7007GreatWestern

At a time when the other manufacturers have been rushing to churn out increasingly tiny tank engines (presumably that's where the biggest profit margins are these days?) Heljan took on an obscure goods engine largely unknown outside the circles of GWR followers and somewhat unappreciated within! What they've produced is a really substantial, impressive model that captures most of the distinctive features of the prototype really well. They're also brought some original thinking to the engineering of the model such as the layout of the drive train and and access to the tender. Even the most churlish critics of the model surely wouldn't deny that Heljan have given this model a "real good go"? It isn't perfect. Much of the rivet detail for example does look rather overscale. The vulnerabilities of the front running plate and pony truck are well documented. I maintain however there's a damn sight more right with it than wrong with it! Andy.

Hi James, The boiler shared by the 28xx/2884 and Grange is the 'Standard No.1", which was also used on the Stars, Saints, Halls and Modified Halls. It was even fitted to the prototype 47xx for the first couple of years of its life until Swindon completed development of the Standard No. 7. It wouldn't be unusual for the boilers to "cross classes" during overhaul at Swindon. They were truly standard, interchangeable components and treated as such. As an example, boiler No. 8270 which currently powers preserved 28xx No. 2807 started life with 3864 in November 1942, before moving on to 3850 in 1945, 6848 "Toddington Grange" in 1948, 6819 "Highnam Grange" in 1952, 5988 "Bostock Hall" in 1958 and 2807 from 1960. Boiler 8270 therefore powered six different locos of three different classes during its career of just twenty years! Andy.

Some further information on differences between the 2800 and 2884 classes. I stumbled on this very informative blog from the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway loco department today:- http://gwsrsteamloco.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/all-change.html In 2016 they performed a swap of the driving wheels between their 28xx (2874) and their 2884 (3850). The reason? The 28xx was riding on '2884 wheels' and the 2885 was riding on '28xx wheels'. I must admit it came as news to me that the wheels where different between the two classes! I think Hornby use the same wheel set for both models so this is probably just of academic interest unless you are intending to use aftermarket wheels. I also found reference to the fact that the (early) 28s had 'compensated springing', the 2884s did not. A gent on this forum claims that some preserved 28s still have this feature:- https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/gwr-28xx-and-2884-2-8-0s.346997/ The above is of academic interest to most, but interesting all the same I hope. There are some very knowledgeable folks on RMWeb and some with working knowledge from the 'coal face' of preservation (e.g. Drew aka 'Castle). Further information from such learned gentlemen would be welcome! Andy.

For anyone wanting further information about "dotted route classifications" as mentioned by Mike, the appropriate Wikipedia page offers a rudimentary explanation:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railway_Power_and_Weight_Classification

An interesting story concerning the confusion surrounding the GWRs weight restrictions can be found in J.E. Chacksfield's "CB Collett - A Competent Successor". Collett had been pressurised by the Directors to produce a more powerful machine than the 'Castle' Class, a locomotive which was right 'on the limit' of the GWR mainline axle limit of 19 tons. Collet cited the limitations in the permanent way as an obstacle to progress: "If I could have an axle loading of 22.5 tons, I would give you a very fine locomotive" he is reported to have said. Two GWR Directors, Felix Pole and Sir Audrey Brocklebank conducted some enquiries of their own to understand the situation. At a meeting in 1926 Sir Audrey suggested it would be helpful to draw up a list of the weight restrictions on all the relevant bridges along the GWR mainline. They summoned one Mr. Lloyd, the GWR Chief Civil Engineer and he readily agreed to their request to draw up such a list. As Lloyd left the room, Felix Pole asked of him "By the way Mr. Lloyd, when designing new bridges, for what axle load do you provide?" They would doubtless have been flabbergasted by his response: "22 Tons". It transpired that the GWR Civil Engineers (under Sir James Inglis) had been upgrading the bridges to 22 tons for over twenty years and had not informed either Churchward, Collett or even senior Directors!!!! At a stroke, the most compelling arguments against developing what would become the 'Kings' fell away. Further enquiries by Pole found that the 22 ton bridges had sufficient redundancy to be uprated to 22.5 tons, thereby satisfying Collett's requirements. It further transpired that just four bridges on the entire West of England mainline had to be replaced to enable the entire route to be reclassified as 22.5 ton axle load! The moral of this story is that weight restrictions would inevitably become a bone of contention between the Civil Engineers who would have a vested interest in preventing unnecessary and costly damage to the infrastructure and the Traffic Department who would want to make full use of the network without hindrance. The situation becomes even more confused when senior professionals either deliberately or by oversight simple fail to communicate critical information to one another - even in an organisation as long standing as the GWR.

