bluex5

I had a close look at the model and I felt that even though it needs a bit of "spit and polish" (by Dapol's own admission), it captures the class 22 well. Certainly I didn't spot and glaring errors with the "face" of the loco, which is such a key feature of these little hydraulics. Roll on May!

I've not blogged on any of my projects before but I might do something on the DP2 tinkerings after Warley. The Silver fox body moulding is really nice as a starting point but there's lots that can be done. I've opened up and glazed the headcode boxes (I'm using a later Bachmann chassis with lights so it seemed rude not to!) but I plan to do the engine room windows (as mentioned), fit an etched roof fan and grille, seperate horns and anything else I can do.

Thanks Jon. I'm actually after using them to improve a Silver Fox "DP2" body. I've opened out the engine room windows and made glazing for them but they seem lacking without the frames. Think I can proabably use quite a few of Brian's other bits on the project too.

Hi..I think your Deltic upgrades are superb although they are beyond what i'd dare do with the Bachmann model. Do you know if there are etched available for the engine room windown frames?

I've got an A1 in similar fettle, but if you want to donate the Jubilee then I would be happy to give it a new home I think the A2 just needs some weathering to take the brightness of the finish, then all will be well.

I'm going to be blunt. I don't like the shade of green very much. It seems to be a trend that Bachmann started around the time of the retooled Jubilee for this bright lining and rather bizarre interpretation of BR Green.

Wheel diameter, wheelbase, boiler length, footplate....I could go on. Basically other than a generic family resemblance (and being pacifics) the two locos share very little.

It appears that welded tenders are indeed a Darlington A1 phenomenon. Oh well, still looking forward to getting my paws on one of these. Probably going to do Sayajirao unless the double chimney variant pops up in time for Warley, then it'll be Velocity.

Are we going to get one with a welded tender? The rivited tender is horrible.

To me the fact the ends arn't flat is why the shape works for me. Real Deltics have quite a noticeable slope between the top of the bonnet and the buffer stocks, see the shoop earlier in this thread where Brian overlaid the Heljan nose onto a pic of a real Deltic, the Heljan shape is really rather good.

I can't wait to see it painted then! I'm looking for excuses not to buy one but as my favourite locomotive class one will have to be purchased at some point!

Much as I'd love to see an NBL diesel reborn it's not going to happen unless someone did a full "new build". The baby deltic project has a complete prime mover plus the availability of EE bits including a shell that at least gives a starting point for recreating a Class 23. There are no mechanical parts or superstructure still in existance for any of the NBL locos as far as I'm aware.

Nice photoshop work there Brian, i wasn't too sure if the vertical part of the nose captured the gentle slant of the real thing (being all in grey didn't help). Seeing it overlaid on a pic of a real 55 assures me Heljan have got it pretty damn close! What do you make of the body profile above the solebar? Due to the "works" grey I can't tell if they've captured the compound curves, especially where the bodyside profile changes as it gets near the buffer shanks.

I'm glad some of the RMweb massive are awake, unlike myself!!!! The power unit should have most of the "field mods" implemented by EE to improve availability, and it's been fettled by some guys who know Deltic engines inside out. Once they had all been rebuilt the locos availability wasn't too bad, although a mixed traffic Type 2 was never the best place to use a Deltic engine.

clicky Despite the denials at the time when the engine was fired up within the corpse 37, I guess this was always the next logical step.

There's probably a prototype for everything but they were pretty much dedicated to the KX - Edinburgh express passenger trains untill about 1978. I have a pic of a blue one (pre TOPS) on a van train somewhere - very strange sight! As a deltic nut I'm pretty impressed with Heljan's effort so far - as has been previously said the way it sits on the bogies is very convincing, which for me is the worst aspect of Bachmann's 4mm effort. Green / SYP racehorse for my display case, thanking you.

Odd that you call the 20 out on a minor paint issue yet you tolerate the almost entirely ficticious appearance of the 47 below the front windows..... While certain liveries hide it better than others the bottom line is it's a serious shape issue which requires a bit more then a dob of warning panel yellow to sort.

Excellent news, plain green one ordered.

T-Cut usually does the job. Probably best off removing the full number though as those in transfer sets rarely match perfectly the originals.

Received my D8200, very impressed. Perfect runner straight out of the box. Not detailed or DCC'd it yet. Only thing that I dislike is the moulded headcode discs, seriously considering using some Shawplan ones out of my spares box. The lighting is so good it deserves decent discs!

Mmmmmmmmmm..class 15...Hopefully my pre order will be on it's way soon. I miss my old TechCad one. From the posted pics it looks like Heljan have done well.

As per previous quotes - there are compromises between Bachmann's tooling (based around the original Peppercorn / BR build) and the spec of Tornado (Network Rail loading gauge / Menningen built boiler etc). To be fair they've done a good job of sorting the obvious changes (tender / whistle), but it's not realistic to retool the boiler and smokebox to reflect every change made for "new build". Also you're wrong about the Cartazzi arrangement, it's as good a solution to the problem as I've seen in OO, and looks close enough to a "real" A1 arrangement in my eyes, as well as being able to navigate less than prototypical curves. TL:DR - even skilled kit builders would struggle to get something to look as good as the Bachmann model.

No Class 22 was ever Chromatic blue, all the repaints were plain old spec 53 rail blue.