Silver Sidelines

Following my posts dealing with Collett and Hawksworth coaching stock I am moving forward a few years to talk about Bachmann DMUs, Class 108, 105 and Derby Lightweight. Location – location!!! When I acquired my first Bachmann Class 108s I immediately set about closing up the gap between the units.   The Bachmann 108s have sprung buffers and it is possible to draw the two coaches together such that the moulded corridor connections are almost touching yet still allowing the unit to negotiate relatively tight curves. As bought (bottom) modified (top) The solution that I adopted was to replace the Bachmann couplings by a plain bar filed down from a 30mm long piece of code 100 nickel silver rail. Original Couplings (top), modified coupling bar (middle), 30mm length of Code 100 nickel silver rail The nickel silver rail is filed down so that it is a force fit into the original Bachmann Coupling Pocket.   The 30mm length works o...

In recent posts I have detailed corridor connectors for Bachmann Collett coaches and I have touched on the Hornby Hawksworth Full Brake. Hornby Hawksworth Coaches as bought (left) and as modified (right) When Hornby introduced their Hawksworth coaches back in 2010 I was most impressed with the coach detail but not so happy with Hornby’s corridor connectors. I wanted the coaches to be more closely coupled and it took me a lot of courage to remove Hornby’s moulded black plastic connectors. Closer coupling is quickly achieved by paring away some of the plastic from the Hornby R8220 coupling to enable it to push back further into the coupling pocket.   For the Hawksworth coaches I adopted a ‘belt and braces’ approach and drilled through both the pocket and coupling enabling the coupling to be pinned in place. Subsequently I have discovered that there is often sufficient friction between the coupling and the pocket such that pinning may not be nece...

This Post follows on from comments received on the last Post.  As bought I think there is a significant difference in the ride heights of the Bachmann Thompson coaches and the Hornby Gresley coaches. Early Bachmann Thompson BG compared to super detail Hornby Gresley I am indebted to John who commented on my previous Post describing a means of remedying the situation.   I am not sure what I was thinking about when I said that there were differences in ride height between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Bachmann coaches – well maybe marginally.   To clarify matters I am posting here a few comparison pictures. Recent Bachmann Thompson BG compared to super detail Hornby Gresley The view above shows the latest Thompson BG compared to the super detail Gresley.   The buffer height seems acceptable but the Bachmann corridor connector looks way too high.   Roof heights seem similar. Recent Bachmann Thompson BG compared to Bachmann Mk1 BG ...

In an earlier Post I detailed the construction of some corridor connectors for my Bachmann Collett coaches.   I have now added a Hornby Hawksworth Full Brake coach. I like the look of the Hornby Hawksworth coaches, perhaps with the exception of the corridor connectors, which could well be the subject of a separate Post.   I bought my first Hornby Hawksworth Full Brake coach back in October 2010 for use with a rake of ‘express coaches’.   Most recently I have added a Full Brake to the local ‘semi fast’ set.   Initially I had problems keeping the Hawksworth Brake on the track.   At one particular location where there are both horizontal and vertical curves the Hawksworth coach at the front of a seven coach train would jump the track.   In my opinion the Hornby Hawksworth coaches are very light weight and I solved the derailment problems by adding some additional lead ballast.   I think the Table below might be quite intuitive.   This confi...