Heljan announce re-tooled Class 86 in OO

[Johnson Street IEMD]

32 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

An 84 would offer them the chance of a tie in with the NRM as one is in the National Collection, probably as an example of how not to build an electric.  Might help with the cost of production.  There's also the Mobile Load bank version which was used by the research department in their always popular red and blue livery, and red and blue research stuff always flies off the shelf.

 

Yes, i think that would make sense ... it wouldnt be much use for my era, I certainly would like an 89 as one of those electrics that is a heritage electric popping by now and again ... in IC Swallow as it is right now :-)

 

Someone really needs to get to grips with the knitting, the nBrass stuff is great but surely someone can make some RTU stuff, that doesnt need soldering and fiddly assembly, i know PECO were working on a gantry which extends, but come on, one gantry, considering all the electrics available here and now, never mind, the 86 and 92 forthcoming, and all those being talked about here ... we are ill-catered for ...

 

[InterCitySpud]

16 hours ago, Wagpnmaster said:

I would have thought a Class 81 would have been on the cards. This is traditionally Hornby's territory and they do seem to have gone round re-tooling previous offerings (i.e. Class 08, 31, 87, 91). The 81's were also more numerous lasted longer than some of the other types.

 

There are a few new players in the manufacturing field that might take on some of these projects that the bigger boys won't. Personally, I would like to see a Class 84 first.

 

As for emu's, it's always the cost 3 or 4 car units. Would people pay it? As a long time commuter on Class 310's, they were one of my favourites. In the end, I couldn't wait for an rtr version and built the Southern Pride kit. It makes up nicely and the wrap round, flat screen and 312 variants are catered for. They also do a 304, which I have, but not built yet.

 

 

Yes is the short answer, from me at least. I would be quite happy to part with whats required £££ to buy a RTR 310, several of them. Your Southern Pride looks fantastic although its probably beyond me taking on this project due to my remote location and postal issues but I'm hoping Britannia Pacific will be releasing one at some point.

 

I started modelling early in the 80s and have felt the southern WCML has always been under represented in RTR model form including the correct OHLE of the period. Any newly released BR blue AC I will snap up with glee Classes 81-87, but we need suburban services too!

[Pete the Elaner]

12 hours ago, DBC90024 said:

 

Yes, i think that would make sense ... it wouldnt be much use for my era, I certainly would like an 89 as one of those electrics that is a heritage electric popping by now and again ... in IC Swallow as it is right now :-)

 

Someone really needs to get to grips with the knitting, the nBrass stuff is great but surely someone can make some RTU stuff, that doesnt need soldering and fiddly assembly, i know PECO were working on a gantry which extends, but come on, one gantry, considering all the electrics available here and now, never mind, the 86 and 92 forthcoming, and all those being talked about here ... we are ill-catered for ...

 

 

I'm guessing you've not tried making it yourself. I have tried it (some time ago & I am sure I can do better now) but here are my findings:

 

Decent looking OLE would not be tough enough. It needs to be massively over scale..& I mean massively.
Manufacturers such as Peco, Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol etc make Ready to Run models. If a new product demands that changes are made in order for it to work, it is no longer an RTR product.

A better scale product would be possible if it involved weakening pan springs or even holding them at a limited height, but these are modifications.

Any modification to loco or OLE would mean that the product is not Ready to Run, which would create a lot of returns & unhappy customers who want to set it up then run their Hornby 90 underneath without having to fiddle with it.

 

Peco's Mk3 catenary is a bit of a compromise & I can understand why. Having seen Hattons recent video, setting it up looks like something not for the beginner.

Whether it has sold well enough for them to consider Mk1 is something they know but may not want to share.

There are a lot of variations with Mk1 catenary too. My WCML layout has a 7' scenic section & needs 3 different styles of support. I am not prepared to cheat either; I intend to have the correct style of support in their correct places.

It looks like I'll be soldering then. 

[letterspider]

Everything considered, the use of automated pantographs as per Bachmann 90 and Accurascale 92 seems to make sense as the height can be finely set to be be just under the wires.

 

 

[Dagworth]

8 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Decent looking OLE would not be tough enough. It needs to be massively over scale..& I mean massively.

No it doesn't.

 

Andi

[Taigatrommel]

I mean, yes, this is overscale, but how bad does it really look?

 It's even smaller than 00, being TT...

