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Heljan announces the development of a Class 50


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I heard last week that its not all Heljans fault as there have been problems at the factory not putting right issues that Heljan have raised.

Also that there next diesel will be the Class 56

So their next diesel if it is in O Gauge (the class 56) will that be in 2020?

 

Class 37/4 - End 2018/Easter 2019 - Factor in delays etc

Class 47 - 2019 ? As no details or CAD

Class 50 - End 2019/2020 ?

 

Class 56 - 2020/2021 ?

 

It is possible it is part of their five year plan plus other items as yet unannounced due to it being too early. Why five years, why not as most companies have at least a five year plan which they aim towards but they don't always need to make it public.

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I’m almost tempted to dabble in O with some of the cheap wagons appearing, but as Heljan seems to be pretty much the only show in town for diesels RTR I’m concerned by the gear issues and the shape of some offerings

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I’m almost tempted to dabble in O with some of the cheap wagons appearing, but as Heljan seems to be pretty much the only show in town for diesels RTR I’m concerned by the gear issues and the shape of some offerings

Gear issues are known but not a major cause of concern. Older models suffered but as for shape issues beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Ben Jones replied to a comment of mine on Facebook. He said it’s the same model we have been previously shown, just painted, and that several areas of contention are being looked at and tweaked. A very good sign indeed.

He can come and have a look at my cab if he wants- a real one!

From the 2 pictures of 50013  over the page, it still looks like a blown-up Hornby version to me.

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  • 1 month later...
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Evening all,

Not wishing to litter rmWeb or for this to be seen as a spam posting but having had a wander to Telford on Saturday, I have done another review of news from the main manufactures, and pictures of the attending layouts.  I am still wading through the images taken of the layouts, so some are missing, but they should be there tomorrow.  

 

The Class 50 was one of the items on display on the Heljan stand if anyone wishes to take a look.

http://railblogs.co.uk/telford18/

 

Rich

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Evening all,

Not wishing to litter rmWeb or for this to be seen as a spam posting but having had a wander to Telford on Saturday, I have done another review of news from the main manufactures, and pictures of the attending layouts.  I am still wading through the images taken of the layouts, so some are missing, but they should be there tomorrow.  

 

The Class 50 was one of the items on display on the Heljan stand if anyone wishes to take a look.

http://railblogs.co.uk/telford18/

 

Rich

Thanks for the photos Rich. The class 50 looks good already. Agree with others in that the windows are 100% correct yet, but good to hear Heljan are trying to improve them and to be honest, he current sample looks far more like a class 50 than Dapol’s N gauge version where the front looks wrong (at least to my eyes)

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Cheers Nick,

I must admit, I strangely didnt photograph the front end. I am not sure why, as through the large number of images that were taken of various things I seem to have photographed the side and both ends of most things on the Heljan and Dapol stands!  However, two images attached (both are large high-res so if somebody wants to zoom in, feel free to download them and play!) show the side profile and one of the roof detail.  The latter was taken more for the 4300 Class, but the 50 is shown to good advantage on it.  I have purposely over brightened these two slightly to show the detail on the models.

 

EDIT: Ah rmWeb resizes hires images to 1920 pixels wide - so if anyone wants to get the full 46MP high-res, I've put them on my blog server at http://railblogs.co.uk/telford18/images/heljan50 - DSC_8129.jpg is one and DSC_8134.jpg is the other.  You should be able to right click on that webpage and select 'Save Target As...' to download.

 

Rich

post-16721-0-14618500-1536001960_thumb.jpg

post-16721-0-31925900-1536001978_thumb.jpg

Edited by MarshLane
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Cheers Nick,

I must admit, I strangely didnt photograph the front end. I am not sure why, as through the large number of images that were taken of various things I seem to have photographed the side and both ends of most things on the Heljan and Dapol stands!  However, two images attached (both are large high-res so if somebody wants to zoom in, feel free to download them and play!) show the side profile and one of the roof detail.  The latter was taken more for the 4300 Class, but the 50 is shown to good advantage on it.  I have purposely over brightened these two slightly to show the detail on the models.

 

EDIT: Ah rmWeb resizes hires images to 1920 pixels wide - so if anyone wants to get the full 46MP high-res, I've put them on my blog server at http://railblogs.co.uk/telford18/images/heljan50 - DSC_8129.jpg is one and DSC_8134.jpg is the other.  You should be able to right click on that webpage and select 'Save Target As...' to download.

