Silver Sidelines

I am really very pleased with my black Heljan 47xx. I think it is becoming one of the best ever locomotives to grace my layout. It has been a long journey which will not suit everybody. However ‘job done’ and I am well pleased. Heljan 4706 BR Black 'Night Owl When Heljan announced their 47xx I preordered a BR green model. I read with interest the associated thread on RMweb and noted the trials and tribulations with 4706 the ‘black’ model. I dithered. I cancelled my preorder. Then I reordered and took delivery – ‘Shades of Green’. https://longsheds.blogspot.com/2018/08/no-146-shades-of-green-2018-edition.html I was well pleased with my green model; it ran like a sewing machine and arrived mostly in one piece. (It was only after I had written my last Blog Post and I was reviewing the pictures that I noticed that one of the lamp irons had ‘fallen over’ - now sorted.) I was so impressed with my green engine that whilst new models were still avail...

This Post is made in response to the appearance of Heljan’s latest BR Green 47xx. Heljan’s choice of colours for both the engine green and the lining has evoked a certain amount of correspondence within the railway modelling community. I thought it might be useful to bring together some of my pictures. Some have already been posted elsewhere showing the new Heljan model in company with some older models from Bachmann and Hornby. I used the same title back in 2014 for a Post when I repainted the white cab roof of a Hornby ‘Royal’ Britannia: This time I am using the title as an excuse to post some pictures of my latest acquisition, Heljan BR green 47xx, number 4705. The Night Owl has landed The perceived wisdom is that the model is rather bright. The Royal Duchy? My first impressions are that the orange lining is rather more ‘luminous’ than the lining on say Hornby or Bachmann models. I have to say I am beginning to quite like the model. It is seriously weighty, runs su...

I have been taking advantage of the Spring Sales and have bought myself a BR black engine driven Oxford Rail Dean Goods. I bought my first Dean Goods back in 1985. It was a Mainline model with a tender drive. The perceived wisdom was that the model was conceived and designed by Airfix just before that company folded. I thought the tender drive came with an unrealistically high mound of coal, to hide the motor, and it could be noisy. It did have a good haulage capacity. Mainline Dean Goods from 1985 I thought the model well detailed for its age and I believe reasonably accurate. It was one of the earliest mass produced models to feature blackened coupling rods. Oxford Rail Dean Goods from 2017 Moving forward to 2017, Oxford Rail introduced an engine driven Dean Goods. This model has generated significant ‘froth’ from modellers, particularly those interested in pre-nationalisation engines who note numerous dimensional and detailed deviations fro...

In the 1960s we lived in the north east of England and took our holidays in west Wales. This Spring after a winter season of north east model railway memories I have taken a ‘Western’ break and invested in Hornby’s latest BR (WR) Grange. Hornby R3452 Llanvair Grange – front end I think the Grange is one of Hornby’s more finely detailed models. As a result it is rather delicate and in my opinion lightweight, benefiting from the addition of some lead ballast. Hornby’s previous Grange, Bucklebury Grange, was one of the first models to be sourced in China from ‘Refined’. I had to return my first model to Locomotion for replacement because of quality control issues. I wrote a Blog Post at the time about adding lead ballast together with comments on some of the quality issues: https://longsheds.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/no104-more-refined-grange-hornby.html What do I think of the new model, Llanvair Grange? Judging by the reference number on the box Llanvair Gr...