IanB47306

The South Yorkshire Transport Musuem has some items from Cravens so maybe you'd like to try contacting them. I'm afraid I can't be sure what they do have as it's a very long time since I visited the museum.

Finally taken a few photos of my 47145... First of all apologies if they're not the best quality and also apologies that they're a little late...i'm a little rushed at the moment with other things. Hopefully my shots capture the feel of the model well and I've tried to focus on the many details of it. Given time I shall probably take some more (better) shots once I've carried out detailing on the model. As I said before, this is a very good model on the whole... but somethings which I have just noticed that people may want to pay attention too... - My model has some glue on the engine room door. This is nowhere near anything that I would have expected to be glued down so I can't really understand how it got there. Unfortunately I feel this is quite derogatory to the model as it is quite obvious close up and if I try to remove it I think I may end up damaging the model, hence I shall probably try to get it exchanged in the near future. Given that Nick L also describes glue on the roof grilles, maybe this could be a common problem. - Also some of the joins in the paint aren't very well executed...on my example most are ok, but the join between the cab end yellow and the bodyside blue is very poorly done. I wouldn't descibe the join as fuzzy (I could just about accept this) it is more wavy in appearance and not what I would really expect in a model. I must stress though that I am being very picky here.. and usually I wouldn't mind some of these issues but A) its a limited edition model and I'm reluctant to carry out any work I don't have to. B)47145 is an important loco to me so I want my model to look as realistic as possible. Enough of the ranting...now for the pictures.

Picked up my 47145 from Rails yesterday. I am initially VERY impressed! I know the model represents a different timeframe for the loco but I think it certainly surpasses Heljans offering. I haven't actually taken the loco out of all its packaging yet unfortunately so I haven't had chance to see what the running qualities are like (but I have no reason to believe it'll be any different to any other Bachmann 47 really). The rendition of the model looks pretty good but I haven't had chance to scrutinise it fully just yet either ...all I can say for now really is a) what I mentioned in my earlier post regarding eth and the green spot etc etc... and B) there seemed to be a little overspray of yellow underneath the cabside windows resulting in a slightly fuzzy edge. I fully accept I am being rather hyper critical here but as it is one of my favourite loco's I'm entitled to be! B) It will get a throrough check over in due course - and I might go as far as uploading photo's if that'd be of help to anyone. The etched plates, crests etc are all very well produced. Does anybody know who does these for Bachmann? I had assumed it was Shawplan but if so the etched crests have been significantly improved in the last year or so. I originally bought a Shawplan set of plates and crest for my Heljan 145 but I did not want to fit the etched crest beneath the nameplate as I thought the Shawplan offering was a little lacking in detail in comparison to the fully legible version printed on by Heljan. If anybody has some etched crests from the new Bachmann model I will very happily take them off your hands at a reasonable price if you'd care to PM me please. Also worthy of note is that there is a 'spare' pair of BR double arrows supplied in the etchings pack which I can only assume is in there from when the loco was going to appear in Railfeight General livery. The only other major thing which I think lets the model down is the marker lights in the former headcode box. In my opinion these are pretty poor on all Bachmann models as they look oversized and stick out a bit too far for me. I am going to look into replacing these with some etches from Shawplan but before I do I was just wondering if anybody else has any experience of using these etchings on a 47 in particular and what results you got - any clue as to whether it's really doing would be much appreciated. I may opt to experiment first with another 47 as I don't really want to start work completely blind, especially on a LE. I had a quick look on the Howes of Oxford website and they list 3 or 4 different etches available for the job (I can't remember the reference numbers right now) but I was just wondering if anybody could point me in the right direction - I assume the only difference between the etches will be where the hinges for the marker lights are? Hope thats of some help to people. Ian

Unfortunately the loco appears to be slightly incorrect as it is......sorry if I'm in been seriously picky here. The eth has already been mentioned but I think that should easily pull out of sockets in the bufferbeam. The Tinsley depot plaques also ought to be of the painted variety rather than standard issue as it were. Also as the loco is wearing the multiple working green spot on the cabside it ought to have the multi working sockets fitted. Having checked www.class47.co.uk, there was a time when the loco carried the sockets at the painted Tinsley crest in the headcode box but I don't think that arrangement lasted very long. Also should the circles on the cabside be green as per other 47s or is the pale blueish colour shown on the model correct in this case - I found it a bit hard to tell on prototype photo's but I just wondered if anyone could remember the real thing. The model itself is only correct up to about August 1997 as that is when the loco lost the bufferbeam skirts. Personally I'd have preferred to have seen the loco produced without the green spots on the cabside or without the Tinsley crest in the headcode box I think.... I feel some nail varnish remover coming on! Aye well keeps me out of trouble.