All-new Heljan 47 in 00 gauge

[younGGuns7]

Just wish it had been D1959 for so many reasons not least a WR machine no ETH and a personnel reason 🤭

[dj_crisp]

Hmmm. Sometimes I just don't get Heljan. They seem to able to do the obscure stuff really well and produce some great models. 

 

But when it comes to the more mainstream loco types I wonder if they just lose interest as this one just seems duff in a most unlike duff way. As a previous poster said I'm sure Bachmann won't lose any sleep over this one.

 

What with the Peak falling way short imo I'm really hoping the 104 doesn't.

 

It's not my era or interest but the transporter cars look the business....  

 

 

[Wolf27]

6 hours ago, Mophead45143 said:

 

Indeed. While 'if you've got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all' is generally a principle I try and abide by, that Blue FYE model really shows up how 'off' the proportions are on the front end. The broadside view doesn't look quite right either. 

 

The headcode panel looks way to big, same as the 7mm version

[PM47079]

 these images from the ep photos illustrate a couple of errors. The cab door handle is the most obvious, and stands out badly on the yellow cab on 47450

Edited November 27, 2022 by PM47079
Typo

[GD]

Oh no, the more I look the more inaccuracies I see, the handrail beneath the front window is a little too low, the head code panels seem too big, the footsteps are too close together, the roof profile has a steep curve then flattens out, the footsteps on the bogies don't align with the cab doors.  It looks like the body is designed as a cut cab version with the missing pieces at the cab ends fitted as separate parts. I hope this is not the finished version because it's all over the place. 

 

[GD]

I think the bogies are a couple of mm too far towards the middle of the loco. 

[97406]

The old duff looks a lot more 47-like than the new one. I have a Large Logo one and the livery helps hide the extra girth.

[jjb1970]

I think this looks to be a decent model, the problem is it has to compete against an excellent model from Bachmann. Compared to the Bachmann model it looks very underwhelming, especially given it is not a 'railroad' level model. If deeply discounted it will be worth a look but at SRP - the standard shop discounts I think the Bachmann offering is the way to go.

[IRC]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

I think this looks to be a decent model, the problem is it has to compete against an excellent model from Bachmann. Compared to the Bachmann model it looks very underwhelming, especially given it is not a 'railroad' level model. If deeply discounted it will be worth a look but at SRP - the standard shop discounts I think the Bachmann offering is the way to go.

Never worth the RRP (£250) in my opinion and I agree, they would have to be down around the £175 mark for me to be seriously interested looking at those pictures. I hope Heljan can find a way to listen and get these issues changed, as they aren’t a serious competitor to Bachmann as it stands.

What’s going on with the Guagemaster releases? I was interested in 47492 and haven’t heard anything. And why are they cheaper than the standard Heljan releases?

[wombatofludham]

On 26/11/2022 at 11:28, IRC said:

Appreciate they probably aren’t the finished model, but the first thing that struck me was; what’s going on with the door window? Shouldn’t it be the same depth as the pull down cab window?!?

I was hoping these might be a winner, as there were some liveries that interested me, but for the alleged price and what we have seen here, I’ll give it a miss as it stands!

It looks as if the "1968" version has more-or-less right door windows whilst the large logo version do seem smaller - so I'm wondering if this is down to these being early test prints, or whether the dark "Mexican bandit" paint on the large logo loco is causing some optical trickery?  Looking at real 47s in large logo the presence of the black paint around the cab windows does fool the eye into thinking the door window is smaller.

I suppose when @61661 is back from the NEC he might be able to shed light on the issue, and let us in on where the 1968 style loco is coming from as I too would love one for Wednesford!

 

[tmc]

We like the blue pre-TOPS era as well, so rather than keep you all guessing who commissioned it the TMC exclusive that is D1960 has been added to TMC website earlier today [Heljan item number 4715] and is now available to pre-order. We weren't planning to launch it at Warley, so description is minimal at present, but more will appear later in the week.  

 

Good to hear that a number of you like our choice.

 

Team TMC

[meatloaf]

6 hours ago, IRC said:

. And why are they cheaper than the standard Heljan releases?

 

They did this before with the 33. They dug out an  older tooling.

[rob D2]

22 hours ago, dj_crisp said:

Hmmm. Sometimes I just don't get Heljan. They seem to able to do the obscure stuff really well and produce some great models. 