I realise this question wasn't directed at me, but I hope all concerned won't mind if I attempt to answer it anyway. There is that famous saying that 'rules are meant to be broken' and that is certainly true of the GWR Route Classification system. At first glance it appears simple enough. The GWR assigned colours to all its routes indicating the maximum axle load the Civil Engineering Dept were prepared to sanction for that particular route. The locomotives had a painted circular disc indicating the suitability of that loco for the route in question. What could be more straight forward? Unfortunately the GWR system was riddled with exceptions to these rules. Earlier on in this thread I mentioned "GWR Service Timetable Appendices 1945". On the face of it, a very dull sounding book! It includes a vast amount of operational information that would have been critical to loco crews going about their duties. For example the positions and opening times of every Signal Box, the maximum speeds at every section, junction, turnout and crossover. Of relevance to this discussion however, it also describes the many exceptions to the aforementioned Route Classification system. Here are a few examples:- The (now preserved) Norton Fitzwarren - Minehead line. "Authorised engines: Blue Engines except 28xx & 78xx & all yellow types".......yet 28xx and 78xx are both Blues engines! Yelverton to Launceston. "Authorised engines: Uncoloured, Yellow 2-6-2T, 45xx specially authorised. Prohibitions: 2251 Class"......2251 is a yellow engine but is not authorised! Brent to Kingsbridge. "Authorised Engines: Uncoloured, Yellows. Prohibitions 20xx-21xx"......yet the 20xx-21xx (2021 0-6-0PT) was uncoloured! My point is that those attractive coloured discs on the side of GWRs locos were a helpful guide but no more than that. Railwaymen were expected to commit a very large amount of information to memory, far more than we probably give them credit for today. They could be and frequently were tested on their knowledge and they sourced much of their information from dull books full of bewildering detail such as "GWR Service Timetable Appendices 1945". I hope the above is of interest.

According to Maidment's book the first 2884 to receive wartime black was 3845. As County of Yorkshire has said, the decision to standardise on black was taken in 1942 and 3845 was new to traffic in that year. So far as I am aware Hornby have only ever released the 2884 in three guises:- R2918 Postwar Green R2919 BR Black (late crest) R3006 BR Black (early crest) covered with 'diarrhoea' which is supposed to resemble weathering. Given how few releases there have been of the model it's hardly surprising even used examples are becoming hard to obtain. The GWR one is usual the hardest of all to get but as it happens there are two on eBay at the moment - just search for "Hornby 3800" (sic) rather than the more correct "Hornby 2884". I really do NOT advise attempting a cab transplant on these - I've had to do major work on several of these models and have learnt the hard way they are particularly fragile and quite difficult to work on. You'd be better off buying a black one and repainting it if you can't source a green one! To summarise the features unique to the 2884:- -Cab roof extended backwards to give additional weather protection -Windows in cab side sheet. -Fire iron tunnel on running plate, fireman's side -Smaller motion bracket radius plate In the dark recesses of my memory I have a feeling Collett changed the design of the pony truck. I seem to remember a volunteer from a preservation group lamenting that Collett's later design wasn't as good as the Churchward original. This has no bearing on the Hornby model however as the pony truck is identical between the two variants! Andy.

