There are some models that just ‘do it’, and the past week or so has had me just enjoying the Accurascale class 31. It’s funny how those connections work, 31’s aren’t the glamorous express, high profile engines, but almost the polar opposite.

The fact that it’s a ‘dull’ locomotive isn’t really an issue, because the character is captured so well.

The Bachmann and Hornby class 08’s also have it, even if Bachmann’s original version needs a bit of magic wafted across it, and if you’ve got an early Hornby ’screamer’ there’s potentially a gearbox rebuild and lube waiting for you.

I think for me this connection has two links, one the familiarity of the prototype, I saw 31’s every day, and two, the desire to see them. I rarely saw an 08 or similar, a shunter at Welwyn Garden City yard was really unusual, and meant trying to sneak into the yard to see it. I can remember seeing a Hymek on the East Coast Mainline, or rather, I think I did. It would have been so, so, unusual though, and the Triang model lit a flame for them with me.

Heljan’s model above is also one of those captures, and I found recently a picture of a Hymek at Cambridge that had visited on a special or charter. So there’s just the tiniest possibility that I actually saw it if it routed via the ECML. Another of those everyday locomotives that meant relatively little at the time.

Peculiar then, that these prototypes and their respective models really resonate with me, which is simultaneously odd, and cool…