 

But when it comes to the more mainstream loco types I wonder if they just lose interest as this one just seems duff in a most unlike duff way. As a previous poster said I'm sure Bachmann won't lose any sleep over this one.

 

What with the Peak falling way short imo I'm really hoping the 104 doesn't.

 

It's not my era or interest but the transporter cars look the business....  

 

 

The thing is, they don’t seem to correct errors when they are pointed out , it’s always too late 

[Mophead45143]

17 hours ago, IRC said:

Never worth the RRP (£250) in my opinion and I agree, they would have to be down around the £175 mark for me to be seriously interested looking at those pictures. I hope Heljan can find a way to listen and get these issues changed, as they aren’t a serious competitor to Bachmann as it stands.

What’s going on with the Guagemaster releases? I was interested in 47492 and haven’t heard anything. And why are they cheaper than the standard Heljan releases?

 

Some of the Bachmann models can be found discounted to around that though, the Intercity Swallow one is £169.99 on the class 37 LG shop - only one left though!

[40002]

Well whatever other accuracy issues they have, I hope the Rail Blue is going to be better than on the 45 that was a real No No for me and I'm disinclined to repaint expensive models which should be good to go out of the box. Whilst there are variations of Rail Blue even amongst models from the same manufacturer the 45 was by far the worst out of all the Bachmann, Accurascale and even Heljen models I have.

Edited November 28, 2022 by 40002

[IRC]

23 hours ago, meatloaf said:

 

They did this before with the 33. They dug out an  older tooling.

That’s not what the description (on Rails’ website) seems to suggest. I’m intrigued.

[158722]

On 26/11/2022 at 11:28, IRC said:

Appreciate they probably aren’t the finished model, but the first thing that struck me was; what’s going on with the door window? Shouldn’t it be the same depth as the pull down cab window?!?

I was hoping these might be a winner, as there were some liveries that interested me, but for the alleged price and what we have seen here, I’ll give it a miss as it stands!

 

No, the door window is marginally shorter than the cabside one - evidence, as per 47638.

[Halvarras]

On 27/11/2022 at 19:52, meatloaf said:

 

They did this before with the 33. They dug out an  older tooling.

 

And I think this was fitted to the new chassis? (Or the existing chassis with new sideframes?)

 

If the older Class 47 body were to be fitted to the new chassis I suspect that, even if the retaining clips on the inside of the body line up with the recesses in the new chassis sides, they still wouldn't engage - if you know what I mean....😉!

 

I can't see any re-release of the old 'tubby' Class 47 being acceptable now. 

[dj_crisp]

3 hours ago, 158722 said:

 

No, the door window is marginally shorter than the cabside one - evidence, as per 47638.

 

I always thought the outer frames were the same size just that the door frames were a bit thicker so look shorter. Hard to tell from the photo but it looks level on the bottom but I'm not so sure at the top (which is a little trickier to determine perspective wise)

[JohnC]

I had a close up at Warley and, in my opinion, it is a lovely model.

obviously, from comments above, a few of you won’t be adding one to your collection but I certainly will.

At least I will be able to detail buffer beam and fit snowploughs without any messing about.

[adb968008]

I’m not sure at the moment.

 

i think paint will decide it.

 

Were starved on Scottish large logo, and old style intercity class 47’s.

Theres not been many RES (non 47/7) 47’s done either.

tbh plain blue with headlight & orange cantrail hasnt exactly been over cooked either.

 

 

 

[andythenorth]

I have about 3 of the old fat Heljan 47, and about 10 of the old Bachmann one.

 

Even though it's quite obviously wrong, I prefer the look of the Heljan one.

 

The new tooling is also obviously wrong, but looks good.

 

I appreciate that for £hundreds, scale modellers want perfect fidelity to life. 

 

But some of us want a train set as a toy. 🙂

 

And some of us have also read Borges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science so eh 😉  Such big brain thinking.

[rob D2]

Can't see the point of it when the Bachmann one has a better shape , if i was desperate for a livery i'd rather respray a decent shape one .

[adb968008]

On 28/11/2022 at 07:35, Mophead45143 said:

 

Some of the Bachmann models can be found discounted to around that though, the Intercity Swallow one is £169.99 on the class 37 LG shop - only one left though!

£155 at mrd.

 

47004 is £143 at tmc

Edited November 30, 2022 by adb968008

[rob D2]

4 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

£155 at mrd.

 

47004 is £143 at tmc

way more sensible prices