Dapol 9F running qualities

[Colin Stewart]

Could anyone advise on the running qualities of the Dapol 9F. I am thinking about having another go at N since things have moved on the in the last few years, I am assuming its a nice reliable runner but don't want to make an expensive mistake.

 

Many thanks

 

Colin

[Karhedron]

Could anyone advise on the running qualities of the Dapol 9F. I am thinking about having another go at N since things have moved on the in the last few years, I am assuming its a nice reliable runner but don't want to make an expensive mistake.

Yes it is apart from the first batch which had rather unreliable pony trucks. If you are buying new this should not be an issue. If you are buying 2nd hand then try and find out which batch it came from (the running numbers are not repeated between batches so should be a reliable indicator).

 

If possible try to see the model running first. I had one which had a very slight hesitation every 8 or so revolutions when running forwards but sweet and smooth running tender first. The other one was very smooth in both directions.

 

So try before you buy as they are not all identical and don't forget to follow the oiling and running in instructions. Do that and you should be on to a winner.

[Dr Al]

Could anyone advise on the running qualities of the Dapol 9F. I am thinking about having another go at N since things have moved on the in the last few years, I am assuming its a nice reliable runner but don't want to make an expensive mistake.

 

Many thanks

 

Colin

 

 

The 9Fs have been made in several batches, the biggest being the first (8 running numbers). These were pretty diabolical to be honest - very poor slow running (sticky motor that cogged heavily between poles), they were missing the front pickups. They also had very fat profile wheels with thick deep flanges. The front bogie was of poor design which meant it derailed frequently (on my loco I could not get it to do one lap of the track without several derailments).

 

IMHO Avoid like the plague!

 

The second batch was 92220 Evening star and this is better with much finer profile wheels and a centering spring on the front bogie, together with all the pickups fitted the first ones should have had. These run much better (after running in and relubricating) though slow speed crawl is still not really what it should be. Other 2nd batch locos are 92001, 92233.

 

However, none of the Dapol 9Fs have good haulage capacity - I have 2 second batch locos that both can just about hack towing 30 light Peco wagons (by contrast a Farish Jinty walks off with such a load, and could out haul the 9F no trouble!).

 

So if this is a concern you may want to try a different loco, if it's ok then I'd recommend only buying a 2nd batch model 92220,92001,92233 or anything that's released in the coming years.

 

HTH,

Alan

[2mm Dabbler]

The replacement pony truck is available separately from Dapol. I believe it's available free if asked for politely. That said they do have a reputation for poor haulage power.

 

Michael

[nebnoswal]

The 9Fs have been made in several batches, the biggest being the first (8 running numbers). These were pretty diabolical to be honest - very poor slow running (sticky motor that cogged heavily between poles), they were missing the front pickups. They also had very fat profile wheels with thick deep flanges. The front bogie was of poor design which meant it derailed frequently (on my loco I could not get it to do one lap of the track without several derailments).

 

IMHO Avoid like the plague!

 

The second batch was 92220 Evening star and this is better with much finer profile wheels and a centering spring on the front bogie, together with all the pickups fitted the first ones should have had. These run much better (after running in and relubricating) though slow speed crawl is still not really what it should be. Other 2nd batch locos are 92001, 92233.

 

However, none of the Dapol 9Fs have good haulage capacity - I have 2 second batch locos that both can just about hack towing 30 light Peco wagons (by contrast a Farish Jinty walks off with such a load, and could out haul the 9F no trouble!).

 

So if this is a concern you may want to try a different loco, if it's ok then I'd recommend only buying a 2nd batch model 92220,92001,92233 or anything that's released in the coming years.

 

HTH,

Alan

 

I concur withe the good Dr Al. I rushed into the 1^st batch, not remembering the now long running rule that 1^st batch Dapol locos have issues. I subsequently managed to off load it on eBay and upgraded to a batch 2 9F and Evening Star. Both still struggle 9 or 10 plus bogie coaches, and are outperformed by the latest Farish offerings and also older Poole generation stock. If you want a performing 9F, go for the older Minitrix example. It maybe not be detailed enough or exactly to scale, but at least it could perform like a real 9F! Supposedly Dapol are releasing a weathered example in the near future, maybe by this time it has been rectified.

[oreamnos]

I strongly recommend against purchase unless you can carefully and personnally test and examine the loco before buying it. I purchased an "Evening Star" and I regretted it. I still have it, but never run it and keep meaning to sell it just to get rid of it.

