Stevelewis

Can anyone offer advice on removing the body on the Heljan C0 B0, I am attempting to fit a decoder to one and have founf it seems impossible to remove the body, I have followed the instructuions to the letter ( ie insertin credit card at the 4 corners and then parting the body sides, grasping the battery box on removing the body, but it just wont come off!! The daft thing is i did a C0 B0 some months back without problems, and have fitted decoders to several Heljan locos without problems, it almost seem that this one's body is glued in place!!

Thanks for that Bill, that is very interesting reading!, If i remember correctly the Airfix 4f has traction tyres? Back when i was young! i had a 00 garden line on which I was able to run longish trains and i was always impressed at the haulage capabilities of some ( but not all) of the Airfix & Mailnlne locos, it was around that time I tried Hornby Zero 1 and Airfix Multiple Control system ( the less said the better!) but i wont be changing my Garratt plans!

With reference to the pulling power of the Heljan garratt, I was wondering if anyone with the space & rolling stock might try to compare the pulling power of a couple of 0-6-0s ? ( just to see!!)

An advert will be placed later today in the classifieds section! No Dont worry its not a Garratt!!!!! but something 'loosely' associated with Garratts and it will be in the Wanted section!

Many Thanks to garrattfan for the reveiw........... one of the best reveiws I have read for some time Note to other readers , take the time (around 15 mins) to have a read of Garratfans Garrat review you will be impressed.

A friend has asked me if anyone has reported the minimum suggested radius for the Garratt, He has 15" curves into hidden sidings! I would imagine that 18" would be the recommended minimum radius, but would imagine if ' push comes to shove' they may just take 15" min slowly. (some of my 0n30 locos have a 22" recommended minimum but they will just about traverse 15" when asked nicely )

I feel HATTONS packing is always first class, bubble wrap and 'sealed air' packs to take up unused space in the carton, I have purchased several 0n30 locos recently from them which in size and 'fragility' probably rate the same as the Garratt which have arrived with me unscathed. I feeel that the reported damage problems are more likelty to have occured in the locos 'boxing' phase at the point of manufacture, rather in shipment.

Fully agree I buy from hattons on a very regular basis, I dare not add up my invoice totals!! inevitably there is the odd item which proves be faulty, I have NEVER had any problems returning them and getting an immediate refund + refunded postage, Only this week I returned a Faulty USA outline N gauge loco, It was posted late on Wednesday by 2nd class post, By 10-30 AM on Friday (yesterday) I recvd a confirmation email that the refund had been processed to my credit card.

Yes a simple message on Hattons 'Can we Help' on their webpages yesterday, seems to have done the trick!

many thanks to Rail-Online for taking the trouble to provide the information & photos, Whilst the motion ( valve gear etc) damage is serious for a new model , what puts me off a bit and lessens my desire to purchase a BR version is the other issues, such as mould lines and poor assembly. I hope though this is perhaps a one off ( perhaps it was getting close to home-time when it was assembled) I do hope though that Heljan examine the finish quality of the forthcoming 02/2 2-8-0 and the L&B 00-9 L&B 2-6-2 before releasing them! I appreciate of course that Steam Locos are not new to Heljan H0 so hopefully all will be OK

Hattons are aware!

2 Garratts NOW IN STOCK both LMS livery I am sorely tempted but would they look out of place with my 0n30 Mallets Just to point out the only 16.5 mm gauge layout here is 7mm scale USA 0n30!!

Exactly!

And the Chlorine wagons

My first purchaswe from Hattons was around about the same time a Hornby-Dublo C0-B0 and 6 Hornby Dublo Gunpowder vans, cant remember the price though! Since then i have become a reqular customer only this morning yet another 2 boxes arrived ( 0n30 stuff!!) I only wish i had bought some of the Wrenn Streamlined Coronations when Norman hatton was having a bit of a clear out they were on offer for £25.00

I bought one from the Co-op of all places yesterday! I dont know why I dont model the LNER and currently not involved with any 00 layouts so dont have a locoshed to pose it near!!

Any one in the North Wales / Deeside/ Chester area desperate for a copy of No1 Mallard £2.99? My local newsagent has a load in stock!! 5 on the shelf and more in a box!! The address is Premier Stores, Mercia Square, Mercia Ave, MYMYDD ISA, Nr Mold Post code CH7 6UY Mynydd Isa id between Mold & Buckley. Nigel the owner ask me to point out the shop is currently only open from early AM until approx 12.30 to 1-00PM

Just bought one from a Co-op store of all places in my local Town BUCKLEY CH7 but it was the last one

Just to report continued excellent service from Tower Models Blackpool, with whom I have dealt for 30 years!!, despite the problems which they were encountering in the aftermath of the gales in the North West, An order I placed Yesterday 13/2/2014 at around 2-30 pm was delivered to me this morning 14/2/2014 at 8-00 AM

Confirming that there are 2 coupling hooks + 3 link couplings in the additional parts pack ( there are several additional parts!)

Re the Problem of height I reprted earlier:- I think I know the reason for the height difference, the coupled driving wheels appear to be mounted in a sub frame this is secured by a single central screw at the front end ( not sure how the rear is secured but possibly it fits into a slot in the main frame. When both locos were inverted I found that pressing this subframe cased no movement on the green loco, but on the black one theres was upwards movement which meant that the main frame of the loco could be in a higher position than it should be, the cab end of the loco is exactly the same hight as the green one so the height difference is only noticable at the front end of the loco. I found that the screw holding in the subframe was tightl BUT examining the same screw on green loco noticed that the Black one's screw was slightly more exposed!!! To cut a long story shorter! the Black screw appear to have been cross threaded, thus not screwed in far enough and allowing the subframe a little movement thus causing the height difference. The solution was to use a slightly longer screw which screwed in further and now holds the subframe solidly ALL SORTED OUT, I hope that some one from Bachmann reads this or someone passes the info on!

No I emptied it already!!!! But I may have the answer I will report further after HINTERLAND BBC1 Wales only!

I have noticed something about my 2 Dukedogs which I find a little strange, I would add at the start of this that it is something that doesnt concern me too much and if I only had the 1 would probably have never noticed, There appears to be a height difference at the fron of the 2 locos of around 2mm, ( approx 1/2 diameter of the buffers!!) I just happened to buffer them up and noticed, at first I condidered that the bogie spring may be the cause, but after removing the bogies, and ensuring that all 4 drivers of each loco were absolutely flat a level I took the attached pics and the height difference is apparent, I can confirm that the tender coupling is playing no part in this discrepancy and as far as I can tell neither locos footplate is bent Both locos run impeccably so I am not too concerned akthough it would be nice to know which loco is the correct height!! The height of the Black loco to the top of the buffer beam is 18mm the green one is 16mm

As I said in one of my posts yesterday we have bought quite a few items this week ( the Xmas money is nearly all gone now!!) of all the items purchased only one is Hornby and we only bought that because Rails had a extra reduced price offer on it!! ( a 2-BIL) Hornby just are not making available quality products of things we want Good luck to the BLUE team!!

A couple of pics of the Green loco and the weathered black one. ' I am not 100% convinced that I like the green livery, as it is now, to me it looks just a 'little too good to be true' I have noticed that under different lighting conditions the Green does seem to change its 'hue' so it may find itself heavily weathered soon