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Electrostar

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Everything posted by Electrostar

  1. Gaugemaster has shared some pre-production shots of the OO pre-production 02. Cute little thing.
  2. As a 12 year old in 1988 I wrote to Hornby asking if their forthcoming class 91 – shown in the catalogue with an all white front end - would include a front coupling to allow for blunt end running. The answer was of course a no. I wonder if there’s an opportunity for the new model to include the facility? I appreciate BR’s original plans for the 91s to haul overnight parcels or freight trains (I think) with the blunt end leading never actually materialised but the number two cab has been pressed into service on a number of occasions since.
  3. The pair of 66s are on display at the London Transport Museum shop. The printing looks very impressive up close.
  4. My mistake. I always thought it still looked like an adapted version of NSE. I assumed the blue window surrounds extending to the cab side in an upright diagonal could trace its roots back to NSE with extra blue where the original red slope was. The horizontal red line, though thinner than NSE appears in the same position as NSE without the slope. Obviously DDA requirements came later and meant changing the colour of the doors. Anyway enough of all that, great news about the blue-grey VEP. Will Hornby hold good on its promise to adapt the solid interior, the discussion of which now feels like years ago?!
  5. Interesting stuff. I find it incredible that the privatised Chiltern only tweaked the NSE livery but have kept it ever since, other than on their Mainline service. (And that's not a complete, just an observation about the last two decades of rebrands!) If I recall Chiltern, Thames Trains, Connex South Eastern and WAGN couldn't paint their Turbos or Networkers for some time as it would have invalidated the paint warranty. It explains why Chiltern tweaked NSE with vinyls and Connex did the same, in effect removing the red stripe and adding yellow which left it at odds with all (dirty) white/yellow of the Connex slam door stock, 455s, 319s and sole 456 on South Central and South Eastern. Privatised WAGN and Thames Trains left theirs in NSE livery for quite sometime I recall. Ps loved the Thameslink anecdote!
  6. Andyman7: I'm not surprised considering the South Central TOC was called Network SouthCentral and even kept the NSE flashes. I often wondered who came up with the pre-privatisation TOC names. As I recall only Thameslink was allowed to introduce a new livery - the 'graffiti livery with silhouettes of St Paul's - but why did NSC get to keep the NSE flashes and Network name when others simply became Southeastern, Great Eastern, LTS Rail, WAGN etc? Then there were the early post-privatisation liveries: orange stripe or green stripe added to the NSE liveries of South West Trains and LTS Rail respectively. Chiltern went for a thinner red stripe and different direction at the cab ends, but the livery is essentially still based on Network South East all these years later. Then there are names like South West Trains (which initially had the Stagecoach moniker added), Chiltern and the very-recently revived Thameslink that are still around today.
  7. Watching the excellent naming ceremony video reminds me when Intercity reversed the decision to use tiny numbers. I don't know if any of the early 90s received them but certainly the 91s and 47s (47/8s?) did. The former having the tiny numbers originally only at the blunt end before common sense saw larger numbers at the front end too. Not that Hornby were quick to cotton on! There was also the outcry in the railway magazines about the black nameplates with silver (I think) writing replacing the more traditional red ones. I think black writing on silver as shown here was the compromise. But it was sometime ago and I was just a boy.
  8. I appreciate the Hornby 90 is old but I always felt it never truly captured the light cluster. Much like Hornby's 466 Networker which also had something missing around the headlights. I guess we're a quarter of a century on (doesn't that make me feel old) and we can expect better from Bachmann. As an aside, all this talk of the Class 90 introduction reminded me what an interesting era 1986-1994 was. Every fortnight as a child I'd pick up Rail or Motive Power Monthly to discover another new livery (freight, intercity, parcels, civil engineers) or countless one-off depot special (how did they get away with so many after the corporate blue era?!). The axe hung over several classes and then just as you thought it was all over for them they'd earn a reprieve. The future was coming (Crossrail and Thameslink a little further than hoped), new locos like the 90, 91 and 60 were settling in and the Channel Tunnel was being built. Meanwhile on the back page of Rail at least you could be promised three new liveries by Lima, many on some fairly recent models. Hornby might have had a few showpieces like the 90 and 91 but models and liveries were limited to a set few each year. With Lima it was like Christmas every fortnight. (Well until few years later when Father Lima stopped delivering!)
  9. I remember when the almost-new 90s were pulled out of service en masse due to technical issues. It even made Thames News or LWT News. I visited Willesden in the hope of getting to see them all but the depot managers never allowed spotters in. They did however print me off a list of all locos on shed. (Compare Willesden to Stewart's Lane where no such restrictions ever existed, despite the third rail.) I loved the Mainline livery with its cast double arrows. It suited the 90s just as it did the 47s. The Intercity version was similar to what came with the 91 - lots of white. Was it a 90 in Mainline livery that was used on the BBC's Railwatch line up to unveil the new sectors - (Swallow) Intercity, Mainline, Departmental (grey) and Parcels (red pre-RES)?
