Hatton’s ‘Warwell’ bogie wagon
SCALE ‘O’ gauge MODEL Hatton’s H7-WW-709 50t ‘Warwell’ MODA9557, MOD green; H7-WW-707 50t ‘Warwell’ ADRW96501, BR Engineer’s yellow PRICE £85.00 AVAILABILITY Hatton’s Model Railways, 01517 333655, www.hattons.co.uk
Chris Gadsby looks at Hatton’s ‘O’ gauge ‘Warwell’, but will military modellers salute its success?
Hatton’s announced plans to produce the 50t ‘Warwell’ bogie wagon in both ‘OO’ and ‘O’ gauges back in December 2016 (MR229). The ‘OO’ model arrived during last summer (MR237) and now, some seven months later, here’s the ‘O’ gauge version. Hatton’s kindly loaned us two: one with the original diamond frame bogies in BR Engineer’s yellow, and a refurbished example with Gloucester GPS bogies, in Ministry of Defence olive green. It was the ‘OO’ version’s weight which made the biggest impression and as you might imagine, this ‘senior scale’ rendition requires some serious muscle power to lift from the box. Made predominantly from die-cast metal and weighing in at just over 750g, this wagon is not to be handled lightly (pun entirely intended), and it’s a clever move by Hatton’s to keep the weight high; even in ‘O’ gauge, lightweight wagons can be prone to derailing. Each ‘Warwell’ is secured in its packaging by a lug on the plastic inner sleeve. This lug slots into an aperture on the model’s underside to prevent movement in transit. Instead of a bag of extra parts, the Warwells come with a piece of moulded plastic planking to fill the aperture and thus complete the underframe detail. It’s easy to fix it in place, even temporarily. Comparing the two wagons, our attention was instantly drawn to the MOD version over the BR Engineer’s yellow. That’s not to detract from the latter – it is still a great model – but the extra printing on the
The handbrake wheels on both bogies and the bright blue springs would instantly capture attention on any layout
MOD version takes it above and beyond.
ATTENTION GRABBER
In addition to the warning signs and lettering, the handbrake wheels on both bogies and the bright blue springs would instantly attract attention on any layout. As you’d expect, the Warwell compares very well to published photographs and drawings. The rope eyes either side of the deck are, just like the ‘OO’ model, present. If we were to really nit-pick, the topside planking should continue for a few planks up the slope on each side in order to protect the deck from tank tracks. Strangely, the MOD version appears to have a darker shade of green than
that used on the ‘OO’ model. The sprung buffers, which have different heads depending on the era, are pleasing to the eye, but on both the models we were supplied with, one buffer had a tendency to stick in, and required a little persuasion to pop back out. On our test track there were no problems. Both wagons were easy to place on the rails and had no issues negotiating points or slight curves. However, care must be taken with the screw link couplings; if you leave them as they are straight from the box they drag on the track. This isn’t a problem when they are coupled, but make sure you hook the trailing coupling to itself or you may end up with it catching on a point tie-bar, as ours almost did. Our biggest criticism focuses on the paint finish of the Engineer’s yellow model. On our sample, the black undercoat shows through the yellow in patches, while one of the buffers had a prominent paint chip on it. Also, one of the loops was missing on the screw coupling at one end, so we could not couple the wagon to anything else. These may well only be issues with the sample we received, but it would certainly be worth checking a Warwell before you buy. Despite these very minor issues, this is yet another high-quality offering from Hatton’s and it fills a gap for ‘O’ gauge military modellers. Also, at just £85 for an ‘O’ gauge wagon, it’s really good value for money.