This Class 37 diesel was totally an impulse buy. It showed up on the website of one of my favourite dealers in preowned British 7mm goodies and I couldn’t resist. While I had models of the Class 35 “Hymek” as a kid, it’s the Class 37 (English Electric Type 3) and Class 08 (Gronk) that are top of mind when I think of British diesels.
This 7mm model came pre-weathered. I’m not sure whether it was done by the manufacturer (Heljan), a retailer, or the customer – but it’s a nice job. It does not have a decoder – but I have one in stock, preloaded with a Class 37 sound package. I’ll install that when the mood strikes.
The Model Railway Show 
A classic British loco. The old Triang (by then, Triang-Hornby) model was the first loco I had that looked anything like the prototype. Mind you, in my youth (I was 5) I thought it was a Deltic…
And yet, several times in the past 20 months, I have had the joy of a pair of them top’n’tailing a weekly excursion passing my house (literally across the road).
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“I thought it was a Deltic”
So many of the mainline diesels looked the same, didn’t they? I assume it’s because of the restrictive loading gauges – but many UK diesels look like they were extruded through bronze dies at the pasta factory. That’s not a criticism though: I do like the look!
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Mind you, two panes at the front of a Deltic, three on a 37 (and it’s bigger, older, brother the 40 and younger sibling the 24!)
Same bogie (truck) side frames as a Deltic as on a 37, though.
My 37 (still called an English Electric Type 3 in the 1970 catalogue) actually had Brush Type 2 (aka class 30 and 31) bogies, as this was when “scale model” meant “vaguely accurate toy” rather than the high quality we see now… (And got an A1A-A1A wheel arrangement at that!)
Those Heljan 0 gauge 37s are very nice, and they seem to have avoided some of the mistakes they usually make when reading general arrangement drawings.
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I don’t know enough of the details of the prototype to be able to count rivets. I just like the look of it as a model – in and of itself!
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Not sure if counting the window panes comes close to counting rivets – my point was, it had a nose, and I was 5!
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Trevor, a nice loco, always liked them in the large logo. They were stalwarts here in the Highlands for many years.
Colin
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I think the large logo livery was designed with them in mind. A late friend who claimed to have contacts on BR reckoned this to be true, but he was inclined to flights of fancy so I would need that verifying no matter how much I wanted it to be the case!
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“as a kid”. Have you ever written about your first model, or when you started in the hobby? That would be an interesting read.
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Interesting idea. I have written about having British 0 scale toy trains as a kid but never specifically talked about a “first model”. I’m not sure I could remember the first one: I was playing with trains pretty much from the point I exited the womb…
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Well it does have character. I can see where Shining Time Station gets inspiration.
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For me, too, the Class 37 and Class 08 locomotives are synonymous with British diesels. I have both in OO, liveried in green for the pre-blue BR era. And though I think the Class 08 is an ungainly looking creature, the Class 37 has beautiful proportions and design. And your model draped in the bold BR logo scheme fits the engine to a tee.
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