Heljan Duff

A chance visit to Tower Models website a few weeks ago revealed a reduced price on the Heljan BR Blue class 47, and at £325 proved too tempting to resist. I did once promise myself that I would steer clear of the more 'finescale' end of O Gauge, mainly because of the costs and potential for damage when running outside. However that appears to have gone out of the window with the diesel fleet now consisting of my original two Lima 33's plus the Bachmann 03 and now Heljan 47. Pictures will follow, as soon as I've decided upon a number. This is actually trickier than I thought, as although it's a standard BR Blue duff with a black domino headcode box, I can't seem to find an appropriate 47/4 that had such a headcode into the late 80's. The otehr issues are with couplings. The original intention was to stick with the horrible Lima buckeye type things for the time being, but that would essentially leave the 03 and 47 with nothing to pull. In a stoke of slight genius a match truck has been purchased to run with the 03, and this will be fitted with one horrible Lima coupling, enabling it to shunt the other stock as long as it's facing the right way! The 47 has NEM pockets - maybe a Lima coupling can be persuaded to fit into them until I can face the prospect of fitting screw links to all the stock.