BRCW class 104 DMU, 2 and 3 car sets announced

[Bigmet]

Heljan have picked off the largest BR DMU class without a RTR OO model. Very much an LMR unit and found widely all over the northwest of England, so likely to be popular. Good range of liveries covering BR introduction through to BR sectorisation, so representing near complete service life.
https://www.hattons.co.uk/newsdetail.aspx?id=927
Is it a good guess that if these go well Heljan will probably move on to the class 110 at some future time, unless some other manufacturer has taken that one?

[Bufferstop]

Hornby's model of the 3 car 110 was cosmetically up to current standards, it had two faults which could be easily rectified, The ringfield motor bogie and the method of "centreless" bogie attachments which made the bogies stiff to rotate. The cure I devised for it was easy to implement, that is flexible springing between body and bolster (foam plastic) and a twin worm motor in the bogie. At the price it would command today they could afford to put in two bogie motor units. The large windows and open seating arrangement would make a centre motor undesirable, and two motors per 3 cars would give a good power to weight ratio.

[Bufferstop]

Hornby's model of the 3 car 110 was cosmetically up to current standards, it had two faults which could be easily rectified, The ringfield motor bogie and the method of "centreless" bogie attachments which made the bogies stiff to rotate. The cure I devised for it was easy to implement, that is flexible springing between body and bolster (foam plastic) and a twin worm motor in the bogie. At the price it would command today they could afford to put in two bogie motor units. The large windows and open seating arrangement would make a centre motor undesirable, and two motors per 3 cars would give a good power to weight ratio.

[SRman]

I converted a Hornby 110 to a class 104 power twin many years ago, using the Craftsman etched brass ends and white metal marker lights. It came up fairly well, let down by the 3-pole pancake motor and lack of pickups. I convereted a 110 centre car to a Driving Trailer using a scratchbuilt plastic end, so could run 3-car, 2-car power twin, or 2-car motor + trailer combinations, sometimes in "multiple" with other blue square DMU types, as happened in real life. The units have languished in the storage drawers for quite a while, awaiting my finding and fitting better mechanisms from more modern models. I found a Bachmann class 108 going cheaply but when I tried the chassis swap, the Bachmann chassis was a little longer than the Hornby bodies.

The upshot of all this is I will be looking very carefully at my finances next year to see if I can land at least one Heljan unit. Seeing as I am retiring early next year, there is a little uncertainty involved, especially as I have already over-committed to several other expensive models - an EFE tube train, a Rails D 4-4-0, Caroline GM's saloon, and a Danish McK IR4 unit just off the top of my head!