cheap Tangos

[Kestrel]

Hattons are selling Tangos for £89 cf a rrp of £184.95, a saving of £95.95.

[nzpaul]

from what I've read about them, wouldn't touch one with a barge pole. No good as a model loco....no good as a boat anchor.....
Might be tempted at £29......but probably not.
Shame really as I wouldn't mind an O2, not sure why Heljan can't do a good steam outline model, 47xx not getting a good reputation either, deisels seem ok. I think I'd rather build an O2 before I bought one though.

Paul

[Bunkerbarge]

from what I've read about them, wouldn't touch one with a barge pole. No good as a model loco....no good as a boat anchor.....
Might be tempted at £29......but probably not.
Shame really as I wouldn't mind an O2, not sure why Heljan can't do a good steam outline model, 47xx not getting a good reputation either, deisels seem ok. I think I'd rather build an O2 before I bought one though.

Paul

What are the problems with them?

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Have a reputation of being a bit delicate and self destructive.

manna

[Atlantic 3279]

Going by the locos in the earlier batch:

Poor design of the valve gear: The rear ends of the slidebars are splayed out from the sides of the loco, presumably to give side-clearance for the coupled wheels on silly curves. The expansion link is flimsily attached to its pivot point and may not cope with much wear and tear. One of the joints in the valve gear is simply in the wrong place and gives an appearance that just wouldn't work on a real loco. If you and all others who handle the loco never touch / squeeze the valve gear and it is all set up "just so" as received from the supplier, you may be okay, or if you are brave enough and have the means you can rebuild the valve gear in a better way.

Crude chimney top on some examples due to poor separation of that part from the moulding sprue.

Definitely non-prototypical combination of tall vertical handrails on one side of the tender and short ones on the other side.

Pony truck wheels apt to keep falling out of the truck time and time again if you ever dare to take them out in the first place.

Rather shallow wheel flanges on the loco making it susceptible to derailment on uneven curved track.

Seemingly unpainted black plastic finish on much of the model.

Very fine motor to pick-up wires, "interestingly" colour-coded, and a novel form of motor mounting if you happen to delve far enough into the loco to find out. By the way, the cab and boiler unit have to come off, followed by the upper half of the chassis block, before you can take the running plate off the chassis. It isn't a conventional separable complete body and complete chassis unit.

There may be other points I haven't remembered, but they are all capable of being addressed in one way or another by the right sort of purchaser, and the greatly reduced asking price is far cheaper than an O2 kit and gets you a complete loco that may simply need TLC rather than landing you with a major building job.

I'm told by one of those who was consulted on the development of the model that it was a long-running and highly frustrating process, featuring repeated delivery of pre-production samples, necessary corrections being pointed out, and then new samples arriving with specified corrections made but new faults introduced or previously corrected faults re-introduced. I get the impression that hopes of ever getting it completely right were eventually abandoned....

[mick b]

Otherwise not too bad

I bought a secondhand one with all of the above faults, for £50.

The Tender rear Coal Plate had a 2mm gap on each side as well as above faults already listed. Cab windows are too deep as well.

After a rebuild and painted, it looks like this.

It hasn't had much use , I have severe doubts, as to how long it will stay in one piece. Their last 47xx isn't much better from what I have seen on the dark side , Triang type lining on the green version , poor quality parts and build quality.

[Bunkerbarge]

Thanks gents, just read another lengthy thread on here on the same subject. It doesn't make good reading. Great shame as I had a Heljan Class 26 for a while and thought it was a lovely well built model.

[Hatfield Shed]

On the positive side. I would say they need to be treated much as a handbuilt brass kit loco. Best put on the rails and left there for operation, avoiding handling. Once run in they go beautifully, pull like heroes and overall are undoubtedly a model of the class. I really like the fine flanges, (just look at the good effect on the small pony truck wheel) and it hasn't affected trackholding on my 30" minimum radius layout. My first O2/3 has been in regular heavy goods employment with typically a 2 - 2.5Kg train behind since purchase when they were first released, very reliable nothing dropped off or broken. Only RTR 2-8-0 capable of this as supplied thanks to plenty of weight built in (there are long gradients on my layout).

Downside undoubtedly the mechanism design and constructional choices, well described by Graeme above. There are significant deviations from prototype on the models, but as ever an owner can correct these if prepared to cope with the construction. It's truly an awkward cuss in that respect. If only they shared the simple construction of their BoBo diesel types which are very good indeed. (I am a post-LNER modeller and Heljan have blessed us with the pilot scheme diesel disaster designs which weren't able to do what Doncaster's products had long mastered.)

But there it is, this is what is available in RTR O2s and from my personal 'half a loaf is better than none' standpoint I will take it. Still hoping for the GNR versions, much more interesting. I have purchased an offer price version as a mule: either for future sparing or conversion to GNR form if Heljan don't go ahead with the O2/1 and O2/2. And the cheap one proved to have an optimally sweet running mechanism straight out of the box, as good as anything I have purchased in OO or HO steam models!

[jwealleans]

I've gone for one of the cheap ones as well with a GNR conversion in view. We had one of the prototype/preproduction ones on Grantham for well over a year and I have to say it performed faultlessly at every show we took it to.

[Atlantic 3279]

Do I / we also remember plastic handrail knobs on this loco? Not the ideal material to survive heavy handling.

[Hatfield Shed]

Exactly, it's a keep your hands off it model! In time I can see myself fitting metal replacements. But I am a slow worker and have many other unavailable items to build first - and freight engines ran with handrails and other pieces on them visibly sporting damage.

[Woodcock29]

Also the incorrect fitting of the motion brackets holding the expansion links which on mine were way too far out. They had to be filed to make them fit at the correct distance.
The material used for the valve gear looks really good but is way too malleable causing the issue with mangling of the valve gear if handled roughly.
In the end I was happy with mine but a lot of effort went into making it look right including fitting new expansion links and modifying the excentric rods, as well as a new brass chimney, new smokebox door handles, fixing the hand rail issues and a repaint. It wasn't until I had finished it that I realised the cab side windows were about a mm too deep.
Andrew

[Pebbles]

My take on the whole issue is that with all the hype prior to its release the model fell short of what was expected. This is now compounded by the commercial fact that as models are now being retailed at significantly reduced prices it is unlikely that another company will produce a 02 in the foreseeable future.

[mick b]

I doubt even if it was successful, that another company would bother making one, its a very limited market as on most r.t.r. productions. The few duplicates made by Hornby and Bachmann haven't been very successful in the past, one version normally outstrips the other version in sales.

I wonder if Heljan will carry on with a Steam range , the recent narrow gauge effort was also a disaster for them. Ben Jones is the UK rep for them now, but I have never seen any comments from him anywhere so far, as to the future productions.

[greenglade]

I wonder if Heljan will carry on with a Steam range , the recent narrow gauge effort was also a disaster for them.

That's a good question....I haven't followed the range so don't know how good/bad they are. I do wonder though, why companies go through the process only to produce an inaccurate representation of the prototype. I haven't mentioned quality as I have no personal experience of the product. Being a Gresley man I was interested when Hattons/Heijan announced their A3 in 'O' gauge, I'm an avid fan of the class and have numerous models of the class in various gauges. However, I was disappointed when first seeing the 3D model and more so when seeing the first production models. It costs a lot of money to produce these models, it costs nothing more to get them right, alas the A3's are wrong on so many counts...

Pete