Having obtained one of the Hattons original class 66’s, I have found some very practical improvements made to the tooling by Accurascale. It is certainly easier to remove the body without being terrified of breaking off any of the detail. Of course although well documented already, improvements have been made to the rotating axle ends which are part the class 66 American DNA. These have evidently been pressed on to a longer stub on the end of the 2mm axle and appear to be rock solid. Although it has taken a lot of effort to design in this feature in the first place (well done Hattons for giving it a go!), and for Accurascale to do the re tooling, it certainly is worth it when you see these beasts creeping past with a long steel train in tow.
As a fine scale modeller working in EM gauge, I am a little disappointed that no provision can be made for replacement drop in axles. These have of course been made available in EM and P4 for at least the Deltics and 37’s. Considering the the GM 66 is now pretty well the standard freight loco of choice in this country, it is going to appear on most modern image layouts, including an increasing number of fine scale layouts. We may be a minority, but we do feel it’s worth making the permanent way look as accurate as the new generation of highly detailed models that we are being presented with.
Having briefly mentioned this on Accurascale’s help chat I have been rightly reminded that it would be difficult to justify the cost involved in extra tooling.
As most of us working in the finer scales are pretty innovative, I have been working on my Hattons 66 with a good deal of success. Could I request of Accurascale that for the time being we could be given access to the little axle box end mouldings as a spare part please? I can see them being damaged or easily lost by anyone trying to re engineer those axles.
Otherwise as I already said, I am very pleased with my new addition. Well done everyone.
Yours, Nerdly, Keith Simons😂
