Hornby Railroad Plus Class 67
◆ GAUGE ‘OO’ ◆ MODEL Hornby Railroad Plus R30184 Class 67, 67023 Colas Rail Freight ◆ PRICE £96.99 ◆ AVAILABILITY Hornby stockists Web www.hornby.com
One of Lima’s last – and best – Uk-outline locomotives was the Class 67, introduced in 2003 just before the Italian manufacturer collapsed. Unsurprisingly, when Hornby acquired Lima’s tools shortly afterwards, the ‘67’ was one of the first models to be released in the famous red boxes.
Despite a muchimproved, all-new
Class 67 appearing in Hornby’s range in
2012, the former Lima model has now resurfaced in the walletfriendly Railroad range. Three liveries are currently available: ‘Royal’ DB silver, DB red (as part of the Red Rover train set, R1281M), and Colas Rail Freight livery, as reviewed here. Due later this year is 67005 Queen’s Messenger in DB’S Royal Claret.
Each of the ‘67s’ comes under Hornby’s Railroad Plus banner, featuring a higher detail and livery specification than regular Railroad locomotives, with a slight price increase to match.
The paintwork on our sample is excellent, with a pair of nameplates supplied for customer fitting. The ex-lima tooling captures the prototype well and the basic lighting arrangement has been retained, with just the lower headlights working and no tail lights. The body unclips easily, to reveal the 8-pin DCC socket and the biggest alteration from the original tooling – the loss of the centrally mounted motor with twin flywheels and cardan shafts driving all four axles.
The mechanism was one of the best things about those old Lima ‘67s’ but, no doubt with an eye on keeping the price down, Hornby has replaced it with the ‘standard’ Railroad enclosed motor bogie. A pair of traction tyres is installed to the powered axles, with extra power collection from the unpowered bogie. Nonetheless, performance is good with smooth running and a decent amount of haulage power available. The trailing bogie might benefit from a smidgen more vertical play, to compensate for uneven track or sudden changes in gradient, although our sample performed well under test.
The detailing bag, featuring alternative valances and bufferbeam detail, is a welcome inclusion and the tension lock couplers are easy to remove, if you so desire.
Side-by-side with Hornby’s ‘high-spec’ version (below left), the differences are visible but, in terms of overall character and finish, there’s not much between them. It’s always good to see new ‘budget’ level models coming on stream, in colourful modern liveries, and the former Lima ‘67’ still has plenty to offer. (GD)
When Hornby acquired Lima’s tools, the ‘67’ was one of the first models to be released in the famous red boxes