[34C]

Don't be getting excited? The photographs are of the tooling that was introduced in 2002. Look at the ultra clunky pony truck casting with exclusive camming action for reliable derailments, see the spinning gear shaft end and lack of daylight under the boiler immediately ahead of the firebox, observe the very dated power connector cum drawbar, note the fictitious valance and consequent compressed spring and axlebox detail on the tender.

And if it is the very same model, what you cannot see: it is weak on traction, due to insufficient weight. (Nothing wrong with the drive's inherent capability, modify an H-D or Wrenn diecast 8F body to fit on this mechanism and it pulls as an 8F should with the extra weight this affords.) Hopefully the wiring layout will have been updated so that the chassis block isn't live to one rail, because if it hasn't this makes it liable to regular shorts on DCC...

And recall that these models from the same tooling were once on sale for £50. This has long amortised its tooling cost...

 

[34C]

...Yes, I bought two from Hattons for £47.00 each...

Indeed, it was a very good buy at the time, as was a great deal else. It was then something of a wait for the price of knackered H-D and Wrenn 8F's to collapse to proper level, enabling the body transplant. I sold on the Hornby plastic 8F bodies to folks that wanted a Stanier 2-6-0 (easy conversion using a Bachmann Crab which was also much reduced at one point), and the refurbed H-D and Wrenn 8F mechanisms, so the two 'Hornby-Doubly' 8F's retained for my layout which now pull as they should with metal bodies on them, actually paid me to own them...

Once upon a time there was a Hattons
Where we bought a loco, or twenty two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
Modelling all the great things we could do?
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd chop and carve forever and a day
We'd make the models we choose
We'd trade and never lose
For the models were cheap, and plenty came our way.