Heljan Falcon

If you work on the fact that rails and Hattons have a fair few for general sale plus any other retailers with unsold items then there are still a few available without having to panic. One shop even has a couple on ebay for the same price as Hattons are doing them (or they are until Weds morning anyway). I ordered the blue one ages ago and forgot which livery I'd ordered until the email came through, agree about the somewhat diaorrhea colours of the chocolate and green one though, whether it's quite right or not I wouldn't like to say being as how the loco was withdrawn not long before I was born. Part of me would've preferred the BR green one as I think from the photo's the blue looks a bit too mainline to me. Probably find out tomorrow or Wednesday how it looks first hand

Lime green version of Falcon arrived from Hattons this morning- very nice, a real quality job although haven't had a chance to run it yet.

Looks like there's one problem though, according to discussions currently on RMWeb...

Falcon had very distinctive deep buffer beams, which in scale form are too deep to allow the use of a tension lock, Kadee or any other coupling that fits into the NEM pocket.
The solution is that Heljan have also provided in the box a pair of alternative buffer beams, with a shallower-than-prototypical skirt allowing clearance to fit a coupler into the NEM pocket, which can replace one or both of the originals for those of us who don't use 3-link couplings....

Problem is, it seems that the factory have fixed the originals rather too firmly and they're almost impossible to remove without breaking- suggestion seems to be a manufacturing fault on the chassis block- the two holes that the beam plugs into are wrongly cast and too tight, and the factory may have been force-fitting and gluing them....

It's also neccessary to swap the buffers over to the replacement beam- but as they're retained by crimping the ends of the buffer shaft, again that could be tricky....

An initial suggestion coming from Howes (who have apparently delayed despatching locos to their customers as a result) is that Heljan may be asking the Chinese factory to supply replacement chassis block castings!

QUOTE (5696Arethusa @ 18 Dec 2007, 16:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Did you pre-order it, the Hattons ads always state they don't do this as they have no need to speed up cash flow through their tills.
I just had a look at their site and the Class 53 is no longer listed. Would've been nice to know how many they had, I didn't look at their ehattons site where they list that info.
Interesting looking at Rails site of the 24 of each they said they'd got they're now down to 10 Green, 20 Blue and all 24 Lime Green. I thought that last livery was going to be the most popular with it being unique to this loco.

On a slightly sideways note, with this seemingly a success what chance of Heljan offering a Lion or Pheonix next year?

yes, pre-ordered a couple of months back... From the website, it looks as if Hattons have sold out already....!

From what I've been reading on RMWeb, a lot of people seem to prefer the 2-tone BR Green version- I guess the lime green livery is a bit of an acquired taste, and in the ex-works form that Heljan have done it (ie with the original painted Kestrel logo, rather than the cast plates) is only appropriate for a pretty short period of 1961/2 if you're the kind of modeller who pays attention to that kind of thing

I'd love to see Heljan follow up with Lion, Kestrel etc, but don't know if they'd be as viable for them- the advantage of Kestrel for the model manufacturer is that although a one-off it had a fairly long life, and carried 3 different liveries. Lion had a very short life- barely a couple of years, and Kestrel was only in service in the UK for about 3 years before it went to Russia.

I wonder if an early diesel, like LMS 10000/1 or one of the early Southern diesels might stand a better chance than one of the other 60's prototypes, as they might have a wider appeal in terms of timescale- they all lasted to the early/mid 60' and have scope for livery variations. OK, Bachmann are doing Deltic, but that has the advantage of being preserved, the prototype of a class with a big cult following, and of course the NRM presumably picking up some of the production cost....

Here you go...I new there had to be a good reason to unwrap it...

Sorry havent worked out how to upload images and 'er indoors wants me to go shopping so here is a link to my blog