It certainly was a bargain - much more than I thought possible!

In yesterdays post I was rather intrigued to find that the 30 year old or so Lima train pack that I bought for what I though was a bargain price of £72 had what appeared to be a Hornby chassis under the loco body with the words 'DCC Fitted' printed on it. Now if it was a DCC fitted loco then the price I paid for it together with the three coaches would indeed be an even better bargain. The only way to tell if it was actually DCC fitted was to take the body off.

Taking the body off gave me quite a shock! I thought that I might be lucky to find a DCC chip fitted but I found this!

Yes - that is a fully DCC sound installation! And it works as this video clip shows! 

This has to be the best bargain that I have had for a long time and I am really happy for what was an impulse purchase of a 30 year old train pack turning into a modern day sound loco! 

Don't know if Mrs. Woody feels the same way but I can just turn the loco volume up if she complains!

Hope she doesn't read this!

Something a bit strange or is it more of a bargain than I thought!

Well it wasn't my fault! I was just idly surfing the internet when I came across this on the TMC website.

Now there are some railway modellers who will highlight that these models are probably now over 30 years old, not the most detailed and don't run as smoothly as modern locos and to a greater degree they are right. However Hornby, who now own the Lima brand still use the original mouldings on much of their RailRoad range of models and to be honest, when seen from a few feet away, it is difficult to tell the detail differences that these have with more modern models. Running wise, the old Lima pancake motors can be serviced and made to run reasonably well although they will never crawl silently like the modern can motor with dual flywheels. You may prefer the modern version of the loco and indeed the coaches in this train pack. The modern version of the loco will set you back about £175 to £225 depending on make or you can buy the current Hornby RailRoad version which is the same body moulding just with an updated chassis ready for DCC for about £90 to £120. Coaches are available at about £45 to £60. If you went for the cheapest buying option you could put a modern version of the this train pack together for about £225 but more likely it would cost more like £350. I paid £72.

Opening the box saw some very encouraging signs. You don't often find the original instructions and other paperwork with something like this. It does point to it having been loved by its previous owner.

All the coaches and the loco look immaculate with all their buffers in place.

I took the loco out to have a closer look and this suddenly caught my eye. 'DCC fitted'. Now that is a bit strange for a 30 plus years old loco!

It was not advertised as a DCC loco but clearly the original Lima chassis has been replaced with a more modern Hornby one. Whether it still has a DCC chip in it remains for me for find out when I have the time. If it has, and bearing in mind Hornby DCC chips are around £20 to buy, than this could really be  much more of a bargain then I had hoped for!

Thinking that I may have to service the chassis I had also bought in some specialist grease for this model. If I don't use it on this then I will on others!