 

The loco runs fine in a straight line, although low speed creep is not particularly noteworthy. Where it all goes pear shaped is on my 11" radius curves. The center driver is made out of a different metal than the other four. I don't know why. But it is some sort of powdered metal that is bonded in a resin of some sort. Very odd and I don't know why Dapol did this. In any case, the electrical pickups run inside the drivers above the axel. They are designed so they bow out from the chassis and contact the inside of the drivers. The are very thin in cross section and, to make a long story short, on my 11" curves the drivers press against them which causes them to literally cut into the resin-metal of the center drivers. The backsides of both center drivers have had large chunks of wheel removed from their backsides as a consequence. The pickup wire buries itself into the the phony metal like a knife in cheese, and has to be extracted in much the same fashion.

 

I know all that sounds nuts but it's what happened with mine and I won't touch another Dapol product, steam or diesel, at this point. That's because I live in California and have no way of trying out and examining an example of a loco before I purchase it. I've had better luck with the Farish locos I've received via mail-order.

 

I do hope you give N a try. It really has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past couple years.

 

Sincerely,

Matt

[Dr Al]

The center driver is made out of a different metal than the other four. I don't know why. But it is some sort of powdered metal that is bonded in a resin of some sort

 

I think it's just plastic.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[Edwin_m]

Not sure why it has a pickup if it's plastic, but perhaps the pickup can be cut off somehow?

[oreamnos]

I am pretty certain the center driver is not plastic but instead some sort of powered metal and resin mix. I base this on an examination of the damage caused by the electrical pickups.

 

The pickups could indeed be cut, but they are one continuous copper strip running from the back of the chassis forward on each side. If they were cut to keep them from fouling the center drivers, they would no longer collect current from the front two pairs of drivers - although that might not be a concern with this loco as I seem to remember Dapol's first batch of 9Fs were (contrary to specification) missing the pickups to the front three pairs of drivers, yet they were said to not have any pickup problems.

 

I have such a low opinion of this loco that I really don't have an interest in spending time correcting its faults, but I do thank you for the suggestion.

 

Sincerely,

Matt

[Dr Al]

I am pretty certain the center driver is not plastic but instead some sort of powered metal and resin mix. I base this on an examination of the damage caused by the electrical pickups.

 

I was reliably told they're plastic. Dapol have already previously said that tooling for any form of metal spoked wheel is too expensive (although Bachmann have proved that they can do it) and therefore all the wheel centres Dapol use are plastic.

 

The pickups could indeed be cut, but they are one continuous copper strip running from the back of the chassis forward on each side. If they were cut to keep them from fouling the center drivers, they would no longer collect current from the front two pairs of drivers - although that might not be a concern with this loco as I seem to remember Dapol's first batch of 9Fs were (contrary to specification) missing the pickups to the front three pairs of drivers, yet they were said to not have any pickup problems.

 

I'm not sure there are meant to be any pickups on the centre set. It sounds more like the pickup strip that runs to the front drivers is not right on your loco, causing it to foul the centre set. If it's still under warranty from your dealer then you should send it back for repair/refund/replacement.

 

I have such a low opinion of this loco that I really don't have an interest in spending time correcting its faults, but I do thank you for the suggestion.

 

It should be possible to get it running reasonably given that it's a second batch model.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[oreamnos]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but a search for an answer to my question of this and another BB was not fruitful.

 

I should mention at the outset that I eventually warmed up to Evening Star.  She turned out to be a a good runner, if not particularly well assembled.  I managed to tweak the pickup strip so it no longer fouled on the center drivers.  Took a bit of fuss, but it was worth it.

 

So I recently bought a 9F from the first run - yes I knew what I was buying.  After my experience with the pickup strip on Evening Star I thought I'd try an early run model where only the back two driver sets had pickups.  (As for the problematical pony truck, I swapped in the one from Evening Star.  Somewhere on this BB someone said they'd put one of the pizza cutter 1st run pony trucks on their Evening Star and it was fine.  I tried the same swap and amazingly it stayed on the rails, too.  Go figure.)

 

So this new 9F from the first run actually is a really good runner.  Ever so slightly sticky motor, but it will crawl nicely all the same and I'm happy enough with its hauling.  But again not well assembled and it was getting no pickup at all from the loco.  On examination, it was clear none of the copper wipers on the back two sets of drivers was actually touching a wheel.  So I removed the base plate and the back two wheel sets, bent the 4 pickups so they all touched the wheel backs (one had actually been GLUED lat to the chassis block!) and put it all back together. 

 

And still no pickup at all from the loco!  I tested the loco with a meter. It was a bit awkward given I didn't want to unsolder the tender from the loco, but I think the loco is indeed picking up, which means the current isn't making it from the loco to the tender.

 

Wire connections on the loco seem OK.  Indeed, one broke and I had to re-solder.  That was fun, trying not to melt the steam injector pipework!  (Nothing melted, but obviously I haven't figured out how to remove the body.)  So this suggests the wire connections in the tender are bad.

