Heljan class 47, is it really over width?

Hi, I was talking to one fo the reps on the Heljan stand at Warley last saturday, and they had their new class 33's on the stand. I ased him if Heljan had managed to make these the correct width this time, when he retored indiegnantly that it was the famous review in Model Rail that was wrong, not Heljan.

He told me that they had written to Model Rail contesting the review and apparently Model Rail conceded thet the review was indeed wrong. This is one of the main reasons why I have not bought a Heljan duff.

Does anyone have any opinions?

Cheers,

Rob.

Reply to
Robert Wilson
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Well, I have some figures. According to

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, a class 47 is 9ft 2in wide. At 4mm to the foot, that should scale down to

36.6666mm (umm, I think . . .) on the model. So the question now becomes . . . . how wide is a Heljan 47 ?

Cheers, Martyn

Reply to
M Roberts

At the time of the 47s release in 2001 some of the guys from DEMU measured an actual loco (not an easy task I seem to remember) and concluded that the Heljan 47 was over width. The details might still be in one of the yahoo group achieves (I can't remember which was the active group at the time). The review in the DEMU magazine at the time states the body width as 8' 9 3/4" or 35.25mm. The same review measured the Heljan 47 at 36.6mm. The conclusion at the time was that Heljan had used a dimension form one of the famous "drawings" rather than an actual loco.

Nigel

Reply to
Nigel Emery

rather

Hmm, I would not be at all surprised to find that the DEMU group made an error, does not their suggested width make a Class 47 wider than a class 55 (8' 9 3/4" against 8' 9 1/2") - and the 55's were about was wide as things could get IIRC? Perhaps they included the cab side grab handles in their calculations!

Reply to
:::Jerry::::

"M Roberts" wrote

The

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website is owned by Colin Marsden. Wasn't he responsible for some of the diesel drawings, the accuracy of which have been questioned?

John

Reply to
John Turner

Well just maybe the people (DEMU) who cared enough to measure the loco got it bang on. I have the BR diagram book in front of me and it states quite clearly that the 47 width is 8'9 3/4" over the body and 9'2" over the handrails.

As for Deltics being "about as wide as things could get", a quick check shows that classes

15,23,24,25,26,27,33,35,37,40,42,43,44,45,46,47,50,52,53 were all wider.

Marsden & Fenn quote only one figure (9'2") for the width of the 47 and maybe that is how the HJ 47 ended up at 36.6mm. And of course that is only 1.35mm too wide and not the famous 2mm often quoted. Also, don't forget that should be compared to the error in the wheelsets which are some 3mm or more too close together.

Cheers Simon.

Reply to
Simon Harding

It's slighlty more complicated than that. You have to follow the series of articles Nigel Burkin wrote in BRM to understand the amount of work needed to get the body width looking write. Essentially the chassis is overwidth which makes the body look wider than it really is. A truncated version of the articles can be found here:-

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(kim)

Reply to
kim

the + 1.2 or whatever ml over width did not bother me that much, I wish i was only 1.2 ml over width! I was more disapointed to find it was not a diesel but Electric!!

Still, fit one with a South west digital sound chip and you soon forget.

Reply to
Piemanlarger

Oh no it can't!

MBQ

Reply to
manatbandq

Sorry, is that over 'handrails' (max width) or bodyside width?

Reply to
:::Jerry::::

"Piemanlarger" wrote

Pies?

Oh shame on you Simon - have you not done that minor bit of detail exchange?

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Doh! Thanks.

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(kim)

Reply to
kim

As I remember the actual discepency was 4mm, not 1.2 which is proportionately greater than the 10mm discrepency in length of Lima's much maligned Deltic. The work done by Nigel Burkin (

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) helped to improve the overall appearance of the Heljan but did not correct it entirely.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

"kim" wrote

The discepancy was quoted as being between 1 & 2mm depending upon whether or not the excess flashing had been removed from the cast chassis.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Was not part of the problem that the sideframes were set in very close to the wheels, so that the body seemed even wider? Brian

Reply to
BH Williams

"BH Williams" wrote

Yes, but this was modified on later releases.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Which surely makes it _worse_?

These sort of things show up in oblique lighting, when you compare the model with the prototype in terms of where the shadows fall. This is where unemotional engineering accuracy meets artistic impression and gets shown up unerringly.

Cheers, Francis K.

Reply to
Francis Knight

"Francis Knight" wrote

All exacerbated by the under-scale width of OO-gauge wheelsets and track.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

That's the one.

Oh. Umm, don't know, never heard of this, but I'm only recently returned to the hobby.

A brief Google returns most sights quoting the 9' 2" figure, but this one

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gives us a figure of 8' 9¾", which results in a figure of 35.33mm for the bodywidth.

Cheers, Martyn

Reply to
M Roberts

One other problem is the cab interiors cause the sides to bulge, trimming down the width of them as well as the mould lines on the chassis makes a bit difference to the appearance. It may be overscale but much of the too wide judgement is probably based on people being too used to the Lima 47 which too narrow.

Mike Parkes snipped-for-privacy@mphgate.removetoreply demon.co.uk

Reply to
Mike Parkes

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