British Rail

How To Improve Old Rolling Stock: Part 2 – Coupling

Andy Carter 3 Comments

<< Part 1: Painting || Part 3: Gangway Connectors >>

One of the main reasons for embarking on this little project was to sort out the spacing between the coaches. Whilst the old Lima/Hornby D-Ring type tension locks are functional, they have since been superseded by slimmer and more compact variants that leave a more realistic spacing between rolling stock.

Image from Hornby

The majority of modern OO Gauge rolling stock is now fitted with NEM pockets, a standard design used across manufacturers so users can interchange their coupling types. Continue reading →

How To Improve Old Rolling Stock: Part 1 – Painting

Andy Carter 3 Comments

<< Back to Introduction || Part 2: Coupling >>

The term ‘painting’ seems to scare a lot of people. It sounds like you have to know what you’re doing… It conjures up the image of hours of irreversible hand painted craft work or overly complicated resprays with air brushes. Whilst I am going to be doing a tiny bit of respraying, it’s not complicated and the whole job doesn’t require a masters degree in art. Continue reading →

How To Improve Old Rolling Stock: Introduction

Andy Carter 6 Comments

As you may well know, I originally got this hobby in my teens, being forced to take a break when I ran out of space and went to uni.

Spin forward 10 years and I now have a large quantity of rolling stock that I inherited from the offset, some of which is really starting to look quite dated and tired held up against modern offerings. The quality of models has improved leaps and bounds in that 10 year absence from the hobby, so this poses a question: How can I bring those old clapped out ‘toy’ coaches in line with the brand spanking new super detailed models on offer today?

IMG_3035

I’m going to take you through a few processes I have been trying out to breath new life into my old stock, in particular this rake of Hornby LMS (Railroad) Coaches.

Beware: I’ve waffled a fair bit whilst writing up this project, it’s quite long! To break it down and to make it easier to digest I’ve broken the process down into three steps:

Part 1: Painting
Part 2: Coupling
Part 3: Gangway Connectors
Prologue: Cost

Let’s Begin: Part 1 >>

Review: Bachmann Class 20 – GBRf and London Transport

Andy Carter 2 Comments

A special double review for you today – two Bachmann Class 20’s!

Overview

Image by Dave Hitchborne

228 Class 20‘s were designed by English Electric and built between 1957 and 1968 in Newton and Darlington. They were initially intended to service light mixed freight work and were fitted with the English Electric’s 8 SVT Diesel engines capable of producing 1,000 horse power and a top speed of 75mph. For today’s standards the Class 20 is unusual in the fact it has a single cab at the rear of the loco giving the driver poor visibility in the ‘forward’ direction. Despite this, English Electric’s design proved more successful than their competitors of the time: Both the Class 15 and 16 by Thompson-Houston and North British Loco Company respectively featured off-set central cabs giving poor visibility in both directions; and although the Clayton Class 17’s (of which I reviewed last week) had better visibility, their reliability let them down. BR therefore continued to order the ever reliable class 20’s coupling them nose-to-nose in multiple to solve the visibility problem. This practice effectively gave you 2,000hp of tractive power enabling the 20’s to be utilised in heavier freight duties. Some were also retrofitted with train heating and were deployed on passenger routes in the Scottish Highlands.

Continue reading →