"Springbok"

Recently I welcomed back an old friend. Bought in my youth for a mere £25 (and at the Bluebell Railway no less) no.1000 Springbok has never graced the pages of this blog, because she never actually worked! The split chassis mechanism was faulty from purchase (but to be fair, she was second hand) and for many years she adorned a small corner of my room at Loughborough University.

Having taken delivery of an excellent, up to date and new Thompson B1 from Bachmann, and discovering the new chassis would fit the old body shell, I made haste and bought a second to fit to old Springbok. Now for the first time she runs! However I intend to bring her into the 21st century a tad, and she is becoming the guinea pig for a series of modifications intended to bring my Bachmann B1s more into line with Hornby's.

The first change is to the buffers. They have been completely replaced by a set of Hornby's. The difference to the original buffers can be seen in the next picture, showing my apple green B1 spares which will eventually form part of a small fleet of four or five locomotives.

I intend on having a nice mix of electric lighting, and non electric lighting, named and unnamed B1s (none of the Hornby ones will be named, only two of the Bachmann ones will be). The transformation of the front end by simply replacing the buffers is too good to pass up and now all of the Bachmann B1s will have this modification from this point on.

Until next time - when I hope to be reviewing the most eagerly anticipated model of the year: Hornby's Gresley P2.