Heljan tooling a new OO class 47

[Bigmet]

Here we go then, version 4 of the class 47 since Heljan first put up a 'modern standard' OO model back in 2001. Then Bachmann and ViTrains circa 2007, (ViTrains retired hurt) and now the prospect of a newerer and betterer version yet.

Hopefully with Ben Jones now installed as their UK representative, they will this time accept that their v1 was overwidth and had various other deficiencies - notably around the bogies - and make a knock out model of the new effort. The other 'hopefully' is that the mechanical arrangements of the driveline go on unchanged. That aspect was right from the off, and immediately much liked. I am pretty sure that had Heljan swiftly corrected the overwidth issue, then Bachmann wouldn't have even ventured a 47; their policy was not to replicate where an acknowledged good model already existed. (I wanted a 47, but wasn't ever going to buy the Heljan model: it just looked wrong and that's an immediate 'fail' as a model in my book.)

It's a question just how many more diesel classes will get this treatment in the near future. I would think that all of Bachmann's 20 (no lights) Hornby's 30/31 (significant body shape error) Bachmann's 37 (large numbers, long lived, multiple liveries and popular) and Hornby's 50 (several errors) are very much in the frame for targeting replacement superior models. A general aspect on all of these would be to make independent headcode lighting provision standard, rather than the crude 'all on, all off' provision that has been typical until recently: OO is badly trailing HO there, so the factories know how to arrange this stuff.

All this providing that between the SLW 24, Hattons 66, Accurascale 55, Heljan's 45 and 47, the market for 'yet better' models holds up well.

[Pennine MC]

Hopefully with Ben Jones now installed as their UK representative, they will this time accept that their v1 was overwidth and had various other deficiencies - notably around the bogies - and make a knock out model of the new effort.

Given that he seems to think the quite dreadful 25 is acceptable, I'm not so hopeful.

There is a market for 'definitive' models of such as this, 37 and 31; but it seems to me that unless the 47 is significantly better than either Bachmann or ViTrains, I'm not sure how much point there is in doing it.

[Jim S-W]

I can see Ian’s point. I’ve no doubt ben has every intention of getting it right but having read some of his reviews where he completely missed glaring inaccuracies I wonder if he actually has the eye to identify problems.

[Bigmet]

And a year has breezed by (or possibly sneezed by) and relatively litle action on this front. The main attraction for me - had it been equal or better the Bachmann model in representing an early Brush 4 - is the good effect achieved by Heljan's use of finer flanges. Between Bachmann and Hornby dangling specimens of Doncaster wide firebox power I feel it is being squeezed off my potential purchase list, and those are far from the only RTR products bidding for my cash...

I can see Ian’s point. I’ve no doubt Ben has every intention of getting it right but having read some of his reviews where he completely missed glaring inaccuracies I wonder if he actually has the eye to identify problems.

That raised a wry smile when first I read it. My experience suggests it depends on what spectacles are worn: mine certainly have, and all defined by the rule that no fishmonger yet has been heard crying his wares 'Stinking Fish'. I would write one way as the company representative emphasising the many advantageous benefits, another way when independently appraising a product for a journal with an eye on all of the journal's, the supplier's and the potential end customer's interests, and yet differently again in the decision process for a purchase: the last of course being the unvarnished truth, as nearly as that can ever be determined.