locomotive. They were more than like likely all different types of film i.e. Kodak Ektachrome X, Kodakchrome 2, Kodakchrome X and Ilfordcolour and subject to different lighting conditions. Heavy cleaning with paraffin rags to remove oil stains also tended to darken the paintwork, but the paintwork on this loco, apart from the roof receiving a coat of grey at some point, was the original 'electric blue' or Foochow French Blue as applied in November 1960.

Well here is a picture of one of the buses I own, this one being my first one purchased in 1972. Now this does make me feel old!!!

I remember having a conversation with Brian Haresnape and Alec Swain at the Model Railway Exhibition at the Central Hall, Westminster in either 1968 or 69, regarding BR blue, as at the time I wanted to paint some existing models in the livery and as I remember Humbrol had not yet introduced that colour to their range. I remember also that I was told that Rail Blue was changed in pigment and the way it was applied, as well as the base coats used, with most applications ending up brushed on to increase the thickness to make it more durable through washing plants. He also referred to the earlier shade as Monastral Blue, more akin to what was used in the XP64 demonstration train, and that had been used on all blue repaints since 1966 up until the time we met when variations in methods of application were adopted. Electric Blue was also discussed at the time as I wanted to clarify the correct shade Tri-ang had used on their Brush Type 2 model of D5578, which I had purchased some years previously. He advised me to contact Brush Traction, which I duly did with his assistance, and in return they supplied me with colour swatches of both D5578 which was painted in French Blue and D5579 Bronze Gold, both these shades being on Foochow's paint reference chart, being also BR's preferred supplier of paint during the 1960's. Both of these colours became Electric Blue and Golden Ochre respectively in BR's livery register but the official names for these colours were that of the paint manufacturer. These colour swatches were used to replicate these colours in the Railmatch range. I refer to a previous thread about 'Electric Blue' in 2015 and the answer I gave to Stewart Ingram at the time :- "The actual shade used by Brush Traction was French Blue and was supplied through Foochow paints and manufactured by MacPhersons. This was the same shade as BR specified for the 'Electric Blue'. The Railmatch Electric Blue was mixed from samples kindly provided by Brush to me back in 1964 when I had a Tri-ang model of the same loco. Incidentally the sister loco D5579 was painted in a shade from the same manufacturer called Bronze Gold which BR eventually termed as Golden Ochre. I still have Brush's colour chart as a prized possession!" Colour photography and the differing film emulsions are quite a minefield when it comes to confirming exact shades and different paint manufacturers had differing methods of pigmentation ingredients and varnishes. I have pictures of D5578 when fairly new and at four years old without a repaint and you wouldn't think it was the same colour. I'll try and put a comparison on here once I have scanned them. Working in the bus industry for such a long time also guided me into the best paint manufacturers for durability and the differing shades of NBC poppy red that could be interpreted! All I can add to that is at least the vehicles we painted at our depot didn't turn pink after two years, unlike those of a neighbouring company! I hope this information helps as liveries and paint durability has been part of my interest for most of my life.

Both D5707 and D5708 were GFYE Phil and I think the picture displayed is actually of D5707.

Quite a lot of green 31's in the 58XX numbers were transferred to the Western not long after they had been re-engined. I'll see what I can dig out and put a few on here.

Looking at my photos of these D5021 has BSYP with rounded corners to the top corners of the panels and of course the BR crest. D5026 had arrows under the drivers cabs with the numbers in rail alphabet behind the cab beyond the radiator panel on A side, with the other number under the secondman's window. I don't know the arrangement for B side but I would imagine it was much the same as D7660 and D5389 which were all outshopped from Derby Works at the same time, D7660 being brand new. The small yellow panels on D5026 had squared off top corners. However I would imagine that SLW have all the relevant information at hand.

Not entirely correct.........................only applies to Heljan's CAD and tooling.

I have a couple of repainted bodies (10000 & 10001) in green livery, both differing tooling, which I am open to offers on if anyone is seriously interested, there may even be some chassis parts as well. I purchased these over fifty years ago as non-runners and the idea was to use a Triang EM2 chassis...................................but both Bachmann & Dapol eventually beat me to it some forty-five years later! So I wont bother now and really they are just taking up space.

Hi Mike I'll send you a PM but basically I would like two of these for collection at Railex Aylesbury if you can. Regards Grahame

Howes Models have plenty of O2 Tango spare parts sprues available for any of the tender parts you may have missing. If you go on to the Howes website you can view the parts under the respective headings under Heljan UK spare parts.

I think that as modellers we have to accept................or it's about time we started accepting.................that roofs weather no matter what colour they are. If you look at a rake of coaches from above then all the greys are differing shades...............yet they are all correct at the time the picture was taken. The same applies to most other colours especially blue, red and yellow which are primary colours shaded by varying the pigmentation. I spent 41 years with a largish national bus company.............predominantly red..............and trying to match a panel, even after a few months in service, usually resorted in applying a coat of varnish over a complete side to maintain continuity. Today's computer matching and two pack applications with clear-coat finishes has made paint last longer and look better but in the era of the 4TC most paintwork was brush applied using up to six different suppliers and even different batches of paint from the same supplier could vary slightly. When models are produced in China the vendors source their paint locally and at the time it is matched to, more often than not, a BS colour or in the case of artwork drawn by a design company, a RAL shade. In the case of this model I would accept that as long as all four coaches match each other then I would be happy.

Looks perfectly acceptable to me.

Gilbert, I would try extending the bridge steelwork at each end, with the aid of some plastrut/evergreen material and then lower the bridge abutments. It looks like half an inch at each end may suffice.

The Fawley-Bromford Bridge Esso Oil train was permitted to a maximum of 54 tank wagons when double-headed BRCW Type 3's (Class 33) were available. When a single loco was employed this was reduced down to approx. 35 wagons..............the maximum I think I ever counted anyway. The passing loops and general infastructure meant that this train always had to stay on the move between the two destinations although in the early days when routed down the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line it was recessed at Didcot for a loco change, which I can remember as far back as August 1963 whilst on my way back from Bristol. I can also remember the accident at Didcot North Junction when an 8F ran into the returning Esso empties with much pyrotechnic effects! I think that this traffic had been overtaken by the direct Fawley pipeline by the very early seventies. There was also a shorter Esso block train which served the underground distribution depot at Islip and Northampton but this had ceased by 1969 being originally built to serve the Oxfordshire WW2 RAF airfields, of which USAF Upper Heyford took the lions share. The other block train I can remember seeing regularly was the return working (empties) of the Rugby-Coryton Mobil tanks which from recollection was made up of 20 A tanks and 12-16 B tanks. This was also usually double headed by Brush Type 2's (Class 31) but was restricted to a shorter train because of the shorter block sections around the North London Line and the inability to maintain sufficient headway along the WCML, hence the running at night. I can't remember this particular working much after 1967 and I know the route was converted to pipeline by the late 1960's. In all cases except that of Islip, where the wagons were collected on the return from Northampton, these were all out and back diagrams where the locos stayed with the train whilst unloading took place. Most of this information has been recorded from memory and my main regret is that I did not photograph enough of it!