Hi John, You might want to consider a self-adhesive film for the window. Some of the more 'technical' ones claim to restrict UV (which causes fading) and infra-red (heat and also contributes to fading). If light intensity is more the problem than you can get them tinted, partially transparent or patterned. Andy.

According to "GWR Service Timetable Appendices 1945" (Bradford Barton) only the following GWR classes were authorised between Barnstaple Junction and Ilfracombe:- 0-6-0 23xx, 24xx, 25xx (ie Dean Goods) 2-6-2T 45xx, 55xx 0-6-0 2251 Class 2-6-0 43xx-73xx 4-4-0 33xx, 34xx "Bulldog" There is a remark that "Engines working this stretch of the line have steps cut back to width of 8ft 4inches." Presumably this is a reference to the reduced clearance on Barnstaple viaduct mentioned earlier. It does suggest that there was in effect a dedicated "fleet" of locos kept at Taunton for use over the Ilfracombe line and this seems to be borne out by the available photographs. The same few locos appear again and again! 6372 seems to have been the 'doyen' of locomotives used on the line - a fine performer by all accounts! In turns of weight restriction as mentioned earlier the real obstacle to running heavier GWR locos on the Ilfracombe line was that they could only reach it via the Norton Fitzwarren - Barnstaple route. This line was in turn severely restricted by the spectacular viaducts at Tone and Filleigh. 43xxs were restricted to 15mph over these structures so one assumes that was their maximum load! https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/castle-hill-viaduct-3-july-1953-news-photo/102728352#castle-hill-viaduct-3-july-1953-picture-id102728352 I realise this isn't the line of immediate interest to you, but Micheal J. Fox's "Scene From The Past No. 43: Railways in and around Taunton" has some fabulous photos of the Taunton - Barnstaple line and is highly recommended. Andy.

Each to their own. Personally I'll take a model with 'shiny patches' every time over one that's got broken components before I even receive it. I don't recall ever experiencing product damage with Sander Kan era models.

Hi Coach, I'd say the 47xx in some ways betters the Hornby 28xx/2884. The latter model is let down a little by one unfortunate feature - the gearbox. This is both a cosmetic problem (the gearbox is plainly visible) and a practical one (the gears are 'open' enabling them to attract dust and grit). Heljan have very cleverly re-oriented the motor and routed the geartrain between the third and fourth coupled axles making it invisible. That's a marked improvement over such well regarded models as the Hornby 8F and Bachmann 'Super D'. I certainly agree with you that the Hornby '28, notwithstanding the gearbox, is superb. Assuming the damage to these locos is due to the packaging, I can't help feeling this model would benefit from the packaging method Hornby used in the Sander Kan era. High density styrofoam "halfs" that clamp above and below the model, with 'L' shaped 'transit brackets' screwed into the underside of the chassis which in turn locate into slots in the styrofoam. Apparently this form of packaging was unpopular with customers as they didn't like fiddling around unscrewing the brackets and (even worse) fitting the 4-pin loco-to-tender connector. None the less, this is a really heavy model - over 100g more than the Hornby 'Britannia' (which is itself a behemoth) and may warrant stronger packaging. The beauty of the 'transit bracket' solution used by Hornby is that the model cannot move around much within the packaging and the brackets absorb much of the impact from transportation. With the new style packaging the stress is being absorbed at the points where the model itself touches the packaging, with unfortunate consequences. Andy.

Dear Mike, If the possibility of a damaged model is likely to make you "very upset", and you say you "can't take any more disappointments with my models" it seems to me you either need a break from the hobby or a new hobby all together. There IS only one point to this hobby - to bring pleasure to the collector/modeller. It sounds to me like the hobby is bringing you more angst than pleasure, no doubt due to the "very troubled times" you are enduring. You say the models are an "escape", but it sounds to me like they are simply adding to your stress. This advice is meant in a helpful and friendly spirit. Maybe you should get back in touch with the simple joy that your models once gave you by savouring what you have got rather than worrying about what you haven't? I confidently predict Heljan 47xxs will be around for years to come should you ever change you mind........this is not so urgent a decision. It sounds to me like you already have enough urgency in your life. In answer to your question: I can't answer for "loads" of other people but my 47xx, albeit not perfect, is fabulous. I would place it in my personal top 5 GWR RTR models. I live 20 minutes drive from a very well known emporium in the north west of England so picked mine up in person rather than entrusting it to the UK Parcels/Logistic networks, which may well account for why mine is so darn good! Andy.

