No.19 Hats off to Hattons

(This Blog was first written in early 2011).

Time to reminisce? Well done to Hattons celebrating their 65th Anniversary.  Most of us will at some time have bought from Hattons.  Two of my earliest purchases which still live on are a Hornby Dublo 8F and an Airfix Castle:

The 2 rail Hornby Dublo 8F was advertised by Hattons in the early 1960s in the Railway Modeller.  There was to be a family visit to Chester from the north of England and my father was prevailed upon to drive back through the Mersey Tunnel so that I could visit Smithdown Road and make a purchase, I am guessing for probably £4/19/11.  At the end of my school days the model was boxed up and carted round the country until the 1980s when I had the time and resources to rediscover railway modelling.  I was amazed at the fine detail on the new; plastic models from Palitoy (Mainline) and Airfix.  However the performance of the newer models was lacking and the Hornby 8F lived on.  After all the Dublo model comes with a heavy cast metal body and a lump of lead ballast inside as standard.  At the time I was a regular visitor to Swindon and a toy shop called Trents; not far from the Station.  One day they were selling off an unboxed Mainline Scot with a damaged body.  I could use a replacement Mainline Chassis and the spare handrail and tender were given to the Dublo 8F.  In due course the engine was repainted and given the number 48474, a Shrewsbury engine.  About the same time it also received front steps, larger size metal rimmed wheels for the pony truck and some cut down Kitmaster glazing for the cab windows.  Yes it should have all flanged driving wheels and finer valve gear would be nice.  However the model still performs well and I think captures the image.

Now to the second model from the past.  March 1983 and Hattons were selling Airfix Castles for £12.45 - I bought two.  Yes the tender drive was noisy but it was powerful.  At the time I already had a Hornby Dublo Castle but the finer detail of the Airfix model with its larger driving wheels gave it a much superior appearance.  April 1994 and Dapol produced their engine driven Castle.  Again Hattons obliged and I purchased Dorchester Castle with Hawksworth tender for the immense sum of £44.95.  Not such a good investment as the Airfix Castles.  In fact the Dapol Castle turned out to be a bit of a lame duck.  After a few years of use it became apparent that the main drive gear had cracked where it had been forced onto the driving axle.  By that time I had acquired a lot of Airfix Castle spares.  The solution for me was to convert the Dapol model to tender drive.  The empty space above the motor was covered with fine bubble wrap painted black to look like coal while the Hawksworth underframe was butchered and fitted to the Airfix underfame with Loctite.  The engine was renamed 7037 Swindon.  

This was the last Castle to be built at Swindon and complements my Bachmann model of Evening Star, the last ever BR steam engine to be built, again at Swindon.  However the Dapol body shell was twisted and to cut a long story short the 'Swindon' identity was transferred to one of my original Airfix Castles suitably varnished and fitted with engraved plates, sprung buffers and lamp irons.  The very latest Hornby Castles do look tempting.  However for the moment 7037 is more than presentable and its performance with seven Bachmann Mark Ones compares favourably with the performance of much newer Bachmann Warships and Heljan Westerns.