SRman

I don't know if I am furthering the topic much by posting pics of my SECR set (arrived yesterday!) posed with several different SECR locos, but here goes anyway. I know these would have been main line stock at the time the livery represents, but there are no really suitable locomotives for that, yet, so the next best thing would be the Hornby H class 0-4-4T, 308, which doesn't look entirely out of place at the head of the rake. The SECR C class 0-6-0 locomotives were really intended for goods work, but could be called upon to work secondary passenger services, or empty coaching stock moves, so, with that rationale, here are two of Bachmann's C class locos, 592 in the elaborate SECR livery, and 271 in the simplified livery that followed. And finally, here's the 3-set in its entirety.

Things wrong with this model, which applied to the Lima originals as well, are the lack of the extra jumper cables at each end for the 73/0, incorrect underframe and bogie detail for a 73/0, and the way too small, round buffers: E6001-3 originally had oval buffers fitted, later replaced with the large round ones to match the rest of the class. For all that, it represents good value and runs very sweetly with its 5-pole motor. I had to renumber mine, because I already had a Lima repaint numbered as E6002, mounted on a Hornby chassis. The new Hornby one is now E6003 on my layout. I will be fitting the extra jumper cables in the near future, as I did for my Lima original, and I have already replaced the buffers with some nice brass oval ones. the other 'faults' I can quite happily live with. I have quite a number of the Hornby ones, some with Lima bodies swapped onto the Hornby chassis, and one Dapol one, which has really great underframe and bogie detail, but numerous other faults that I consider far worse than the ex-Lima ones - things like the electrical bugs Dapol built into their 73 models, and the completely wrong shade of early blue livery, erroneous wrap-around of the small yellow panels, wrong typeface for the numbers, and simply represents poor value for money at well over twice the price of the Hornby ex-Lima model, IMHO.

I realised that, but since the utility van was OO (although not entirely an accurate model), I used the OO term only.

The credit for oldest OO item still in (sometime) production would be the Triang Utility Van, which dates from the mid to late 1950s. Its most recent appearance was in the Winston Churchill funeral train pack from Hornby.

I like that they are promising different chimneys, smokeboxes and saddles, and tenders. The Southern Railway version illustrated on their website shows the earlier tender style, narrow chimney and shorter smokebox, all of which were never modelled with the much earlier Bachmann model.

Bachmann class 416 2 EPBs all have coach lighting and headcode lighting, all worked from F0 on DCC or all just on when on analogue. I can't answer the question on whether or not there are people inside, though.

It would be nice if they did that, but, somehow, I doubt they'll tool up yet another coupling variation. Personally, I would be happy to have the working couplings that look even reasonably like the real ones, BSI or Delner.

You could always take one of Langley Models' live birds and ... well, use your imagination!

It seems to have been missed from the 'headlines' at the top of the first post in the Hornby 2018 topic, but it is on Hornby's own website pages. SR and early BR liveries offered.

We have a civilised end?????

'Functional' means they will be working couplings. I sincerely hope Bachmann will offer these as separate items as well, so we can retro-fit all our older class 158/9/66/70/1 units.

I like that they are also doing a BCK as part of a 2-set, and also that they are using some 'joined-up' thinking and providing the coaches to make up sets (the other releases are mostly for 3-sets, with a couple of 'loose' SKs thrown in to the mix too). Like you, I welcome the somewhat overdue improvements and provision of pre-nationalisation types. Now, I must put some of my older Bulleids on eBay before the new ones come - any funds I can raise from those will go towards the new, better models. Ironically, I haven't run any of my old Bachmann Bulleids for ages, but have just put a crimson and cream 3-set on behind 10201 yesterday.

Too late! He was already mad long before he left Oz, so no change there!!

Chances are a couple of the major box-shifters might offer them separated from the train packs. I am wondering how many people with larger layouts will order two of the 6-car sets for multiple operation.

What a brilliant piece of footage. A great find, Oliver.

C) One of the above!

Many thanks, Peter. I'll have to adapt them slightly to fit around the couplings, but they look like they'll work a treat. Much better than I was going to do with some plastic sheet and the original buffer beams.

An HSS (High Speed Shunter)??

Thanks Peter. I may take you up on that. It will save me a little bit of work.

The flexi track will, indeed form curves down to set track radii, or even sharper. I am in a club that used Peco code 100 track for a tramway, with radii down to around 10" or less. My own layout uses flexible track (again Peco code 100) with radii approximately the same as third and fourth radius set track, (roughly 20-21" and 24" but varying and with transitions into and out of the curves). I'd agree with Beast in that you could use Tracksetta (or equivalent) templates to make your curves more even and consistent.

Something I should have done, John , but it tested OK on DC beforehand. But, yes, it runs much better now. I looked at my wiring this morning, and tried swapping the yellow and blue wires to the reverse headlight, to no avail (I thought possibly there might be a hidden diode there somewhere). Swapped them back the way they should be but still no light, so possibly the bulb is blown. I did have a heap of replacement grain of wheat bulbs floating around in my vast collection of bits and pieces - it's just a matter of finding them! Failing that, I may solder an LED in its place, with a suitable resistor.

Yet another older locomotive has now been converted to DCC. This one was quite a decent runner to start with, but is an earlier Bachmann class 45 chassis, with an even older Mainline body. 45 048 has the giveaway moulded roofline that allowed Mainline to separate the roof colour on the BR green versions - Bachmann themselves used slightly updated mouldings with that raised line correctly eliminated from the cabs back. I needed a fairly thin decoder but the footprint was unimportant as there is lots of room in that regard; a Lenz Standard+ decoder with the 8-pin plug cut off was what was required. I analysed the fairly simple PCB and wiring to see what was needed. The brush wires were easily identified and desoldered, then the orange and grey wires were soldered to those. The track feed wires were soldered to the PCB bus tracks at each end, again easily identified and left alone. The red and black decoder wires were soldered to the relevant PCB tracks (red to the right). The trickiest bits were isolating the headlights, which had a small side track on the PCB and what I thought were resistor in line, but were more probably diodes. I cut the side tracks with a slitting disc in the Dremel, then soldered the white wire to the point where the diode connected to the headlight wire, and did the same with the yellow wire at the other end. The blue common return was connected to both ends, to the desoldered return wires for the headlight bulbs. A test showed that the motor worked on DCC, but the wheels desperately needed cleaning. That task accomplished, I then tried out the directional headlights; forwards worked but reverse did not. At that point I decided that I had done enough for the night, so ran the loco back and forth a few times on the main lines, then took the photos. For some reason all of the photos came out slightly fuzzy, but they'll do for now. I'll deal with the non-working light tomorrow. The next job will be to cut off the body-mounted buffer beams and mount them where they should be, on the bogies.

I was going to suggest plain blue with full yellow ends, but was unaware that they made it into blue until you posted your link, there. I did know some of the Derby Lightweights made it into blue FYE, so was going to suggest those as the precedent to justify it.

Don't forget the yellow diamond jumper sockets on the cab front too.

If it is of any help, even the real mixed gauge for standard gauge inside 5' 3" broad gauge uses a much thinner rail section for the inside rail.