Gaz101

Just a comment on 55022. Seems the livery chosen for the model was one of two slight variants in its final months, and it seems the silver central section of the roof was short-lived. From what I can find from photographs, the silver cantrail grilles and roof appeared late-Oct 1981 and was still there at the York line-up of 4/5 Nov. However, by the time of the Deltic Venturer railtour of 28 Nov 1981 the central roof panels had been re-painted blue but the silver grilles remained, and it stayed that way until withdrawal. Links to Flickr: Great to see these models – they look absolutely fantastic! Congratulations to Fran and all at Accurascale. Have ordered Tulyar, still deciding on which other(s) to choose.

There's definitely a very thin red/orange band above the bevel, and the bevel appears black. Here's a close crop of the colour photo I mentioned (hope that's allowed; happy to remove it if not).

It's great to see this being produced; the model looks fantastic already. And even better now it's going to have the red/orange cantrail stripe applied – well done to all involved in making that happen. The news that that line will be added has confirmed that I will order one of the green ones, I now just have to decide which version! But I've just come across a colour photo of the loco in early-BR logo green livery that clearly shows it has another thin red/orange line. Not wishing to open a further can of worms, there is clearly a fine line about a quarter of the thickness of the cantrail stripe applied across the base of the curved cab front almost immediately above the joining strip (bracing?) at the very bottom. The line parallels that bracing strip up around the side of the cab to the base of the cab door. The bracing strip itself, and maybe the angled triangular plate angle that fills the gap between the buffer-beam corner and the base of the cab front also look black to me in the photo, rather than green, though that is not definite. The colour photo can be found in Green Diesel Days by Derek Huntriss (First edition 2005, published by Ian Allen / ISBN 9780711030664 – the one with the green 55 on the cover) and found on page 24. It shows a clean 18000 at Swindon works with a ladder leaning against its side and is credited to TB Owen and dated 18 May 1957. I've not been able to find the same photo online, but it is almost the same as the RCTS one that John Isherwood has posted/linked to in black & white – the 12th one down; it was clearly taken on the same occasion and from almost the same spot. To me, the red/orange line doesn't show in the B&W photo, but the black bracing band at the bottom of the cab does and is distinguishable from the green. Gareth

Nice to see this developing well, and Heljan are to be congratulated. The overall look is good, and I think captures nicely the original. But there is one area that immediately sprung to eye as being somewhat amiss, and that is the application of the livery on the front of the tanks. The lower edge of the lining should be higher, and in line with the lower edge on forward part of the side tanks. The curvature of the underside of the tank here may have something to do with this (is it too large, and thus the lining on the side at all too high?), but the big difference in height really shows to me.

As seen at Warley today: