Way back, when the likelihood of a new, super-detail 28xx from Hornby seemed slim, I set about detailing the existing, Chinese-era model. My version dated from 2000 and was (and is) a nice, smooth running model, so I didn't see any need to change the chassis - not that I'd have been all that confident about doing so, anyway, as to date I've never built anything with more than three axles.

I showed some pics of the detailed 28 on the old forum, but the arrival of the new model in the shops prompted me to take it out the box and finish a few bits I'd not got around to - replacing the pony truck wheel, adding a smokebox dart, and lamp irons. Along the way I touched up some areas of damaged paint.

The main work on the model was cosmetic, with the addition of various pipes and gubbins to the underside of the footplate, aided by the photos in Brian Haresnape's book. Some of the details are a tad overscale or guesstimated but I'm happy with the general look of the thing, which at least appears "busier" around the wheels than it used to. I also replaced the cab steps with etched ones; I didn't touch the tender steps as they are cast into the frames. The big visual improvement, in my view, lies in moving the pony truck forward a smidge - it's set back a bit too far on the Hornby model for some reason, perhaps because it used common components with the 8F? Anyway, I removed the existing pony truck, hack-sawed it down the middle and inserted a splice piece.

I'll certainly be looking to obtain one of the new models, but for now I'm glad that my old 28xx can still hold its own. The tender drive will always be obvious - that big coal load, which there's not much can be done about - but performance is good, and the loco has more daylight under the boiler than the new one...