Hello All, The Southern Railway turntable used at Didcot is misleading - generally the GWR eschewed well type turntables and had it own standard over-girder design. Interestingly, when the West Somerset Railway needed a turntable for their Minehead terminus they acquired the short (55') specimen formerly resident at Pwllheli. Eventually they employed the services of a specialist contractor to extend it by 10' so that it can now turn 'Kings' and 28s:- https://www.steelway.co.uk/rail/case-studies/minehead-railway-turntable Of interest is the fact that the original Minehead turntable had been a very non-standard well type unit:- https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/GWRSteam-1/Collett-Locomotives/Collett-5700-0-6-0PT/Collett-0-6-0PT-Built-1929-1931/7700-7724-Built-Kerr-Stuart-Jan-1930-March-1930/i-Qnw8WnB/A In terms of the suitability of a 'well type' turntable for Granby I have good news for you......depending on how rigid you want to be about things. Granby is loosely based on Wrexham whose real GWR depot was Croes Newydd. In the photos I have seen of it it has a single over-girder type turntable that was inside the shed complex:- https://goo.gl/images/7gSvhz Don't be disheartened though - there were several 'well' turntables in the vicinity and it isn't stretching things too far to imagine Granby having one especially since you haven't adopted standardised GWR structures elsewhere. Here's the turntable at Shrewsbury:- https://goo.gl/images/Hud3hY Not too far from Wrexham was Whitchurch where the GWR/WR had running rights. Here's 7801 Anthony Manor being turning on its well turntable in 1959:- https://goo.gl/images/LggAz3 Also not a million miles from Wrexham was Welshpool on the former Cambrian network:- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Welshpool_ex-Midland_3F_0-6-0_geograph-2789886-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg I hope this is of use. Andy.

John, So it would seem the original lined green Dean Goods had twin flywheels (as demonstrated in Mikkel's blog) and the later ones have only one? Or are we making generalisations from very small sample sizes? If I recall correctly the was a VERY long delay between the original model (which got hammered on RMWeb) and the black and plain green variants which had an improved cab. Perhaps they did downgrade the chassis spec during that time? John, an extensive PM should be with you either this evening or tomorrow ;-) Andy.

Hi John, My 47xx weighs in at 588g including decoder (Lenz Silver+21). A Hornby 'Castle' is 340g, Hornby 'Britannia' 480g, Hornby 28xx 350g. Heljan seem to have heavily ballasted both the loco and the tender. I suspect (but don't know) that the already impressive performance of the 47xx could be further improved by reducing the ballast in the tender. I'm not sure if you're looking into buying on of these models John, but the prototype had a strong connection to Merseyside. The 47s worked overnight vacuum fitted freights to Birkenhead through most of their careers. According to David Maidment's excellent book covering the 4700s they worked the 21:10 Paddington-Birkenhead (which was nicknamed 'The Northern Flash') from 1933 right through into the 50s. Mr Maidment describes it as a hard task for the crew, 145 miles at an average of just under 39mph with around 800 tons on the drawbar. The locos returned to London with the 15:35 meat train from Birkenhead Morpeth Dock to Paddington. When it says "Morpeth Dock" it means Morpeth Dock! The book shows 4708 gingerly moving through the dock complex, the rails set in a cobbled road surface and then passing over a 'swing' bridge across the dock itself. The huge 2-8-0 seems incongruous on a dockland railway where you would expect to see an 0-4-0 tank......but it happened! For the record the returning Birkenhead - Paddington train was known as "The General" and by the late 50s seems to have been retimed to leave Birkenhead at 19:45. Andy.

