Moving on to the underframes, the obvious thing to do is mount the DMBS on a lima 117 DMBS chassis and to mount the DTS on  lima 117 TS chassis.  To be honest for most people that would do as provided they can see that the DTS hasn’t got an engine they proberly wont have clue if the chassis matches the real thing or not.  (I’m half expecting a high proportion of people to just think that the model is a Bachmann 108 anyway!).  However where’s the fun in that?

The above image (© John Turner/53A Models of Hull Collection and used with kind permission) shows that there is quite a substantial beam running down the middle of the DTC and that there are prominent heating vents under some of the doors.  With this is mind I set about seeing what I could keep and reuse from the lima TC chassis.  The only part that is in the right place is the battery boxes so you could leave them where they are but as I found when researching class 116’s, the lima battery box is too small. In the end all of the underfloor detail was removed as were all of the footsteps.

Above the rebuilt chassis.  the new Battery boxes are from Replica Railways as are the vac cylinders.  the V hangers are from Southern Pride and some of the original lima parts have been repositioned.  the rest is just from Evergreen strip.  The bogies are spares from the Hornby 110 and the steps are my own etches. The sideframes are mounted on my own design of bogie available from Brassmasters.  I tend to use Branchlines wheels on the leading bogies of my DMUs and Gibsons on the others I also mount the non rocking bogie at the gangway end so that any track deviations are not so obviously transmitted to the body. Weather this makes any real world difference I don’t really know.

a few links

John Turner/53A Models of Hull Collection  Replica Railways   Southern Pride Models   Brassmasters