ViTrains Class 37 401 'Mary Queen Of Scots'

I have always felt that I have enough class 37's due to a nice collection of Lima models that I obtained a few years back.
However with Lima now gone and activity on my Lima group falling off (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Lima-models/) I decided to buy one and add ViTrains to my groups subject, after all they are Italian and I suspect a lot of Lima influence may be at work there!

I have always liked the livery of the Scottish class 37s and with a Scottish wife I thought I could curry favour with her and obtain an attractive loco to boot :-)

Initially I was quite impressed with the look and feel of the loco, it also ran well albeit with a strange rasping noise!

The idea behind this site was to show off some of the fine details that modern manufactures were providing the modeller in these modern times, however this review is more about the fine details that ViTrains wants us to fit!

I have to say I was quite shocked at the number of parts the modeller has to fit to bring the loco to just a basic standard!

In this photo you can see the various mouldings of questionable quality that have to be fitted, these include: Horns, Wipers, All pipes, Hook, Jumpers, Sockets, Plugs, Snow Ploughs, Steps, and Lamp Irons.

Clearly ViTrains wants to disprove the old adage that you can't get a square peg into a round hole! as some are indeed mismatched,

this led me to coin the phrase "Like a elephant trying to wipe its bum with a peace of confetti" to describe the way I felt about the forthcoming struggle to fit the parts!!!!!

One thing is for sure you will need a magnifying lamp, tweezers, a very steady hand, scalpels and good quality super glue.

Notice the finger print on the inside of the glazing! how personal.
Also notice the windscreen wipers! these were my least favourite part to fit!
They are metal, there is no location point on the loco body for them, they are too long and the glazing is slightly curved so its very hard to get them to stay in place! This should have been a moulding or factory fitted, no excuse!

I started with the lamp irons, these will need to be trimmed to remove the moulding flash and I found this was best done while still on the moulding spur, you will then need to ease the holes on the loco front and try them dry before adding glue.

I found one lamp iron was too short but strangely while most other parts are duplicated with spares these are not so it had to be fitted anyway.

I then moved onto the hook and pipes, this is where the fun really starts! the holes are either a bit too big or the wrong shape or size, careful use of the tweezers and scalpel can sort this out.

IMPORTANT POINT!

Do not glue/fix the end of the jumper as shown here! you will need to unclip it to remove the body!
I then fitted the outer snow ploughs as I do need the coupling, I also removed the coupling hook and trimmed up the hanging down hook of the moulded hook bar to prevent it fouling the model coupling when on curves.

I then started with the steps! naturally the step slipped out of the tweezers and fell inside the loco body necessitating body removal.

I took the chance to have a look at the motor and lubricate the linkages.
It was when I removed the two screws from the PCB (yes just two) and lifted the PCB that I discovered the reason for the odd rasping noise! it was the green wire you can see here rubbing on the back of the flywheel! no big problem to sort.

The steps were not too bad, I found that each pin had to be scraped evenly with the scalpel to get them to fit, pressing on either side of the bogies ensured a snug fit.

Now came the time to reassemble the loco! disaster was waiting for me.

The body is a nice tight fit, however there is no real guides to ensure you fit it properly.
POP

the nose snapped off one end of the loco as the chassis locked into place.
Grrrrrrr, just four plastic pins hold the nose on and these are very weak.
Still you do get to see the red and white LED that forms the loco lighting.

Super glue was the only option after clearing the remains of the pins back.
It does not look too bad now but I could have done without that delay!

When re fitting the body pay very close attention to the position of the lug and notch just past midway of the second fuel tank, and watch the front of the chassis as it goes back in place.

Eventually after maybe five hours (total) of struggle the loco was ready for photographing.
Here you see it on rollers displaying its really rather good headlight and markers!

And again here showing the red marker lights, quite dim but they do show up!

Next we have a couple of side elevations with the loco looking rather good now every inch a 37!

Lastly, we have a close up on the roof fan, I think it looks the part?

So there you have it, I can't make my mind up about this loco, 'Now' it looks quite good, am I happy with the detailing parts? Well no, not 100% because that's not my skill or my chosen activity.
Does the loco run well? indeed it does.
Does it look like a 37? without doubt.

I guess in the end ViTrains have to be congratulated! they have come out fighting, have produced (overall) a nice set of models and manufactured them in Europe thus avoiding the cost benefits of sweat shop China!

All I would say is if you don't have a steady hand and feel unable to fit all the bits then ask the model shop if they will do it for you before you buy the loco!

Happy 2008