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Heljan Western


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  • 8 years later...

Its almost 10 years down the road since this topic was started.  I have just bought my 11th Heljan Western because I just don't seem to be able to buy a Dapol Western with a reliable mechanism.  I have three and they all wobble like a duck.  I have two Class 22s which are not the best runners - one had to be sent to DCC Supplies for repair. I had to send back a class 29 as it stopped working having sounded like a coffee grinder before expiring.  I have two Dapol 121 DMUs one of which had to go back to DCC Supplies for warranty work. 

I wont be buying any more Dapol diesels or diesels made by Dapol for other brands.

Edited by D1056WesternSultan
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I purchased a nearly-new-used Dapol Western and it looked superb, went well initially, then unexpectedly the PCB went ... no support as the vendor was not a recognised agent so it was returned, and refunded ... happy on my side, but poor support.

I do understand there is a limit, but was nevertheless disappointed the vendor simply said he'd have to break up for spares due to this.

 

I never saw any 'wobbling' tbh - the Dapol one, when working went very well - comparable to the Heljan, but shortlived.

 

My Heljan Westerns have been superb, and never failed to haul virtually anything, and smoothly ...

 

Al.

Edited by atom3624
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In retrospect, does anyone else think the 'build quality' of the Heljan Western declined during its time in production? The newer examples are noticeably creaky with slightly curved bodyshells compared to the solid-feeling and perfectly straight original production. Nameplates were printed off-centre too. My D1030 was also an uncharacteristically noisy runner, I put this down to the two halves of each bogie gear housing being splayed apart exposing the gears, another fault not apparent in earlier models. When the opportunity to purchase a sub-£50 apparently mint but non-running D1041 in Mfy livery came up in a certain Merseyside retailer's pre-owned listing I grabbed it for a bogie swap. Wheels needed to be swapped back. That sorted D1030's running but while the noisy bogies were out I carefully drilled through the top outer corners (to avoid the gears) and pulled the splayed bogie housings together with nickel silver wire, and installed them into D1041, which was only suffering from poor pickups. It's still not totally quiet but considerably improved.

 

I now also have a back-up if my Dapol D1056 also in Mfy livery, specifically purchased to run alongside blue Kernow D600 'Active', ever suffers the dreaded PCB failure and can't be fixed for some reason! (D1030 has another purpose in a different collection).

 

The first Heljan Western I obtained was D1015 in golden ochre livery. Only last year I finally got around to preparing it for use on a planned diesel depot layout (along with D1039 in maroon with yellow bufferbeams). Unfortunately I made the mistake of referring to those photographs of it brand new in the snow outside Swindon Works, and painted the buffer stocks black and windscreen corner pillars off-white, only to discover by accident just a couple of weeks later that, when Swindon changed the experimental T-shaped yellow panel at one end to rectangular before it went into service, they appear to have repainted these two features into golden ochre, so I needn't have bothered! Hopefully it did run with black stocks and off-white pillars for even just a few days........and I do have a jar of RailMatch paint to put it right if it didn't!

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  • 1 month later...

A lot of speculation, but I wonder, how viable do we think it is that this class 52 returns with EFE at a lower price to compete with the Dapol model (which is fantastic) or do we think that it is too old and the face is too wrong for 2021? Would be interesting to hear opinions on this. As the ones I have are decent runners and would be a nice cheap alternative to the Dapol offerings. 

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23 hours ago, TheEngineShed said:

I don't think the EFE model offerings are particularly cheap.  Their Hymek was pricey, initially.  I suspect a new run of Heljan Westerns wouldn't be cheaper than Dapol's Western.  Especially if Heljan retooled their Western...

 

Agreed regarding pricing. Buying Heljan's own branded Hymek is approximately £40 cheaper than buying the EFE branded version. EFE simply gives a wider retailer base for the Heljan products, but there is a premium involved.

Returning to the Heljan Western, the front 'face' is not too bad, mainly let down by the over-prominent peaks above the windscreens. There is sufficient 'meat' in the cab roofs to allow one to file the profile down considerably, being careful to leave the horn bumps untouched. A coat of correct paint colour, plus a bit of weathering will hide the modifications.

 

 

P_20190707_162443_vHDR_On.jpg

Edited by SRman
Image seems to have disappeared. Reloaded it.
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16 hours ago, SRman said:

Returning to the Heljan Western, the front 'face' is not too bad, mainly let down by the over-prominent peaks above the windscreens. There is sufficient 'meat' in the cab roofs to allow one to file the profile down considerably, being careful to leave the horn bumps untouched. A coat of correct paint colour, plus a bit of weathering will hide the modifications.

 

 

That pointy brow is my biggest heartache with the Heljan Western, you have done a great job of correcting that error.  I have three boxed Heljan Westerns in the strategic reserve, I might just have a go at one of them. 

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15 hours ago, TheEngineShed said:

 

That pointy brow is my biggest heartache with the Heljan Western, you have done a great job of correcting that error.  I have three boxed Heljan Westerns in the strategic reserve, I might just have a go at one of them. 


I like the robustness, quietness, smoothness and sheer power of the Heljan mechanism, and can forgive the inaccuracy. Having said that, I did eventually do the mods as illustrated above. I think I overdid the green one slightly, the maroon one looks about right, to me. Maybe I'll get out the filler and just add a tiny bit back into the peak in the middle on the green one.

Edited by SRman
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I would like to get hold of the steps as I have one locomotive that dose not have any steps.

 

I have looked on the Gaugemaster web site and that are not listed.

 

Sorry if going of topic!, as I have 5 of the Heljan models.

 

Terry

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