◆ GAUGE ‘O’ ◆ MODEL 5601 BR Class 56 diesel electric Co-Co, ‘Large logo’ blue ◆ PRICE £699.00 ◆ AVAILABILITY Heljan stockists Web www.heljan.co.uk

Grid’ fans have been waiting a few years for the ‘O’ gauge Heljan Class 56 to arrive, as it’s been simmering away in development since 2018.

Representing an important prototype from the latter days of British Rail, this latest model has, at the time of writing, just shipped to Heljan retailers.

Production of the real Class 56s was a drawn-out affair, with production spread across Romania, Crewe and Doncaster Works, with various detail and profile differences emerging across each batch.

These variations have provided manufacturers with numerous challenges over the years, with the Mainline ‘OO’ version from the late 1970s offering just a single bodyshell tooling.

Hornby’s more recent version offers more options, while Cavalex’s forthcoming ‘OO’ gauge model promises to cover all bases.

So many tooling options would be a significant financial risk for an ‘O’ gauge model, however, so Heljan has sensibly opted to base its model on the later Doncaster and Crewe-built ‘56s’, namely 56070-135. Eight livery options are on offer in this first batch, covering the key BR schemes of Rail blue, ‘large logo’ blue, original and ‘red stripe’