 

Rich

Thanks for the photos Rich- it’s much appreciated

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The shelf under the cab windows looks too square (sorry I thought the cab front was shown in MarshLane's blog but it isn't - i've seen them somewhere damit!) and 50013 shouldn't have the radio pods on the headcode box in BR Blue

Edited by ba14eagle
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The shelf under the cab windows looks too square (sorry I thought the cab front was shown in MarshLane's blog but it isn't - i've seen them somewhere damit!) and 50013 shouldn't have the radio pods on the headcode box in BR Blue

The cab front is one of the things they are working on fixing now.

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The shelf under the cab windows looks too square (sorry I thought the cab front was shown in MarshLane's blog but it isn't - i've seen them somewhere damit!) and 50013 shouldn't have the radio pods on the headcode box in BR Blue

You are correct.

The shelf under the windscreens is a continuous curve and makes the windscreens slope down from the centre at about 7 degrees. (I could measure the angle but I'm away from home at the moment)

The rain gutter under the headcode box is also correspondingly angled downwards following the windscreens, these are faults on both the Hornby version and the Heljan one.

The other area is the nose itself, it is curved and is far from flat.

Edited by Gary H
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  • 4 weeks later...

Revised 50, photos courtesy of Ed Fahey

 

44410499454_17e05a02f7_z.jpgUntitled by Shane Wilton, on Flickr

 

44219422295_e5d0af5fe1_z.jpgUntitled by Shane Wilton, on Flickr

 

43318090130_478dd97701_z.jpgUntitled by Shane Wilton, on Flickr

 

cheers

 

Shane

I know its not what we want and not what you expect when paying this much and they may improve it before production  but i imagine it is not unsurmountable to rework the front of these, someone has rebuilt the front of their Warships as that is not 100% correct.

 

Alan

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I know its not what we want and not what you expect when paying this much and they may improve it before production  but i imagine it is not unsurmountable to rework the front of these, someone has rebuilt the front of their Warships as that is not 100% correct.

 

Alan

And that sums it up. Why would you spend six or seven hundred pounds on a model which needs attention then paint ? I dont mind it so much in 4mm where i have bought locos for less than £100 knowing i would be working to correct body shape errors.

 

It is actually ironic that in clearing some of my late father's huge pile of partbuilt stuff i found an MTK whitemetal class 50 bodyshell. IMHO it has the most accurate windscreen shape of any model class 50 i have seen and that includes the JLTRT version, but not the 5 inch gauge ones which i havnt seen.

 

For some peculiar reason locomotive and MU cabs with two sloping windscreens can prove difficult for some manufacturers to replicate. That excludes such examples as Hornby's class 56 and 60, Heljan's hymek and Kernow's Bulleid diesel.

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Sorry if ive got muddled up here, but.......

 

I was on the understanding that the model of 50013 in BR Blue has shape flaws such as the front/windows etc, I was under the impression that Heljan were going to go away and improve it....

 

Is the Large Logo model of 50037 the second attempt (and the grey plastic body shells) or are they the same as the model of 50013 just painted another livery?

 

I assumed 50037 was the same as 50013 hence I never studied it in any great detail at the SVR class 50 gala?

 

To my eyes at least they look the same, so im assuming we still await Heljans improvements prior to it being given the go ahead for production?

Edited by GEARJAMMER
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Sorry if ive got muddled up here, but.......

 

I was on the understanding that the model of 50013 in BR Blue has shape flaws such as the front/windows etc, I was under the impression that Heljan were going to go away and improve it....

 

Is the Large Logo model of 50037 the second attempt (and the grey plastic body shells) or are they the same as the model of 50013 just painted another livery?

 

I assumed 50037 was the same as 50013 hence I never studied it in any great detail at the SVR class 50 gala?

 

To my eyes at least they look the same, so im assuming we still await Heljans improvements prior to it being given the go ahead for production?

The samples at the SVR Gala looked identical to the first round of samples. I did see any changes.

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According to the information at the SVR 50 013 was the original attempt. The grey body shell and large logo model 50 037 are the final version and this is what will go into production.

Such a pity as the nose still looks too flat. In a scale like O gauge, itst more obvious than ever.

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Such a pity as the nose still looks too flat. In a scale like O gauge, itst more obvious than ever.

Agreed. It still a long way off to my eyes! That ledge is far to flat and ruins the whole character of the loco.

Like I said a few pages back, the tooling is far too advanced to make any real difference at this stage of production so what we have is an 0 gauge Hornby version.  

I measured the slope of the windscreens with a digital angle finder a couple of weeks ago and its between 3 and 4 degrees, the same as the rain gutter under the headcode box.

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