Mad modifcations

"Martin" wrote

The first Lima British outline diesel locomotives was a class 33 Bo-Bo and rather surprising was produced in HO scale. Needless to say this received little interest from British OO-scale modellers but there was a feature in one of the contemporary model railway magazines (sorry but the title eludes me) suggesting how this undersize effort could be 'cut & shut' into something approximating 4mm scale.

Subsequently Lima abandoned HO-scale for British models, and the B&RCW diesel was subsequently re-tooled into OO.

John.

Trix did the same with the Western (the only way to get one then), sadly they just threw the towel in rather than re-tooling. A shame, since it was a lovely runner and the buffet car I had to go with it had metal wheels - a real novelty then, it even made the right noises going over track joints!

Cheers Richard

"Martin" wrote in news:fpk552$bl$1$ snipped-for-privacy@news.demon.co.uk:

A Lima Western converted to broad gauge and re-painted in GWR colours.

Some years ago I converted a HO scale Class 33 which I picked up for GBP3 into a Class 153 DMU. Okay, not much more than the bogies were left, but still...

(has anyone tired motorising a Revell Ludmilla kit with a cheap chassis likely to be available in the UK? That's next on my list)

On 21/02/2008 15:25, Martin said,

To mock up a BR Standard Class 11F from Dapol 'Evening Star' bits. This is a 2-8-8-0 loco with 12 wheel tender. No relationship whatsoever to the UP Big Boy :-)

Incidentally, with the Lima 50 thing the easiest way would have been to use the Lima 37 bogies like wot I was just about to do when Hornby announced their version of the 50.

In message , Paul Boyd writes

Got any pictures?

A certain Mr. Brunel had to convert and entire railway after getting the gauge wrong. Mind, I expect the original instructions were a bit vague.

Cheers Richard

Not to mention many miles of slotted cast iron pipes with lots of rat attractive leather flaps and grease and oh, a few "vacuum" engines built along the line.

Kevin Martin

Jane Sullivan said the following on 22/02/2008 07:10:

I'll reassemble the mock-up (and it really is a mock-up!) and get some photos up somewhere!

I was unemployed at the time, anyway I needed a 37 so would not have canniblised one.

I'll have to do pictures one day

Hmmm a broad gauge with late GWR/BR prototypes, that sounds like an interesting what if project.

Bet the banana would be fun in that as well.

estarriol said the following on 22/02/2008 10:54:

I remember a clip from some book or other where the author wrote "Imagine what a broad gauge HST would be like?"

Hmmm....

Yep, I even went so far as to try and work out the most convenient scale for track if I don't want to handbuild it all at the start...

(that and RTR chassis and motors would help greatly!)

I've seen a "what if" layout where nationalisation never happened that had standard gauge diseasel hydraulics, gronks etc painted and lettered for the GWR. Running alongside horrible looking steam "might have beens" like a County and a prairie tank with outside Walschaerts motion.

It was all rather horrible.

That is sort-of the worry.

Christopher A. Lee said the following on 22/02/2008 13:10:

I'm not averse to a bit of what-iffery myself, but that does sound horrible! Mind you, ages ago I repainted a short HST set into GWR colours, basically replacing the blue with brown and the grey with cream. I can't remember which decals I used but it was something that I thought the GW may have evolved into - 1930s style "Great-crest-Western" would have looked totally wrong. I think where some people go wrong (as if there's a "right" in this!!) is that they apply a livery to a modern model in exactly the same way as it would have been applied 50 or 70 years earlier. Liveries evolve all the time so even if the GW still existed it would almost certainly not be with the same livery.

On 22/02/2008 07:10, Jane Sullivan said,

'ere y'go!

Like I said, this is a mockup just to get an idea of what it might look like. The whole body needs to sit lower which is easily done because the cylinders are now horizontal. I just hadn't got around to reducing the frame depth and modifying for the firebox. The tender is actually a

10-wheeler, not 12 as I said before, and the front two axles will be on an outside framed bogie. I'm not happy with the tender still - I think one based on the high-sided tender will look a lot nicer.

One day I do intend to do this one properly!

In message , Paul Boyd writes

Looks interesting. Keep us posted, please.

Looks fun. As such a beast would probably need mechanical firing it may be that oil firing would have been used. Gives you a couple more tender options, maybe a bogie oil tank wagon shortened and fitted with

6 wheel bogies. G.Harman