Max Stafford's Kennel

As promised during the week, some more photos of 10000. I haven’t checked the model out dimensionally so far, but Bachmann seem to have researched the model well and the detail on this version sees to correspond with the period (August 1956-July 1957) when 10000 ran in traffic in this particular livery.
The distinctive yellow roof has a story all of its own which is best quoted directly from David Hunt’s profile of the LMS Mainline Diesel Electrics, No.9 in the Wild Swan Profile series;

“…towards the end of their stay in the [Derby] Works, the CME, J.F. Harrison, rang Freddie Simpson, who was the works manager, to ask why the locomotives were still not in traffic. It had been decided when they entered the works that they would be painted in BR express passenger green but the question of roof colour hadn’t been settled, so Simpson, who was known as something of a jester, replied that the hold-up was due to this indecision.
‘Freddie’, said Harrison, ‘You can paint them yellow for all I care, just get them back in service.’
In typical fashion, Simpson promptly had the roofs painted primrose yellow.
Harrison’s reaction is not recorded but within a year the roofs were grey.”

Professional wind-up as it may have been, I can’t help thinking that in conjunction with the orange and black lining, it actually works pretty well.
I’m not going to pass judgement on the overall accuracy, there being no full-size example to compare it with – for now- but examination of photographs leads me to believe that it’s a nuanced and accurate recreation of the full size beast. One thing that does impress my own eyes though is the ‘sit’ of the model which gives a pretty much prototypical small gap between the bogie top and the lower edge of the body. This is something that visually grates with me in other models such as Bachmann’s production series Deltic (happily addressed with the NRM prototype model) and can throw the look of a model badly.
I can’t honestly find anything glaringly wrong with this model on this fairly casual inspection and if you are considering the acquisition of one I would say go for it.
It’s certainly very attractive and I’m looking forward to the arrival of a pair in 1955 black livery next year from a certain South Yorkshire emporium next year!