Hornby Rebuilt Bulleids - Battle of Britain, Merchant Navy etc

[SteveyDee68]

Looking at a few models for sale on eBay, I've just started noticing a horizontal join along the boiler on many (not all) of the models on sale. Searching RMWeb for advice, I have only found discussions about the rear truck and the flangeless wheels and nothing about this join in the moulding of the loco boiler.

 

Wondering -

 

1) Can anyone please point me to a relevant thread if one already exists? That might in turn answer...

2) Is this a known issue that I simply haven't noticed?

3) Are there differences between older and newer issues of these locos (has this been addressed in newer models)?

 

Given the massive price discrepancies between what appear to be the same model even brand new from the same sellers, I am also wondering if there are 'Railroad' versions?!

 

Or is it a simply a case that some models are fitted together better than others, depending upon who built them/what time/day it was/how tired they were?!

 

Steve S

[spamcan61]

15 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

 

 

Or is it a simply a case that some models are fitted together better than others, depending upon who built them/what time/day it was/how tired they were?!

 

Steve S

Pretty much, this has always been an issue with the Hornby rebuilds, funnily enough I was thinking the same thing a few minutes ago, looking at the ones that have just appeared over in the Ellis Clark second hand selection.

 

edit: thinking about it further. you would expect the gap to get worse as the tooling wears but I've not been motivated to research the matter that far.

Edited March 1, 2021 by spamcan61

[John Tomlinson]

1 hour ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Looking at a few models for sale on eBay, I've just started noticing a horizontal join along the boiler on many (not all) of the models on sale. Searching RMWeb for advice, I have only found discussions about the rear truck and the flangeless wheels and nothing about this join in the moulding of the loco boiler.

 

Wondering -

 

1) Can anyone please point me to a relevant thread if one already exists? That might in turn answer...

2) Is this a known issue that I simply haven't noticed?

3) Are there differences between older and newer issues of these locos (has this been addressed in newer models)?

 

Given the massive price discrepancies between what appear to be the same model even brand new from the same sellers, I am also wondering if there are 'Railroad' versions?!

 

Or is it a simply a case that some models are fitted together better than others, depending upon who built them/what time/day it was/how tired they were?!

 

Steve S

In terms of pricing, certainly looking on ebay, I think you'll find that the Merchant Navy's are considerably less than the BB/WC's.

 

I presume this in part is due to making a lot of the former, which also came/ come in a number of train packs, plus that any modeller can legitimately own a lot more BB/WC's than MN's.

 

The irony is that there isn't much difference in the models, in fact I think the chassis casting is the same with two options for locating the rear axle, to give the extra foot(?) of the MN wheelbase.

 

To my knowledge there have never been "Railroad" versions of either type.

 

John.

[Mick Bonwick]

I think that you'll find that any apparen tdifferences come from the lighting and the way the model was photographed. The gap is there on all models of the rebuilt Bulleids.

[Dunsignalling]

Hornby's rebuilt MNs predate their rebuilt Light Pacifics by a number of years. The early ones, in particular, were produced in quantities that would be regarded as exceptional these days.

 

That has certainly not been the case with the rebuilt WC/BB models. All bar the first few releases have been made in numbers that would have been regarded as Limited Editions not so long ago.

 

The dreaded boiler joint is something we try to ignore, and there are some examples on which it is much less obtrusive than others.

 

John

Edited March 1, 2021 by Dunsignalling