The Hornby Class 31 270 (Weathered look)

Having a fair number of Lima class 31's and even two of the Airfix models I was not going to buy a Hornby one.

The fairly high cost saw to it that I did not weaken, well until now that is!

A well known shop had a sale and 31 270 in BR Blue with weathered look was on offer at a very attractive price.

Hornby have done another great job, lets have a look........

The weathering has been done to just the right degree, this loco looks the part! very much how I remember them on the Bristol to Portsmouth trains in the 80's

The detail on the bogies is very impressive with speedo cable all well modelled and crisply presented.

One odd feature is the coupling mount that Hornby have used! its attached to the underside of the chassis and not the bogie! it also has a pivoting mechanism that will maintain close coupling.

I found I needed to add some oil to the surface to get a gliding action.

I decided to only fit the full supplied pipes and detailing to one end of the loco, the above picture shows the limited detail fitted to the tight lock end.

Here is the fully detailed end, looks good doesn't it.

Looking into the cab we can see the handbrake on the rear wall.

Marker and tail lights are really well done

Now what about that fan????

Its very well modelled and looks great but there is something special about it? It actually rotates when you run the loco! The only way to show you is with this short low quality video clip!

Having seen that why not have a look at 31 270 in action