Model Railway Forum

It's not quite on the workbench but I'd like it there.

I've been given a Lima Class 37, which is analogue but a good runner. Conversion to DCC seems to be quite straight forward (he says having never done one!). But there's a couple of things that don't quite sit right with me; the oval buffers and the lack of buffer beam skirts. When built, and for a good length of time, the engines had round buffers and the bodywork dropped down around the buffers, both of which I think I'm almost right in saying we're not changed until way beyond the 'green period'.

Changing the buffers I think is again quite straight forward but could someone point me in the right direction for buffer beam skirts, if in fact they are available. Whole sale butchering of the front ends may be beyond me and it may be something I have to put up with. It'd be a waste not to run the loco.

Pic attached, ingnore the missing buffer.

I reckon the skirt was removed to fit the snow ploughs

Try eBay.

Its not been butchered in anyway thats how it was produced by lima.
There were some kits made years ago that had the likes of white metal skirts etc to add to the lima loco but they weren't great by todays standards.
U can some times get skirted bodies on ebay. If u Google lima d6999 this is a loco portrayed as straight out of the factory. It has round buffers but no skirts so it was wrong to start with same as ur loco
So either chip it and run as it was made or swap body or sell and get another loco that fits your wants.

There were a few versions of the class 37. Welsh ones had horns on the roof. Scottish ones had horns half hidden below so snow would not get stuck in them. Some had the buffer beam skirts. Some did not. Some had split headcodes with the idea that when double headed, there was a way to go from one to the other via a passage, but these were soon sealed off as they were drafty in the cold weather.
The central headcode boxes first displayed the train headcodes, but from 1976 to 1977 they were seen displaying 0O00 (The second character being the letter O and the eest were the number 0) after a ban came in due to an enquiry after the great train robbery where the visibility of the train headcode was used to contact the signalman. Then from 1978 onwards they displayed two white domino dots in the black headcode boxes. Then due to either shrubbery or stone throwing where a headcode box would have been smashed, they were plated over with a metal sheet with two holes in it, and painted yellow. Then around 1983 onwards (Certainly after 1985) they started getting a higher visibility headlight.
Locos used for the Central Wales line were fitted with a seperate headlight due to their regulations of working that line at the time. certain DMU's (Class 120) and class 03's were usually found to be fitted for working up this line.
Later after many rebuilds came the "Inset" lights from the 1990's onwards.
Class 37's have also been seen in many different forms with different equipment and even different engines or other modifications, and many different liveries over the years.
But going back to the early to mid 1980's, here in Wales the single headcode types were seen which some had those bufferbeam skirts, and others did not. All Welsh ones had the roof mounted horns. (All Scottish ones did not). Class 37's seen in Wales were late to be painted in the large logo livery and I did not see a LL blue class 37 until around 1987 (At least 1985) as they were all in small logo blue livery. Many Welsh 37's passed straight into sectorization livery without ever seeing the LL livery. Some saw Railfreight "Horrible" brownish grey livery but not many as I recall.
The majority were used on coal trains under sectorization around here.

Buffers. The 37's with the buffer skirts had round buffers. Those without skirts had oval buffers. Both were seen here in Wales, though the round buffered type with the skirts were more common.

Just to add, during the latter half of the 1990's I saw a 37 in my area of Wales with a single headcode at one end and a twin headcode at the other in B.R. blue small logo livery (Weathered) if I recall correctly. (Why it caught my attention as that livery in the 1990's had almost dissapeared apart from on 08 shunters).

Appreciate the replies, think I'll just chip it and run it as it is, save a lot of unnecessary hassle, too much else to do.

There is a video on YouTube that shows how to chip a Lima 37.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd00CYca5Us

Thanks for the link, very helpful indeed.