Remember when this would have been a magazine cover?
A Lima 33 owned by the Excellent Cake and awaiting a refurb by self. It runs fine, that is until you run a new Bachmann loco; how far we have come since 1976 - or maybe we haven't, as it's very noticeable that bit don't fall off these items when you take them out of the packing. The newer stuff has a habit of disintegrating.
I mentioned a couple of days back that it was all quite jolly running a few Lima items up down on Hopwood and it struck me that there is a whole modelling generation for whom Lima models are the thing that they fondly remember. The steam locos were pretty dire, but the diesels were very good for their day and it's easy to forget that people like the renowned Ian Futers would happily convert them to P4. Monty Wells ran more than a few articles in RM on detailing and then, unbelievably now, latterly in MRJ; the Class 73 springs to mind.
My question is this: There are numerous guides on HD/Tri-ang et al, listing and cataloguing all the products, but considering that Lima produced British OO from the mid 1970s right through to 2004 (and beyond?) there is no collectors organisation, or books, or market in catalogues. That is, not that I've noticed, but then I've not been looking. If you know different, I think we all deserve to know. In the meantime I've got a self-chopped Class 121, the quasi-Class 117 and a CCT already running on Hopwood. Is this a new trend? Could the whole thing be run at an exhibition using items from the range?
Lima 1980 catalogue here
Wiki page here
Ramsay's Guide covered all the Lima locos and rolling stock. Apart from that though, I'm not aware of a collectors group. I like the idea of a classic Lima layout!
ReplyDeleteThe one Lima steam loco that I thought was excellent at the time was the 45xx, and I believe it wasn't wholly coincidental that TAoC first appeared alongside a review of that loco in RM.
ReplyDeleteIndeed the loco that spawned the article. I had one - the worst running loco I've ever owned. It lives in landfill somewhere no doubt.
DeleteBut iun those days the typical loco had two speeds. Stopped or light speed
DeleteThat catalogue brought back a few memories, much of my child trainset was in there. Most of it ran rubbish, but the Deltic was great. I also had a number of Diesels from the early 90's, in fact I think I still do somewhere...
ReplyDelete