bluex5

Thanks for the link..I'm quite partial to things that whistle

Not even sure what these sound like to be honest!!!! Is the Paxman engine a high speed lump like the Maybach and MAN ones?

Excellent tutorial as ever. I shall be putting it into practice as the jackshaft play is probably the wrost thing about the chassis, design wise.

Replacement received today. All seems well, drivetrain is less notchy and all bits are attached (barring the nose door catches, which by some miracle I fould floating around in the cellophane wrapper). Pleased but dreading stripping it to do DCC and fit the headcodes.

Scratch my earlier post. I've decieded to send the loco back to Liverpool. I noticed in addtion to my other observations one of the lifting eyes on the short bonnet was MIA and after some more pottering up and down the test siding I don't think I can live with the running qualities as they are. The lurching is accompanied my a knocking sound which leads me to think something is out of quarter OR awry with the gear train.

Received mine today. Good bits - looks like a class 14, some nice detail especially the bonnet handrails and the mesh guards over the jackshafts. Bad bits - One cab footstep broken off and floating about in the packaging. One resevoir pipe snapped off and MIA. It's had a stint on the rolling road and is better in one direction than the other (in one direction it has a definite tight spot), but doesn't exhibit any nasty wobbling when driven up and down my 4ft test track. The quality control regarding the snapped off bits is a bit crap. Anyone have any suggestions regarding decoder choice yet?

All my Heljan stock (a Hymek,a clayton, a couple of 1000's, a Brush Type 4, a Class 26 and a 33) run brilliantly. Fine slow speed control and more pulling power than you'd need. Only the Clayton is a bit "grumbly" in terms of noise, the rest are very quiet.

DO NOT TRY TO PRIZE THE GLAZING OUT FROM THE FRONT!!!! Do as it says in the instructions and bend a paper clip at one end to form a 90 degree angle. Pop this through the cab moulding where the lighting bars pass through and use it to pop the glazing out from the B/back.

I notice that the larger RTR steam outline stuff has been getting more expensive in the past year yet this hasn't caused the baaaaaawing that the price of a limited run diesel has. I've bought Hornby Bullied Pacifics in the past for ??50 - 65, yet the same model wouldn't give me much change from ??100 these days, and it's a mass produced catalogue model. They are model trains, not water and medicine, and if you don't like the prices been charged then simply vote with your wallet. As above I'm sure if Hattons have messed up their pricing then they'll discount those remaining unsold. Somehow I doubt that'll happen though......

I'm not trying to be inflammatory but you can't really make me believe that most enthusiasts prefer riding behind some strangely coloured industrial saddle tank to, say, a proper mainline loco (even a smaller type like an 41XXX Ivatt or BR Standard tank). The Austerity tanks have their place in preservation (compact, reasonably powerful and were cheaply available during the genesis of the preservation movement) but I wouldn't be particularly thrilled to visit a preserved line where that was the only motive power for the day. Yet I was quite happy to ride up and down behind the Ivatt at the KWVR last year when it was the only thing running (mid week visit). The Ivatt evoked romantic thoughts of Waterloo and the SR branches in the 60's, whereas an Austerity is just a shunter to me, however competent they may be.

The lights don't damage anything, it's just that you get a white square in the middle of the headcode panel rather than a uniform yellowish glow (which Heljan actually managed to acheive quite well on their other diesels). In daytime though diesel lighting was pretty indistinct before high intensity markers were introduced, this is the case with both heacode boxes and also discs / marker lights.

I quite like the look of the illuminated headcodes on other Heljan locos but I have to agree the Clayton arrangement looks awful. Had I known I would of followed the above advice and not bothered soldering the wires back on after the chassis swop.

It's not a shunter though. It's a Type 1 mainline diesel locomotive. When you consider the Class 15 is going to be ??89, it's not THAT expensive. I'm looking forward to this loco immensley.

I like the flaking paint on the headcode blanking panel! Other than that it's quite tidy for a scrapper.

I now have my new chassis. Correct colour too! Not swopped it over yet but test running reveals that while still not particularly quick, the smoothness and low speed response is without equal. Very pleased.

Anyone had replacement chassis from Hattons on a "fit yourself" basis? I had the email asking me which way I wanted to go and responded saying I was happy to do it myself, but no chassis as yet.

As BabyDeltic says, they were good machines once refurbished (I will grant that as built they were a nightmare, prone to seizing and chucking auxillary drive shafts round the engine room). I think they had the best availability of all the Type 2's used on the ER once sorted. Small fleet size and the ultimate wisdom of using a Deltic engine with it's ultimatly short(er) piston life as prime mover in a low powered mixed traffic loco finally did for them. GSYP for me please!!!!! I think the NBL diesel electrics will get their "day in the sun" though.

Excellent news! Hopefully in due course they'll get round to doing the "unrebuilt" body too.

Is this basically an LNER Y1 then?