The Maidenfield Railway - OO - Modern, Diesel, UK

[Spavo]

Great backscenes, hope those were the ones I meant when I was trying to find the damn things!

They will even better on the wall trust me!

All the best,

Gav.

[Craig]

Top notch stuff rmg!

I have been busy with non-railway stuff since Christmas and have only just caught up with this thread...
It has progressed really well and I look forward to seeing more of the same

[PTmodeller]

Anything happen in Maiden field?

[rmg1919]

Not at the moment... totally overloaded with work... Hopefully will see some progress in the next month or so.

[Virgin Modeller]

I hope so, I've been following your layout development for a while and I think it's excellent!

[rmg1919]

Just to let people know, I'm hoping to get some work done this weekend... as it really has been too long!! And when the hell are Bachmann releasing the Dynamis... I want one NOW!!!

My current plan is to throw down the track in the TMD yard bit, and get it all wired up again so that I can play trains dammit!

I hope to spend saturday trekking to the various outlets to pick up the raw materials I need for further progress, and then spend sat PM and sunday getting some work done on things!

[PTmodeller]

Sounds good!

On the DCC side, i think i'd go with the Elite, I just prefer it's design.

[rmg1919]

Well, never quite made it to the layout, but I can update you on how I've got on with my Hornby Class 67.

I replaced the body in the end with a Lima body shell.

This was a trickier process than one might imagine. It required:

1. The careful removal of the windscreen wiper baldes from the Hornby shell, and transplantation onto the Lima shell (since no blades came with the Lima shell).

2. The careful (and very tricky!!) removal of the light lens units off the Hornby shell and transplantation onto the Lima shell (since the Hornby lighting setup is different to the Lima). This is really rather tricky as the lens units are cemented in place. I used a sharp blade to separate the two pieces of plastic. If you are not careful the lens units will snap and you will be (as far as I know) unable to source replacement lens units :-$ The lens units must also be removed from the Lima shell. However, on the lima shell, the lens units are in fact part of the front windscreen, and so the windscreen and lens units must be separated.





Disassembling the Lima model is quite straightforward as little (if any!) glue/cement has been used. The Hornby model, on the other hand, has glue/cement everywhere. This is good (better 'build quality') but also bad (harder to mod things without breaking them!).

However, on the bright side, the Lima shell does feature the printed horn grille detail above the windscreen at each end. However, the quality of the Lima shell in terms of printing is definitely inferior. From a distance they look identical (well, almost!) but up close you can really see the Hornby shell is sharper, and the printed detail more accurately applied.


So, my advice to anyone needing to replace a Hornby shell with a Lima shell:

1. Carefully remove the windscreen wipers (if necessary) they are not glued.
2. Carefully remove the lens unit from the Hornby.
3. Carefully remove the lens unit/windshield from the Lima.
3. Carefully remove the side windows and cab from the Lima.
4. With all the cab and glazing removed, paint the inside edge of the Lima windows black to improve the look of the model, and help bring the model up to the Hornby shell standards.





5. If you are really brave have a go at drilling holes in preparation for adding additional directional lighting. Since removing the shell of the 67 from the chassis is a major exercise in itself, you may as well, with the body off, "pimp out" your 67 to the max...
6. When all done, add the Hornby lens unit to the Lima shell, and replace the glazing and cab. You can of course also take some time to detail the cab and perhaps add a driver.
7. Place the shell back on the chassis, and voila, a brand new 67

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the Lima body. If nothing else, it allows me to get another 67 from Hornby, off the shelf, without having to worry about changing numbers!!

In terms of the Hornby and Lima shells side-by-side, the shades of purple/red and yellow are slightly different, but not by enough to cause concern - and, should I wish, I can easily add another 67 to my fleet without worrying about clashing running numbers!!

That's it for now.

[mortyfootball]

Great article that mate, very useful indeed.

Shaun

[Metrocamel]

Nice article. Never seen a Lima 67 before.

[rmg1919]

Never seen a Lima 67 before.

Yeah, I think the differences between the Hornby and Lima versions can be summarised as follows:

Hornby does not use traction tyres;
Lima does use traction tyres;

Hornby does not have horn grill printed detail;
Lima does have horn grill printed detail;

Hornby does have better circuit board with DCC-ready;
Lima does not have better circuit board with dCC-ready;

Hornby has better printed detail quality (i.e. sharper/crisper);
Lima isn't quite so good.

Hornby glue all the glazing in place;
Lima do not glue all the glazing in place;

And the lighting arrangement is slightly different.

I think that's about it!

I think the only thing Hornby need to do to make the 67 that bit better is to swap some of the printed detail for 'real' detail - such as the hose/pipework on the front end... shouldn't really be printed. Also the cab could do with some detail. And some 'red' directional lighting would help.

[rmg1919]

Latest additions:

[PTmodeller]

Nice- Whose 66 is it?

[Metrocamel]

Looks like the Bachmann? Good choices.

[rmg1919]

Looks like the Bachmann?

Yup, Bachmann 66 (wanted one for ages) and a Heljan 47. All I 'really' need now is a Heljan 47 Intercity Swallow, and a decent Class 08... and of course plenty more rolling stock!!