Heljan Class 31

I have just received a Heljan 'O' Gauge Class 31 locomotive from Tower, having also made use of their numbering and weathering service.

It looks really good. I now just need to do something about a layout...

More pictures later.

Ixion 'O' gauge locomotives

Ixion issued their brass model of the Manning Wardle H Class 0-4-0T locomotive in the first half of 2012.

I bought mine from Dragon Models at a show.

The model ran very well on the rolling road, with excellent slow speed control.

The only fly in the ointment came when I came to take it apart to check the lubrication (plenty of grease) and to see how easy it would be to wire it for DCC.

There is a design or implementation flaw in the sanding gear/ brake gear. There is a piece of plumbing (ah technical term) under the footplate with pipework running from the footplate to the chassis side, passing under the connection between the brakes. By design the connection is not contiguous, there is a path you can use to move the connection rod through the 'maze'. Unfortunately I did not manage to disengage it (I am also rubbish at those dexterity games with the wiggly wire, the loop and the buzzer) and managed to break the connection to the chassis.  It is not particularly noticeable. The other problem is the sand pipe. It starts outboard of the brake rigging but end up flush with the chassis side, again trapping the brake rigging. While trying to move the sand pipe I broke it off at the brass moulding. It will need to be replaced on both sides.

As you can see, there is plenty of room inside the body to install a 'OO' decoder (it runs at well under one amp, well within the range of a higher power 'OO' decoder).

At the Gauge O Guild Guildex show in September, I bought an Ixion Hudswell Clarke 0-60T locomotive.

This is DCC ready and is again an excellent runner.