Edited February 3, 2021 by Taigatrommel
syntax

[Clive Mortimore]

10 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I'm guessing you've not tried making it yourself. I have tried it (some time ago & I am sure I can do better now) but here are my findings:

 

Decent looking OLE would not be tough enough. It needs to be massively over scale..& I mean massively.
Manufacturers such as Peco, Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol etc make Ready to Run models. If a new product demands that changes are made in order for it to work, it is no longer an RTR product.

A better scale product would be possible if it involved weakening pan springs or even holding them at a limited height, but these are modifications.

Any modification to loco or OLE would mean that the product is not Ready to Run, which would create a lot of returns & unhappy customers who want to set it up then run their Hornby 90 underneath without having to fiddle with it.

 

Peco's Mk3 catenary is a bit of a compromise & I can understand why. Having seen Hattons recent video, setting it up looks like something not for the beginner.

Whether it has sold well enough for them to consider Mk1 is something they know but may not want to share.

There are a lot of variations with Mk1 catenary too. My WCML layout has a 7' scenic section & needs 3 different styles of support. I am not prepared to cheat either; I intend to have the correct style of support in their correct places.

It looks like I'll be soldering then. 

Hi Iain

 

Peco so called Mk3 is a compromise, Sommerfelt have used some of their standard parts to make British looking OLE. It isn't that hard to set up especially as misses some of the most vital features of OLE, like the stagger at the registration points as it remains on the center line of the track losing that all important zig-zag of the contact wire to ensure even wear of the carbon strips on the pantographs.

 

I think the only way to model OLE is for there to be standard parts like registration arms, mast etc available as separate items so the modeller can assemble her/his OLE like a real engineer would do as each mast is an individual for that location. 

[letterspider]

Doesn't Viessmann do that?

[DY444]

On 02/02/2021 at 19:25, wombatofludham said:

An 84 would offer them the chance of a tie in with the NRM as one is in the National Collection, probably as an example of how not to build an electric. 

 

The irony of Class 84 is that once the rectifiers were replaced they were electrically decent and what did for them was actually mechanical.  The final drive design was such that it resulted in a starvation of lubricant and so suffered horrendous wear with consequent increased maintenance costs.  Most of them were ultimately withdrawn because the drives were shot to pieces.  The problem was made even worse by higher speed running which is why 84s tended to be rarer on passenger trains earlier than the other roarers.  I suspect that without this problem they would have lasted a few more years.

Edited February 6, 2021 by DY444

[adb968008]

On 06/02/2021 at 09:41, DY444 said:

 

The irony of Class 84 is that once the rectifiers were replaced they were electrically decent and what did for them was actually mechanical.  The final drive design was such that it resulted in a starvation of lubricant and so suffered horrendous wear with consequent increased maintenance costs.  Most of them were ultimately withdrawn because the drives were shot to pieces.  The problem was made even worse by higher speed running which is why 84s tended to be rarer on passenger trains earlier than the other roarers.  I suspect that without this problem they would have lasted a few more years.

I never saw an 84 working under its own power, yet I saw the lot after withdrawal.

How come it took BR so long to scrap them, most of the 40’s had been scrapped long before them. It used to be a standing joke about seeing them at CE sidings.

 

Although I regularly saw the red one at LO, I never saw it anywhere but, sticking out of the shed at the south end of LO either.

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by adb968008

[Johnson Street IEMD]

6 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I never saw an 84 working under its own power, yet I saw the lot after withdrawal.

How come it took BR so long to scrap them, most of the 40’s had been scrapped long before them. It used to be a standing joke about seeing them at CE sidings.

 

Although I regularly saw the red one at LO, I never saw it anywhere but, sticking out of the shed at the south end of LO either.

 

You mean you only ever saw them double heading with an 81, 2 or 3 ?

[Clive Mortimore]

On 03/02/2021 at 21:46, letterspider said:

Doesn't Viessmann do that?

Hi letterspider

 

They do a good selection of parts to build your own OLE but looking at it there would need quite a bit of modification to make it look like most British systems.

[letterspider]

Yes I agree with you. They are nicely modular

[DY444]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

I never saw an 84 working under its own power, yet I saw the lot after withdrawal.

How come it took BR so long to scrap them, most of the 40’s had been scrapped long before them. It used to be a standing joke about seeing them at CE sidings.

 

Although I regularly saw the red one at LO, I never saw it anywhere but, sticking out of the shed at the south end of LO either.

