Performance
one is looking at a Hornby model. Wire handrails, for instance, are very thin and held in handrail knobs as fine as any offered by the finescale detailing suppliers. Detail on the moulded plastic body is fine, and complemented by hundreds of tiny rivets.
Working back from the front bufferbeam, with its lightly sprung, turned and blackened metal bufferheads, the stays for the front platform are slender plastic mouldings, reducing the risk of distortion which could happen with wire stays.
Below the running plate, the front steps are straight and set at the outside edge of the running plate valance to give maximum clearance for the swing of the front truck on sharper-than-scale curves. A look through photographs suggests that the position and precise shape of the steps varied. Some were set outwards like the Hornby model but curved back inwards under the running plate. Others were straight, like the Hornby steps, but set back behind the valance.
Hornby’s compromise to suit model curves is a good one that looks OK. Another compromise in the same area is the result of the less-than-scale gauge of ‘OO’. The top of the cylinders is inevitably set slightly further inwards, under the running plate, when compared to photographs of the real thing. This avoids the need for joggled connecting rods and makes for better looking motion but probably means that modellers who want to fit ‘EM’ or ‘P4’ wheelsets will need to move the cylinders outwards slightly. For the majority of purchasers, it will be fine just the way it is.
The ‘face’ has been very well captured thanks to the fine wire handrail, very delicate smokebox door handles and the very understated smokebox door hinges. These, like the boiler bands, seem to set a new standard in the delicacy of detail. The GWR tank fillers and vents are separate fittings, the lifting rings and top-feed pipes are moulded on but all are neat and accurate, and this time, there’s no firing shovel!
The boiler fittings are pleasing to the eye, the whistles and safety valve bonnet being ‘brassed’ and the chimney cap finished in copper. I do, however, have one small criticism of the body moulding. I spent some time studying photographs of the real thing and I feel that the firebox top of the Hornby
On my home layout, No. 6145 ran well straight from the box. It was smooth and quiet with that elegant, leggy gait that was so familiar with larger wheeled GWR locomotives. I soon had it running with a 16-wagon test train, which I increased to 32 wagons. It took this load in its stride, so would be comfortable with a six-coach suburban train. In fact, It could easily have handled a longer train but I was near the limits of what will comfortably run on my layout!
I did encounter one minor glitch which, at first, I blamed on my layout. There was a tendency to stall at slow speeds on the curve over the level crossing. I thought it was probably the road surface causing binding but on closer examination, in certain positions on curved track, the rear coupled wheelset could move out of contact with the phosphor-bronze wiper pick-up. Tweaking the pick-up into permanent contact with the wheel cured the problem.
As this is a locomotive which would spend a lot of time running backwards, I reversed it and tried it bunker-first. Again, it proved quite capable and there was no hint of problems running through pointwork in either direction.
model is slightly too rounded and not as flat as it should be. It’s not a deal-breaker but once noticed, my eye was drawn to it. In the same vein, the rear corners of the bunker don’t look quite rounded enough but these are small points and don’t detract from the model.
Hornby has done its usual nice job with the cab interior, though it is difficult to see through the rather limited openings. Pipework and gauges are picked out in colour and the regulator, handbrake handle and reversing lever on the Br-liveried model are picked out in red. Both cab doors are moulded partly open which might be some limited help in trying to fit a crew into the cab through those same limited openings. A really nice touch is the sliding cab roof shutter which matches the finesse of the other details to the extent that it is hard to believe that it is not just moulded on and that it actually moves. All the cab and bunker handrails are as fine, as are those on the boiler, and they are nicely blackened to match the body paintwork.
Below the cab doors there’s nice relief to the tank/bunker balancing pipes, the steps, and the separately fitted, brassed, pipework. The bunker has removable moulded coal and there are matching sprung buffers and pre-fitted vacuum pipes on the back of the locomotive. The bag of parts to be fitted by the modeller comprises just the brake linkage , front vac pipe and the optional front tension-lock coupler.
NEM pockets are at slightly different heights front and back and the tension lock is cranked to suit. This makes fitting Kadee couplers more complicated but, of course, it is only really necessary for the tension locks to operate correctly, which they do.
ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE
There’s not much to be said about unlined BR black livery other than that Hornby’s satin finish looks nicely ex-works and ready for a little weathering to taste. The front numberplate and shedcode are neatly applied in white and look just right. The early BR emblem is neatly executed in full colour and the bunker carries a ‘D’ power code on a blue route restriction disc. Numberplates are neatly printed in the correct Gwr-style
typeface and enable easy replacement with an etched plate simply glued over the top.
CHASSIS
As with most modern models, access to the chassis is a test of nerve but at least on this model it is aided by a good diagram showing which screws to undo. It’s a good job, otherwise you’d never find them! You need a small crosshead screwdriver with a long, narrow shaft and a magnetised tip. The front truck is removed first, followed by a screw above and ahead of it. That’s the easy bit. There are two more screws to be released and these are above the rearmost coupled wheelset and deeply recessed into the chassis, within the tanks. A magnetised screwdriver is a must – without it there’s no way of knowing when the screws are fully undone.
The chassis itself is a good up-to-date piece of design and, to be fair, access to it is by no means the most difficult I’ve come across. In fact, compared to most North American locomotives, it’s a doddle. The chassis block is a black-finished metal casting. The rear part, below the bunker, is slotted to accommodate a speaker for digital sound. The mechanism in this model really shows how well chassis design has developed in recent years, aided by much more powerful small motors. The motor is mounted towards the front of the tank area. It is a neat, open-frame, skew-wound five-pole, some 25mm by 15mm, and immediately behind it is a small flywheel. A gearbox, situated between the middle and rear axles, drives the centre coupled wheelset and the outside rods do the rest, in traditional fashion. Above the gearbox is a PCB with the blanking plate for a standard Hornby eight-pin DCC installation. A ‘pocket’ 22mm by 10mm by 6mm is provided to take a decoder.
The rods are blackened metal, jointed correctly just aft of the middle crankpin. Crossheads and slidebars are metal castings, blackened to match. The cylinders are part of the metal chassis casting, which is no doubt why I had problems attaching the cylinder drain cocks with liquid poly cement! The cylinder drain cocks are separate fittings and if you have very tight curves, you’ll need to leave them off. Otherwise, a spot of UHU should fix them.
CONCLUSION
With those question marks over the firebox top and the bunker corners I cannot quite bring myself to say this is the definitive ‘OO’ gauge ‘Large Prairie’ tank but it has certainly replaced the old Airfix model with one that’s right up there with 21st-century standards. Personally, I don’t see that there’s any point in any other ‘OO’ manufacturer having a crack at the GWR’S large 2-6-2Ts for another 20 years. (CJL)