  10. I think there's only one livery version of the 450 although there might be minor and possibly accidental variations of the swoosh. There are also high capacity versions that had first class removed but I think these are in the process of being converted back to their original state. I've always found the shade of the blue bodywork really attractive. Even after many years in service the 450s still have a nice sheen to them. Fingers crossed this gets the oh ahead.
  11. Ron Ron Ron, I meant Bachmann considered the risk and realised it wasn't going to lose a lot of sales if it allowed Model Rail the commission rather than releasing a 450 to the open market and keeping all profits for itself.
  12. That's brilliant news, put me down for both. It's interesting that Bachmann have decided against selling it themselves. I wonder if they've looked at sales of the slam-door third-rail stock and the 350s and decided producing it as a third party commission is a risk worth taking.
  13. I certainly remember wishing the railway mags would publish colour photographs of the 84 put into departmental use, just so I could see what it looked like in blue and orange.
  14. That's certainly some fade out. Perhaps it would look a bit better if the white body was weathered. After all the slam door stock were often quite dirty.
  15. Thank you for the info. I remember the first Monday of Connex South Central. The train was full of pamphlets promising a new era, new livery, whitewashed stations, bright blue uniforms (and hats!) and a South London metro. Soon after the pamphlet was re-edited for Connex South Eastern's first Monday albeit showing a 365 with vinyl stripes and the NSE blue upper body. When first applied the Connex South Central livery suited the 455s and the sole repainted 456 but less so the slam door stock which as you say always looked grubby.
  16. Thank you. I forgot (GoVia) SouthCentral kept the typeface for a while after removing the Connex and logo. Before that I'm sure Connex removed their circular logo and kept the original Connex wording but that might have only been on the SE franchise. Back to the model. Will it receive branding. If not does this date the model to a particular timeframe?
  17. Did any of the Connex versions carry the original Connex SouthCentral or abridged Connex logos? I don't think any Connex SouthCentral units carried the final logo as seen on SE Networkers and buses. I also remember many slam-door units in ghost white and I think some with yellow stripes but no fade outs by the cab. Am I right in thinking the faded yellow stripes wouldn't stick and if so were any Thumpers seen without the yellow fade outs or the ghost white liveries?
  18. How did unofficial and unnofficial variations of liveries come about? Did one manager in the depot just suggest his painters add the white stripe / Cockney sparrow / full repaint in green or marroon / window surrounds (delete as applicable) ?
  19. You're right. I guess old age tricked me into thinking they produced the 45 and 46. I recall steam being a much smaller part of the Lima range, certainly from 1989 onwards. The GWR tank engines and King classes always made an appearance but modern image became their forte.
  20. Today while going through some old boxes I came across a Lima catalogue from 1989 and seeing as many years later Hornby bought the company I feel I can post this here. It had completely slipped my memory that back then they planned to release a class 90 and class 91. As I recall nothing came of these models but this was around the time Lima had hugely expanded their range taking on Hornby with new models (such as the 40, 45, 46) and models which directly competed with mainstays of the Hornby range such as the 37 and 47. Quite why Lima decided against the 90 and 91 I don't know. They certainly weren't afraid to bash out other models and liveries, as the rear cover adverts of Rail Magazine testified every fortnight. Back then as a pre-teenager it was as much a surprise seeing what Lima would do next as what would be the cover story at the front of the mag!
  21. Latest Collectors' Club update: The Class 205 Thumper EP sample has now been approved and has entered the artwork stage and final sampling. It's accompanied by a photo of a grey mock up which I must say looks splendid.
  22. Some really interesting stuff there. I had no idea about those. It's not quite the same but I do remember the catalogie promising the very white class 91 in Electra livery. The real thing never wore it so neither did the Hornby model but I guess there's a prototype in the archive cupboard somewhere.
  23. I disagree. Your review model was a good runner but plenty of your potential readers reported the opposite once the production batch reached shops. As a journalist don't you have a responsibility to investigate this story to discover if the reported faults were false, an unfortunate blip or applicable to a large batch? You could approach Hornby and ask for a comment, ask retailers about numbers of returns and contact forum members. You may find the problem was tiny and reassure readers of this, or discover a major problem which needs to be tackled. If a car magazine gave a glowing review to a test vehicle I wouldn't expect them to ignore subsequent reports of engine trouble in future issues, so why shouldn't the model press investigate a legitimate story?
  24. Hornby magazine has reviewed the green LM liveried version so I guess there's not long to wait.
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