Bachmann Junior Locos

Yes,much better.Go for it!

Neil.

Sorry to hijack thread but ... Had a go at a new chassis for Smokey Joe but wasnt very keen on outside cylinders. However couldnt find a suitable prototype. Any suggestions as to how to go about scratch built modifications to do cylinders ? No rush - it all fell apart as was trying to learn how not to solder brass and managed that very well.

Cheers, Simon

The Bachmann 'Underground Ernie' range has now gainer an 'Ernie 1' inspection vehicle which uses a 4 wheel motor bogie and it's DCC ready I understand. Might have a go with one of those for a tram of some kind.

Chris

Under =A310 !!!!

I would read some of the White Swan series such as "The 4mm Loco" and the one about building chassis for plastic kit locos.

MBQ

"Dragon Heart" wrote

Methinks that 'Underground Ernie' hasn't been the commercial success that Bachmann hoped for. Never had the appeal of 'Thomas' in my emporium!

John.

Maybe they need a Maroon Pannier tank in the range but with a face on it, wonder what it could be called, Neasdon Nobby or Acton 'arry ?

ISTR that Hornby did an LT Pannier a few years back but the Red colour did not look correct to me.

G.harman

Nor me. It was underground red instead of the deep, dark maroon.

Although I remember the Met's steam and electric engines being painted brown as a boy, possibly an austerity measure left over from the war.

When I saw my first Met electric in lined maroon I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I'd seen - that was before I discovered girls :-)

This maroon is pretty close to the colour of the Royal train.

I would read some of the White Swan series such as "The 4mm Loco" and the one about building chassis for plastic kit locos.

MBQ Most kind, will look out for them

cheers, simon

The Wild Swan ones might be better still.

;-)

Kevin Martin

Of course not, they don't run on steam, do they?

Anyone seen "Chuggington"?

On Fri, 5 Dec 2008 08:45:31 -0000, "John Turner" said in :

I have a theory about that. The success of the railway stories predates merchandising and is founded on decades of children reading them /because they are good stories/. The merchandising allows them to replay the good stories in their own home, but the good story is the heart of it. Underground Ernie is a doughnut with a hollow centre: lots of sugary attractiveness on the outside, but nothing at its core.

Guy

I'll second that. Plus, in the original books, the stories were actually more or less technicaly correct - the great Reverend obviously had a good understanding of railway operating practice, and that made them hang together well. Even at an early age I realised that when referring to Thomas doing something naughty it really meant his driver and the troublesome trucks were down to the guard, that might of come from meeting him at a large London exhibition where he had his layout and was re-enacting one of the stories - to me and my dad - everyone else just passed him by! I recently picked up an Americanised version (or are they all like that now?) on a stall to look at and it somehow didn't "work".

Cheers Richard

And possibly the LT Bus Red which was used in the last years of Red stock, with the white unlettered roundels. never looked as good to me as the darker rail red with London Transport depicted in Gold letters.

Can just remember seeing some brown Liveried hauled stock,we did not go into Met territory much . Did not realise the Locos were brown at one time. Did you really mean the steam Locos as well, ISTR that these were transferred to the LNER who operated them on behalf of LT before WW2. If you meant after WW1 then I raise my hat to you for being a silver surfer.

G.Harman

Only the larger engines were transferred, the 0-6-4, 2-6-4 and 4-4-4 tanks.

The smaller engines stayed with LT in departmental use until replaced by 57xx pannier tanks.

I rememeber Sammy the Shunter misbehaving on the big layout at Scarborough.

I remember loco-hauled trains with brown Met coaches running into Baker Street in the mid 1950s. Some of the coaches ended up on the Worth Valley painted blue and cream - later restored into Met brown livery.

It's aimed at the 2 to 5 years olds but my son still likes it.

I agree that the original Thomas The Tank stories had a story and the early 'animated' series did follow that ideal. With the later versions, the last I saw had animated faces, they have lost the plot. Using big name A list stars to do the narration will not help.

'Chuggington' and 'Underground Ernie' are great computer generated graphics but the story has not the appeal of the Thomas stories.

Now the Americans have the production rights for Thomas I see the end in sight :-(

Chris