What A Hunny! - Decorated NIR Hunslets Revealed!
No sooner had we announced that our next locomotives for IRM would be the utterly distinctive and characterful NIR 101 Class "Hunslets", that we already had progressed to decorated samples and they have now landed with us for assessment!
We have some minor amendments to make which we will go through below. But first, let's feast our eyes on some proper Hunnys!
Quite tasty, right?
We're so thankful to the Ulster Folk And Transport Museum for allowing us access to the Hunslet so we could scan and measure it up to bring you this model. If you haven't been to Cultra, make sure you put it in your diary. It's a great day out as explained by Clare Ablett, the Transport Curator at the museum.
Of course, this is just the next step in the development process as we work toward creating the finished models you will receive. We have improvements to make at this point too, which include the following:
- Improve paint application on GSM aerials.
- Improve operation and alignment of sprung buffers.
- Factory fit drawhook, and separate couplings into accessory bag.
- Allocate accessory items to each SKU.
- Improve manufacturing process to eliminate ejection pin marks.
- Improve casting process on chassis block to eliminate odd areas of rough casting.
- Improve paint coverage on MU fittings.
Want to know more about the project? Check out our video with Hunslet Project Manager, Paul Isles, below!
Overall, we are very pleased with progress so far, and the above has been fed back to the factory already with these amendments now well under way. Production is due to begin just after the Chinese New Year break in spring 2025 with us still on course for a delivery date Q4 2025.