Is It Worth The Price? | Heljan Catfish Hopper | Unboxing & Review

Thanks for watching!

0:00 Intro
2:38 Unboxing
4:43 Prototype Info
5:17 Detail
10:17 Performance
14:01 Ratings
16:05 Conclusion

[dennisneo]

There's maybe $2 worth of materials in that thing. Heljan have catfished anyone who buys it.

[cameronmcilroy]

Always good to see you mix it up and toy around with other gauges in the model railway world!

[joshrussell]

Love your 0 gauge stuff same the detail you can get on the bigger scale is always suprisng to me

[paultolman]

Great review Sam and fantastic to see O gauge front and centre again. I think you are spot on with your comments on price especially if you imagine a rake of 10 of these plastic hoppers costing well over £1, 000. There seems to be some good deals about with O gauge at the moment, I have just picked up some new Dapol coaches with complexed lighting and coupling mechanism for under £100 each and a new heljan Class 50 in O gauge for just over £300, with that in mind these hoppers look insanely expensive for what you get! For rolling stock in O gauge I think i'm going to stick with Dapol!

[Taggart]

The "pressure tank" is the Vac cylinder and the turning wheel is the hand brake. We have the dogfish version irl at Middleton.

[RonCooper-nlpn]

I purchased a Dapol 0-6-0 Jinty when they first came out new for £150. I model O and OO and I have never purchased any Heljan models. Need I say more except that I am 78 and I love your Videos Sam keep them coming,

[samgineer]

I love those shots of your O-Scale stuff going under the shelves. It's almost like watching it go through a tunnel.

[sanspareil]

I wonder if the exchange rate between UK and Denmark causes Heljan to be so expensive?

[GregPalmer]

Catfish side discharge for the ballast shoulder Dogfish centre discharge for in between track

[davidbugler]

Minerva Models are currently asking 42 quid for their exquisite Iron Mink vans, so for one Heljan Catfish you could get three of those.
The Catfish does need extra weight -- either some 'Liquid Lead' glued into the recesses of the underframe, or a couple of ounces of crushed-stone ballast as a load in the hopper.
Perhaps create a separate hinged-plank test bed for your 0 Gauge stock. Seeing how far one end needs to be raised to get a wagon to roll would be a good gauge of the item's rolling resistance. On Gordon's Hill the measure of freedom is the distance run, whereas on the tilting bed it would be millimetres raised -- or I guess angle of slope, if you have a calculator with trig functions.
Love your reviews, particularly the ones for 0 Gauge.

[lukeslocomotives]

5:20 "For lower costs and higher prices!"

- Mr. Birling, An Inspector Calls

[GaryNumeroUno]

A "Crapfish"?

The "turning wheel" 😂 is the handbrake mukka!

The "pressure tank" is the vaccum brake operation cylinder.

I noticed the wagon number on the bodyside has a "4" & "7" in the German style!

They are brake shoes... not "brake pads". Brake pads are on disc brake wheeled stock good buddy.

Cheers from Oz mukka.

Gaz

[Gothix]

I bit the hook and bought one of the Dogfish hoppers in Loadhaul livery. Hattons had them on sale. However, your right. For the price, a good amount of it should be metal diecast. Especially for the sinful price Heljan is asking of these. None the less, I still love it

[lapiswake]

I've been modelling in 7mm for 5 years now, and I still don't have any heljan items. I have RTR items from dapol, lionheart, minerva, 3 aitch, and ellis clark, with kits from connoisseur, peco, parkside, and slaters. I do want a hattons warwell at some point.
I currently have 70 wagons and 5 coaches, but none of them had painted wheels like this one.

[NWRJ_WStudios]

Hello Sam I just got my 1p back, and it works great. Soon I'll be making a short video on it as a final goodbye to my old layout ;)

Cheers Jasper & Willow

[Tombola]

I haven’t exactly seen the real life hopper this scale IRL. But still, it reminds me of my younger days seeing the Hopper workers parked at Port Talbot Steelworks.

[odenviking]

i ve got maklin scale 1:32 and they used to
make all metal waggons in the beginers range.
yes heljan should use die cast or sheet metal.
they even made the fp series locos in tin plate.
sturdy tin plate at that.
👍👍👍🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪

[paulsngaugechannel]

Hi Sam, I have had a few searches for 0 gauge models, making a comparison of what gauge models to go for. I am interested in N gauge, but there is limited availability of different regions etc. OO gauge is great, especially if you don’t want the newer expensive tat. And 0 gauge is becoming better range of available models. Obviously the locomotives range from reasonable to expensive, but rolling stock is not too bad. Especially if you buy second hand, model rail exhibits, trade stands, eBay etc. I personally would be very upset about the price, especially compared to others. But yes the model looks good, but then there’s not a lot to shout about, plastic sprung buffers don’t warrant that price. Luckily I am not going to be going the 0 gauge way, mainly space not available. But great to see you review 0 gauge. Great video Sam. 🎉

[frankmarkovcijr]

It is amazing that so much stuff that is made in cheap labor countries like China and Vietnam are so expensive when they get to the final customer
They make money hand-over-fist and then they give you a poor quality product they laugh all the way to the bank until the customer wakes up and decides to stop getting ripped off by the manufacturer

[lindaoffenbach]

Great review of O again Sam. Although we aren't in such it always does make a well good comparison to H0/OO. Bit stiff priced this perhaps. What it does have going for it is that - to us - this model seems to be much sharper and seriously more looking the business compared to the other wagons in that consist. This one makes them look very plasticy. Although this Heljan actually is plastic, they seem to have succeeded in a spot on tooling, manufacturing and finish we thought. Cheerio.