I'll caveat the following by saying I haven't ballasted mine yet..... BUT having taken the body off mine last week there appeared to by quite a bit of scope for adding sheet ballast. Here are the possibilities I saw:- 1. Steam dome is hollow 2. Inner cheeks of firebox 3. Forward of the motor there is scope for adding weight in the smokebox but clearance must be left for motor armature spindle (unless the later is sawn off!). 4. There is space immediately below the universal joint and flywheel in a "U" shaped trough on the upper face of the chassis block. Of the above 1, 2 and 4 have the advantage of being over the driving wheels. For what it's worth I have found the model to be just about the poorest puller of any RTR model I own. The model feels very "tender heavy" to me and emits a buzzing noise like a swam of angry hornets when running. To add insult to injury the motor now stops turning at random intervals and won't restart unless I take the body off and turn the armature (by means of the flywheel) by hand. If anyone knows where I can source a replacement motor I would be grateful for the information. Not my favourite locomotive. Andy. **** Correction to the above: I'm intrigued to see some Oxford Rail Dean Goods have twin flywheels, one of which is forward of the motor and will occupy much of the smokebox cavity. Mine does not! See Mikkel's superb blog. (http://farthinglayou...an-goods-1.html). Was the specification of the chassis changed between batches or is mine a QA failure?

7007GreatWestern, on 29 Apr 2018 - 13:49, said: "No so, what's a Black Hole then! But I guess they weren't known back then." If you'd bothered to read the second sentence of my post before eagerly leaping for your keyboard you would have understood that my teacher was speaking figuratively, not literally. Still, my understanding is enriched with your insights into the emissive properties of Black Holes. How did I cope without you? Regards, Andy (BSc Physics, University of Leicester, 1987)

I recall being told many years ago by an Art Teacher that black and white don't exist in nature! I don't think he meant it literally, but rather that our work would seem more realistic if we avoided using them in their pure form. Given how superbly natural 'Little Muddle' looks in so many ways including the use of colour tones maybe he had a point? You work is excellent Kevin and continues to be an inspiration. Andy.

One thing the Large Prairie and Mogul have in common is the use of struts from the smokebox saddle to the front buffer beam. Both Heljan (47xx) and Hornby (42xx/5205/72xx) elected to model them as metal components attached to a plastic running plate. Both have experienced difficulties as a result keeping the forward running plate straight and level. I sincerely hope Dapol will use their 'nouse' and learn from their competitors' mistakes. Two approaches seem to have worked. The Bachmann 45xx/4575 also use metal struts.....but then they also use a diecast running plate and as a result there are no problems. Hornby elected to use plastic struts on the 28xx/2884 on a plastic running plate. That combination seems to have worked reasonably well too, the additional benefit of plastic struts being that they can be made much finer. I have high hopes of the forthcoming Dapol models. Their intelligent, receptive response to the criticisms of the initial CADs is in stark contrast to the attitudes of some of their competitors. Time and the second batch of CADs will show if my hopes are justified! Andy.

You can call it half-hearted......I think that's being polite. It's a very crude, dated model, and before anyone asks 'yes' I have bought one of them. If you look inside the cab of the loco you will see two roughly box shaped objects on either side of the footplate underneath the cab side windows. They are complete works of fiction bearing no resemblance to reality. Bachmann have form in this regard, the area under the smokebox and between the frames also being a complete work of fiction on the 'Modified Hall'. Like that 'Modified Hall' the Collett Goods is similarly lacking in ambition from the Bachmann designers: no tender pickups, no sensible relocation of the decoder socket to the tender. This model at an asking price of £97 makes the Heljan 47xx look like fabulous value for money at £154! Why did I buy it? Because I wanted a '2251' and it's the only show in town and Mainline's original tooling wasn't entirely without merit. Just don't expect me to say "Gee Bachmann, thanks for a wonderful piece of model engineering!" 'cos it ain't. Andy.

