The Caulfield exhibition in September, 2026 was the opportunity for Eureka Models' main Chinese manufacturer to visit Australia. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with Allic and may even have met him in person when he visited the Rosehill exhibition in 2025.
After attending the Caulfield exhibition over the weekend, Allic motored along the Hume Highway to Sydney where he spent three days visiting his Sydney based customers. Whilst in Sydney he was a guest of Eureka Models and apart from the major get-together with Eureka personnel, it would not be hard to guess what were the main topics of conversation over breakfast, lunch and dinner and just about all other times in between whilst Allic was here.
Up-dates on other projects are covered elsewhere with the project discussed in this blog being the R class re-run that is currently underway at Allics' factory in Dong Guan which is part of the massive industrial area located on the Chinese mainland opposite Hong Kong.
The project so far has involved transferring the R class tooling to the Dong Guan factory and then testing the tooling and in the process checking to see if any tools are missing. This has now been completed without any problems and work has now commenced on manufacturing the tooling required for the new variations being produced in this run of the R class.
This principally involves the oil tanks on R 711 and R 766, dual funnels and power reverse on R 711 as well as long coal bunkers on R 707, R 761 and R 766 in the Midland Red livery.
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The double funnels used on WCR R 711 |
Data packages covering these items have been in place at the factory since the R class re-run project commenced however, one item that has also been part of discussions since the start of this re-run and is now reaching the decision making point, is the question of weight over the driving wheels in the engine.
Increasing this weight has been the number one item on the list of desireables since the re-run started. Much discussion and head-scratching has taken place before finally, whilst Allic was present, the decision was made to completely re-tool the boiler so that a full white metal boiler could be substituted for the injection plastic one used on the first run of the R class.
This will solve the weight issue and whilst the new tool will take about ten weeks to manufacture, this can be done in parallel with other work so that the impact on delivery of the project will be minimal with delivery of all variations scheduled for October, 2027.
A summary of the engine numbers being produced and the modifications underway is as follows:
Engine Type Modifications from Standard Decoration VR black/red striping
(New tooling required) (unless noted)
R 701 Coal VR standard
R 704 Coal VR standard Festival of Britain
R 707 Coal R 707 Ops Long bunker City of Melbourne nameplates
Blue/Chrome number plates
R 709 Coal VR standard
R 711 Oil WCR Rect. oil tank, dual funnels, power WCR blue/white
reverse
R 711 Oil SteamRail Rect. oil tank, loco standard VR blue and Yellow
R 719 Oil VR tender oil
(existing tooling)
R 740 Coal VR standard
R 761 Coal long bunker Long bunker
R 766 Coal long bunker Long bunker Midland red/gold lining
R 766 Oil WCR Rect. oil tank (no other mods) WCR blue/white
R 766 Oil Rect. oil tank,
NSW mods (dumb front buffers)
R 769 Coal VR standard
The quantity of each engine number and variation being produced is largely a guess and some numbers will almost certainly sell out quickly and so as usual, it is highly recommended that anyone requiring a specific variation or engine number should pre-order to reserve that item.
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