[spongebob]

I was considering buying one of these to replace my geriatric hornby and lima ones and am a little confused by the valances under the cabs. Some appear to be plain black and some body coloured e.g D1015 western champion. Does anyone own one of these models and is it another bit they couldn't be bothered painting like the class 47 bufferbeams?
I wanted to go for a preserved one other than 1015 as in my opinion the heljan one looks a bit too orangey. I aren't too keen on having to paint the valances as it would be easy to get a bad match which would probably look worse.

 

[JPB]

As far as I know (and a friend has bought most of the Westerns) they all come with a body-coloured valance in the packaging but Heljan do not fit it, presumably to simplify production of the chassis. Replacing the valance is a matter of pulling the black ones out and then gluing the valances to the bufferbeam, ensuring that the simple but effective sprung buffer assembly doesn't end up springing off the table. It's fiddly but worth it.

 

[spongebob]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'd seen D1015 with correct coloured valances on Rails' website but none of the others had them. Those buffers are a nightmare apparently, so far i've left my 47's alone rather than take a chance of losing something. Gonna have to disassemble them in a box of some sort i think, probably do it when i install decoders in them.