It would seem the £50 figure is an urban myth.....or rather a piece of hand-me-down railwaymen's folklore. The following is a summary from David Maidment's "The Great Western Eight Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives". The UK Government initially offered the surplus ROD locomotives for sale at the outrageous price of £12,000 in 1919. To put that in context it cost Swindon under £6K to build a 28xx and tender at that time. The asking price was reduced to £10,300 and at that price the GWR bought 20 unused locos. Being desperately short of freight motive power the GWR then hired 84 RODs that had seen action in France. When the hire period finished in 1921-22 the locos were dumped at Stratton near Swindon and Beachley near Chepstow. The Government then offered these locos for sale, initially asking £2k but eventually reducing to £1.5k at which point the GWR stepped in and bought 80. After just four months service all of them were withdrawn from and a decision was taken to overhaul and improve 30. The work was extensive and included replacing the original steel inner firebox with copper. The other 50 locos were simply returned to traffic and run to the point they were fit for scrap. The RODs had an unenviable reputation among GWR firemen. They were nicknamed 'Maggie Murphys". It was generally considered impossible to get them to 'blow off' unless stationary and sometimes not even then! They had two speed: 25 mph and stop...with very little in between. In his book "Footplate Days" Harold Gasson wrote the following:- "..the truth is they were the most detested locomotives on the Great Western.......It was often called by enginemen the £100 engine. If that figure was true then the engine was the cheapest locomotive in the world." He goes on to write:- "They were hard pushed to go downhill; as in effect it was a two speed engine. It would plod forward, plod backward, or stop, but in either forward or reverse it would pull". It's interesting to compare the enginemen's folklore (that the the engines cost £100) with the reality sourced from official records. The loco crews may have loathed the RODs but grudgingly accepted them believing they had been bought for 'pennies'. I wonder how they would have felt if they had known the company paid more for each of the first 20 than the cost of building a 28xx (a vastly better machine)? I hope the above is of interest. Andy.

Hi, The following is intended to be helpful. What you seem to have are two parallel, unconnected, single track lines. The are no crossovers enabling train movements between the two lines which would mean you would have to bodily lift your trains off the layout to move between the two. Note that if you did want to convert it to a double track mainline the crossover should be formed of trailing, not facing points. Also you've positioned the upper sidings between your running lines. In practice sidings in that position would be unlikely for a variety of reasons - they would usually be outside the running lines. Also, the three parallel sidings each have their own turnout onto the mainline. In practice there would be just one turnout onto the mainline with the two more points beyond it to give the three sidings. Any shunting between the three sidings would require the locomotive to pull forward onto the running line before setting back into a siding. In practice sidings like this would have a 'headshunt', a dead-end stretch of track enabling sidings to be shunted without unnecessary movements onto a main running line. Shunting movements onto and across running lines were fraught with operational danger and the designers of permanent way went to great trouble to minimise these as much as possible. You siding outside the tunnel is not as unlikely as it may seem. It could be a so-called 'refuge siding' where slow moving trains such as goods could pull off the main running line to enable faster trains (typically passenger) to pass. Hope this helps, Andy

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69664-a-nod-to-brent/?p=3127990

I've marked up the below diagram to explain what 'Castle' is talking about:- The two lubrication pipes are seen entering the smokebox top left. The top one (green) runs to the Regulator Valve which is partly hidden behind the petticoat. The regulator lever in the cab works the regulator valve in the smokebox by means of a rod that runs the entire length of the boiler. When the regulator is open 'saturated steam' (amber) flows from the Regulator Valve to the input side of the Superheater Header. Once inside the Superheater Header the saturated steam flows through the Superheater Elements where it is heated by the hot gasses in the flue tubes until it becomes 'superheated steam'. Once it has completed its journey through all the 'rows' of the Superheater the newly superheated steam exits towards the Steam Chest and Cylinders (black). At this point lubrication for the valves and pistons is added (blue). Andy.

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