 

 

As I said before most of them were withdrawn due to drive wear but with nothing else wrong with the rest of the locomotive.  I can only speculate that they were kept hanging about in case there was an upturn in traffic which would justify either the cost of overhauling the bogies, which would make them usable until the drives wore out again, or maybe even re-engineering the drives to cure the problem once and for all.

[adb968008]

10 hours ago, DBC90024 said:

You mean you only ever saw them double heading with an 81, 2 or 3 ?

No..

 

I mean I only ever saw them dumped out of service, except 84001 which was at the NRM and the load bank at LO...

 

They were dumped for several years... I recall at least 1of them at Crewe works openday in 1987, and they still lasted beyond that... yet they were all done in service by summer 1980... BR just didnt get shut, the load bank lasted until the mid90’s.

 

cobos by comparison were gone in 6 months, all except D5705 with in a year.. Westerns / class 24’s were going at the same time as the 84’s, were all dealt with by 1980.

 

why did BR keep them around for so long, especially when half their service life was out of service knackered at 26D anyway.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by adb968008

[letterspider]

According to Rails, the Heljan 86's are due in stock this month - it's Valentine's Day this Sunday and I don't think they will be here in time...

[PM47079]

The only problem with doing adb968021 is the grilles on the side (see pictures) 

[wombatofludham]

Correct, but with modern moulding techniques, using slides, it should be less of a problem for what would be a reasonable money spinner given anything red and blue goes off the shelves like the proverbial sun dried organic waste off a manual handling implement.

Surprisingly for a class of loco that spend most of their lives, like Lady Chatterley, being messed around with by blokes in sheds, they carried an interesting range of liveries, early blue, early blue with yellow bib, rail blue with E numbers (not many, but some did, including one which retained a white roof) and refurbished rail blue with TOPS numbers, and of course RTC red and blue.  They are also, arguably, one of the more attractive pilot scheme electrics and of course, model railway fans do like their freaks and lemons.

There again, Classes 82 and 83 were also long lived, lasting as carriage pilots at Euston and some even got a splash of Inter City Executive paint for the job.

 

[PM47079]

It would be great if they could do the load bank. I remember trying to get a picture of that in Ipswich yard when it visited the great eastern in the mid eighties.

 

I also remember the class 82 and class 83 doing the runs from Euston to Stonebridge Park. 82008 and 83012 were the intercity livery locos. 83012 still carried headcode blinds and with intercity livery looked very unusual .

 

[Hal Nail]

1 hour ago, wombatofludham said:

goes off the shelves like the proverbial sun dried organic waste off a manual handling implement.

At risk of being pedantic, isnt it the more liquid form that is renowned for its slippery nature whereas the dried variety clings like the proverbial 86 to a display shelf?

[298]

On 10/02/2021 at 12:18, PM47079 said:

The only problem with doing adb968021 is the grilles on the side (see pictures) 

 

Slightly more differences than that, it took me a while to realise the Pan and air tank had swapped ends when converted. 

 

A1 models did etches for the windows and I used the bodyside grills from a Lima 50 amongst other bits. They were probably too wide as on the loadbank they fitted between the internal structure bracings.

[spamcan61]

On 10/02/2021 at 11:59, letterspider said:

 - it's Valentine's Day this Sunday and I don't think they will be here in time...

Hornby's are red, Heljan's are blue.

When you open the box

Stand by with the glue.

 

OK not quite a Limerick or haiku but what the hell.

 

 

[PM47079]

3 hours ago, 298 said:

 

Slightly more differences than that, it took me a while to realise the Pan and air tank had swapped ends when converted. 

 

A1 models did etches for the windows and I used the bodyside grills from a Lima 50 amongst other bits. They were probably too wide as on the loadbank they fitted between the internal structure bracings.

I hadn’t realised that. Quite a different loco, would love to have had a look inside

[seraphim]

I did work on the loadbank loco, for a total of one day, and somewhere I have a manual for it. I have feeling the change of location for the pan was when it was air braked, but could be wrong.

 

Class 82 & 83 - one of them had some weird thing called an Arno Converter inside, which output three phase for all the auxiliaries. Someone, somewhere must have thought it a good idea. A colleague once described them as what would happen if all the internals were hung from a crane, dropped into the body, and welded in place wherever they happened to land.

 

 

[PM47079]

Arno converter. Wow, that conjures up some interesting pictures in the mind. 

It must of been quite interesting working on the loadbank.