Hornby (Streamlined) LMS Coronation Class Review – A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1

The creation of a Loco Model Reviews Page. has proven to be very popular and as a result, and so there will be two more reviews completed by the end of the week to bolster this page to make it a more comprehensive resource for locoyard followers.

So without further ado, here we have part one of a tale of two cities!. We start with a review of Hornby’s 00 scale rendition of Stanier’s streamlined Duchess class; 6235 City of Birmingham.

Class: Stanier Duchess/Coronation Class 4-6-2

Use: Express Passenger

Region: London Midland and Scottish

Era: 1937 – 1949

Preserved examples:

Streamlined Condition:

6229 Duchess of Hamilton – National Railway Museum York

Non Streamlined Condition:

(4)6233 Duchess of Sutherland (never had streamline casing) – Working mainline condition owned by The Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust, based at Midland Railway Butterley
(4)6235 City of Birmingham (previously streamlined) – ThinkTank, Birmingham

Manufacturer: Hornby

Motor: 5 pole Loco-drive

Power: Heavyweight

DCC options: none on early versions, 8 pin dcc ready and sound on non-streamlined versions

Locoyard Review

Detailing:

4/5

No picked-out cab details (below) or opening cab roof. The motion/connecting rods are good, blackened representations. As you’d expect it has handrails and lamp irons and the riveting looks good; not that I’ve counted them though!

Outline/Looks: 4.5/5

The shape is excellent and the powerful poise of the prototype is captured well. More recent versions look better than the version illustrated as they have a fixed rear truck, however all versions suffer from a “skateboard” front bogey (below).

The tender is streamlined and it really looks the part (below).

Finish/Decoration:

5/5

An excellent finish, the red and gold is stunning; whilst the blue with white stripes are also very impressive.

Running Qualities:

4.5/5

Pick-ups aren’t perfect despite being on every wheel, but it is smooth, quiet and reliable on the whole.

Relative Power:

2.5/5

The prototype is big and very powerful, whilst the model is adequate without being exceptional. It slips a little with 5-6 carriages around Locoyard’s tight 2nd radius circuit. Unfortunately this means that there is a power gap between the 8P rated prototype and the model.

Specification:

4.5/5

Cab detailing is not as good as more modern models. If you’re not confident at using a soldering iron and are a DCC user, you must be sure that you purchase a DCC ready/fitted version, as early models (such as the one illustrated) were not DCC Ready.

Value:

4/5

Can be picked up quite cheaply for a large model secondhand as it has been around for a while. It isn’t fully up to date however, and you can pay a lot for a new version. Try not to spend more than £80 if you can help it as there are better models around for £100+.