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Heljan 'O' Gauge 61xx Large Prairie


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To lower the boiler would throw the tanks out. But then judging by the two pictures the tanks are too high anyway. So it looks like the saddle needs 'hollowing out' to lower the boiler, then the side tanks need a good slice off the tops and new beading put in place. I'm looking at this as if it was a production jobby and I needed to improve it! It isn't a production job and so naturally it would be in Dapol's interests to make correct this early mock up. 

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These are the best "crops" I can offer.  One 61XX seems to be trying to escape the side of the picture!  I am not sure the images help much.  To add to the general confusion, it seems to me that the stays up from the buffer beam don't go high enough up the saddle.  Does there seem some variety in the chimneys? 

 

post-18453-0-29085600-1479832045_thumb.jpg

post-18453-0-86646100-1479832062.jpg

post-18453-0-68645100-1479832082.jpg

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Did Heljan consult any drawings, or is this another epic fail of laser-scanning 'accuracy'?

 

I despair, I really do.

Perhaps not the scanner to blame but the article that has been scanned. Has "preservation" not been quite true to the original?

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Perhaps not the scanner to blame but the article that has been scanned. Has "preservation" not been quite true to the original?

 

I think we can discount the possibility that the dozen or so preserved large Prairies (WSR, Llangollen, GWS, Tysley, et al) have all changed their boilers, chimneys, smokebox saddles, tanks and valances to be wrong.
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Did Heljan consult any drawings, or is this another epic fail of laser-scanning 'accuracy'?

 

I despair, I really do.

 

It could well be the scanning.  I understand that if whatever is scanned is bright and shiny - such as a well cleaned loco - it can confuse the scanning gear and produce false readings.  This ought to be correctable as the editing stage when taking it forward to a CAD but that needs a lot of care and a lot of cross checking which costs time and money so might not necessarily happen to the extent that it should.

 

But these are presumably EP samples so it might be correctable (but on the other hand as they are seemingly decorated samples are they beyond that stage?).

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I think we can discount the possibility that the dozen or so preserved large Prairies (WSR, Llangollen, GWS, Tysley, et al) have all changed their boilers, chimneys, smokebox saddles, tanks and valances to be wrong.

 

 

But they only had to scan the one that was not as originally built?  :angel:

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There are the old fallbacks called scale drawings that we simple folk worked from back in the stone age. Or do we live amongst a generation for whom technology rules and rulers dont?   :scratchhead:

 

I'm really hoping they get this one, and others locos, right. The prices are a breakthrough.

Edited by coachmann
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Is the smokebox sitting too high?

 

This was what I said in the comment I removed as thought maybe I was jumping in too soon with negativity! I cant quite decide if perhaps the whole boiler is too small?

 

It all rather reminds me of one of my childhood drawings - everything is represented but the proportions, particularly around the front, don't quite hang together!

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As an aside, all 61xx [as opposed to 41xx, 51xx, 81xx etc] were fitted from new with tripcocks and associated pipework as they were intended to run over LT lines. Didn't spot any such bits on the GWR liveried samples in post #63 et seq. No doubt Radley Models will do a roaring trade in 0gauge tripcocks!

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Miss Prism wrote, "But were all 61xxs fitted with tripcocks?:

https://plumbloco.sm...MPD/i-PzJfZK7/A"

 

According to page J33 of the RCTS "Locomotives of the GWR" Part 9, Standard 2 cylinder classes - " The 6100s replaced 2-4-0T on duties over the electrified lines in the London Area and all were fitted with trip gear for automatic brake application in case of overrunning an adverse signal."

 

That some might have been eventually posted away from London and lost the trip gear is a matter of detail relating to individual engines but doesn't change the requirement for a GWR era 61xx operating in London to have needed trip gear. I don't know how long into the BR period this practice lasted though I dimly recall a BRILL article relating to this. Mike [The Stationmaster] would probably be able to give a better opinion as he spent time in and around Reading and would regularly have seen London-shedded 61xx.

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attachicon.gif61xx-tripcock-late-version.jpg

attachicon.gif61xx-tripcock-late-version2.jpg

 

I think the above were the 'late' versions (the early GWR mounting plates were a bit more substantial IIRC).

 

But were all 61xxs fitted with tripcocks?:

https://plumbloco.smugmug.com/Trains/Old-Oak-Common-MPD/i-PzJfZK7/A

 

Don't forget the Plumbloco pic is a late one (dated 1963) by which time there can have been very little, if any, passenger work carried out by London Division 61XX that required them to run into Padd suburban and of course some class members had gone from the London Division by then (although 6135 was still at Old Oak in 1963 according to the source I looked at).

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