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Hello everybody, My Heritage 2-6-2 tender loco arrived this morning and I feverishly unpacked it before I left for work. I should've been forewarned because it was a pretty big box, but I knew how big 1:20.3/16mm was didn't I? I had a half built Barclay saddletank on the shelf in my workshop, - and I'd built a few Welsh narrow gauge vehicles for a friend. I'd had that Echo trainset too. Most probably there was just plenty of packing in the box ......... [img]http://locomotiveannie.homestead.com/files/HeritageLocoBlack.jpg[/img] Crikey! - I hauled out this great lump all bound up with bubblewrap and after a bit of tape cutting I found it was just the locomotive, - the blinking tender was still in there somewhere! The tender had to be the slightly smaller bubblewrap lump still in the box, so I lifted that out too and unwrapped it as well. Bloody hell! - I couldn't believe it, - I had this huge locomotive and tender sitting on my bed all shiny diecast copper plated boiler and all. Suddenly the all the '0' gauge locos on the 1/2 built layout in my bedroom looked like 'N' gauge. If I'd had any 'N' gauge it would've just plain completely disappeared from sight. Wow, - so this was 'G' 1:20.3 scale, WOW! As I sat and studied my wonderful new loco I was a little disapointed to notice that the pilot/cowcatcher had been cracked through in transit, that the boiler handrail posts on one side were broken and the shunter's footboard on the rear of the tender was cracked through as well. Well it had come to me in a cardboard box thousands of miles across the known world, so I guess I should be grateful nothing else was damaged (sigh). I found myself thinking, 'I can make another pilot from either wood or brass. I'm sure I can turn up some better handrail posts on the lathe that'll be better than those cruddy plastic things. That shunter's footboard would be better made from brass with some wood veneer on the visible surfaces .......' Crikey! - I was starting to think like a 'G' scaler! There must've been some kind of infectious viral spores or something in the box ........ Then I realised that it was the physical presence of the loco itself right there before my eyes. The parallel cast boiler was great, most of the later Baldwins that worked in New Zealand had the same kind of boiler. In fact I was dead sure the old Wellington & Manawatu Rly had a Baldwin 2-6-2. Most of the detail castings were acceptable if a bit plain, the smoke stake was a bit naff and plasticy, but it wouldn't be hard to make a new one to the NZGR pattern from sheet metal. Actually if I was going to do that, then a boiler tube***steel plate pilot like the NZGR commonly used in the 1920's would be just perfect. A lot of the gaudy bright work and the overdone red/green colour scheme was going to have to go though. I had ordered a black loco originally, but I ended up having to take this one that looked a wee bit too much like a Christmas tree loco for my taste. Shame the copper finished boiler looks soooooo nice though ...... I don't know if anybody else has purchased a Heritage/Buddy L loco, but I'm hoping that this Chinese made loco will prove to be reliable enough. Strange though it has electrical pickup from the track AND it has a battery compartment in the tender to carry the usual load of 'C' cells (I'm not talking about the sound batteries by the way) Wheels are nice, plated diecast and all that. The siderods seem to be plastic, but are well shaped and detailed and seem to be strong enough for the job. I'm not intending to run long trains anyway, so I think all will be well despite the need for the odd significant grade to get the track layout I want. I think there needs to be a warning on the boxes 'G' scale stuff comes in though, - something like, 'BEWARE 'G' SCALE LOCOMOTIVE. HIGHLY ADDICTIVE' . Annie
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