Hornby 14xx Review
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 10:20 pm
A review of the Hornby 14xx
Brief History about the prototype: The GWR 1400 Class is a class of steam locomotive designed by the Great Western Railway for branch line passenger work. It was originally classified as the 4800 Class when introduced in 1932. Four examples have been preserved, all late withdrawals from service in the 1963-1965 period. All went direct to preservation from British Railways in relatively good condition. The current location of the preserved examples is as follows:
1420 – South Devon Railway (under overhaul)
1442 – Tiverton Museum, Tiverton, Devon (static exhibit)
1450 – Dean Forest Railway
1466 – Didcot Railway Centre
Brief History about the model: The model was first produced by AIRFIX between 1975 – 1981, after which the tooling for all the Airfix loco’s was sold to Palitoy who manufactured the MAINLINE range. However, the 14xx was never manufactured under this name. The tooling was then sold on to DAPOL, a model manufacturer based in Wales, UK. Dapol produced the 14xx for a while. They then sold the tooling for the 14xx along with others to HORNBY. Hornby still manufacture the 14xx, releasing it with new numbers and livery variations every couple of years.
Body Detail and Livery Application: The body detail is good for its age and most of the handrails are wire. The chimney is a turned metal piece and has a scre through the top which is used to secure the loco body to the chassis. The paint work is crisp and without fuzziness to edges. The lining on the BR examples is crisp too. The number plates would benefit from etched examples though as they lack depth, although this does give the modeler an easy renumbering job opportunity.
Chassis: The main part of the chassis is die cast. The motor fitted is a 3 Pole Type 7 motor driving a small gearbox. The bottom base plate for the chassis is molded in Black plastic. This has all the spring and brake rigging details molded to it too. These are neatly molded although some finescale modelers prefer to replace ites like the leaf springs with whitemetal examples. The chassis has pick ups on all wheels. The driving axle has traction tyres so the main wheel tread doesn’t make contact with the railhead making pick up off this wheel literally useless. The back axle is sprung which gives this chassis some built in compensation. Wiring this loco with a DCC chip is relatively straight forward as even though the chassis is used to transmit power to the motor there is a wire bridge form the chassis to the motor terminal making it a very easy job to totally isolate the motor.
Running capabilities: With having pickups on all wheels the model doesn’t stall that much unless the wheels/ track are dirty. Its 3 pole motor driving the small gear box enables the chassis to run pretty smoothly down to quite low speeds.
Marks out of Ten
Livery Application: 8
Chassis: 8.5
Running capabilities: 8.5
This gives the model 25/30 which isn’t bad saying it is 30 year old
Quick over view: The model is finished and runs nice. It has good slow speed control and doesn’t suffer that much from dirty wheels. One criticism is that you can see the back end of the motor through the cab side windows although this isn’t noticeable from normal viewing distance.

Brief History about the prototype: The GWR 1400 Class is a class of steam locomotive designed by the Great Western Railway for branch line passenger work. It was originally classified as the 4800 Class when introduced in 1932. Four examples have been preserved, all late withdrawals from service in the 1963-1965 period. All went direct to preservation from British Railways in relatively good condition. The current location of the preserved examples is as follows:
1420 – South Devon Railway (under overhaul)
1442 – Tiverton Museum, Tiverton, Devon (static exhibit)
1450 – Dean Forest Railway
1466 – Didcot Railway Centre
Brief History about the model: The model was first produced by AIRFIX between 1975 – 1981, after which the tooling for all the Airfix loco’s was sold to Palitoy who manufactured the MAINLINE range. However, the 14xx was never manufactured under this name. The tooling was then sold on to DAPOL, a model manufacturer based in Wales, UK. Dapol produced the 14xx for a while. They then sold the tooling for the 14xx along with others to HORNBY. Hornby still manufacture the 14xx, releasing it with new numbers and livery variations every couple of years.
Body Detail and Livery Application: The body detail is good for its age and most of the handrails are wire. The chimney is a turned metal piece and has a scre through the top which is used to secure the loco body to the chassis. The paint work is crisp and without fuzziness to edges. The lining on the BR examples is crisp too. The number plates would benefit from etched examples though as they lack depth, although this does give the modeler an easy renumbering job opportunity.
Chassis: The main part of the chassis is die cast. The motor fitted is a 3 Pole Type 7 motor driving a small gearbox. The bottom base plate for the chassis is molded in Black plastic. This has all the spring and brake rigging details molded to it too. These are neatly molded although some finescale modelers prefer to replace ites like the leaf springs with whitemetal examples. The chassis has pick ups on all wheels. The driving axle has traction tyres so the main wheel tread doesn’t make contact with the railhead making pick up off this wheel literally useless. The back axle is sprung which gives this chassis some built in compensation. Wiring this loco with a DCC chip is relatively straight forward as even though the chassis is used to transmit power to the motor there is a wire bridge form the chassis to the motor terminal making it a very easy job to totally isolate the motor.
Running capabilities: With having pickups on all wheels the model doesn’t stall that much unless the wheels/ track are dirty. Its 3 pole motor driving the small gear box enables the chassis to run pretty smoothly down to quite low speeds.
Marks out of Ten
Livery Application: 8
Chassis: 8.5
Running capabilities: 8.5
This gives the model 25/30 which isn’t bad saying it is 30 year old
Quick over view: The model is finished and runs nice. It has good slow speed control and doesn’t suffer that much from dirty wheels. One criticism is that you can see the back end of the motor through the cab side windows although this isn’t noticeable from normal viewing distance.