 

My question is: does anyone know how to access the area under the tender where the wires from the loco must be soldered to something?  The wires appear to disappear into the bottom of the tender.  I can certainly take the top off the tender but these wires are not visible from that location.  Maybe a more general question is if anyone knows how to disassemble the tender?

 

Or am I barking up the wrong tree completely here?  The loco really runs fine and is a keeper, but with pickup from only the tender it is hesitating on my medium radius insulfrog points and I'd like to prevent that.

 

Many thanks,

Matt

[Dr Al]

Check the conductivity of the wheels themselves.

 

I had a B17 that had zero loco pickup and the wheels turned out to have some sort of insulating coating on them. After a lot of cleaning to reveal actual metal, conductivity was restored.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[queensquare]

 

 

My question is: does anyone know how to access the area under the tender where the wires from the loco must be soldered to something?  The wires appear to disappear into the bottom of the tender.  I can certainly take the top off the tender but these wires are not visible from that location.  Maybe a more general question is if anyone knows how to disassemble the tender?

 

 

Many thanks,

Matt

 

Pop the front tender wheels out and you will reveal little pads where the wires from the loco are soldered.

 

Jerry

[Les1952]

Somewhere on this BB someone said they'd put one of the pizza cutter 1st run pony trucks on their Evening Star and it was fine.  I tried the same swap and amazingly it stayed on the rails, too.  Go figure.)

So this new 9F from the first run actually is a really good runner. 

Or am I barking up the wrong tree completely here?  The loco really runs fine and is a keeper, but with pickup from only the tender it is hesitating on my medium radius insulfrog points and I'd like to prevent that.

 

Many thanks,

Matt

 

It was me that mentioned about 9Fs and swapping wheels across (on my Hawthorn Dene layout thread).  I have four 9Fs - two first batch, an Evening Star and a weathered one.

 

The first pair were track sensitive to start with.  However they both ran on Moorcock Junction at Nottingham and Taunton exhibitions with fewer problems than ANY of the Farish locos with pony trucks- there is a single slip on the front that is at best "iffy" and a curved point that Andy Calvert had re-engineered from a straight one.  Haulage capacity of these is 29 Dapol hoppers, 21 Farish Presflos and a couple of Peco tankers, total 52 wagons- this being two wagons more than the Jubilee I had at the time (now in the posession of Dr Al).  One of these also took 18 coaches round Moorcock Junction- though a Union Mills 4-4-0 started 28 before pulling them off on the end-of-layout curves.  One now has a the centring spring, the other not.   Incidentally the one with the centring spring is the one reviewed when new by Fred Hempsall in the NGS Journal displaying a wonky cab.  It has now been heavily weathered. 

 

Evening Star is exceptionally free running, too free running as we found out at Taunton where it would gaily sail right through the very short dead sections in Moorcock Junction's fiddle yard.  Not tested for haulage.

 

The weathered one has the same pickups as Evening Star but the factory omitted the centring spring from the pony truck, apparently without permission and without telling Dapol.  Also not tested for haulage.  It derails on Gresby, the two with centring springs don't.

 

I've been using them extensively testing Hawthorn Dene's trackwork.  The first batch locos are a little hesitant at one place on the exit fan to the fiddle yard, and the two without centre springs derail consistently if asked to take a left-right point combination (though are OK with left-straight-right on three points).  Interestingly the hesitancy is about the same as a pair of new Piko Bo-Bos I have for Furtwangen Ost (new design) where the one traction tyre per bogie gives a dead spot, and better than the Fleischmann Bo-Bo I have for the same purpose.  Running UK and German does help put thiongs in perspective.

 

My advice is to get the centring spring kit- I'm going to have to get two as I cfan't always guarantee that the two that don't like left-right combinations will never meet one- they can be set up so they shouldn't but no operator is perfect and trains do come back to the wrong fiddleyard road occasionally.

 

One interesting side-effect of the long coupled wheelbase is that the 9F helps find where you have a change of gradient at a board join- it physically drops over summits- a good loco for finding these imperfections to eliminate them.........

 

Hope this ramble helps

 

Les

[oreamnos]

Check the conductivity of the wheels themselves.

 

I had a B17 that had zero loco pickup and the wheels turned out to have some sort of insulating coating on them. After a lot of cleaning to reveal actual metal, conductivity was restored.

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

Thank you, Alan.  That was it.  I removed the second to last axle - it isn't physically attached to the coupling rod - and scraped off what looked like a ton of wheel darkening coating from the back of it and also from the wheel tires.  Voila - loco pickup!  But for some reason only when I push down with a little force on the top of the boiler.  If the wheels of this axle aren't actually touching the rails this isn't visible to the naked eye!  I'll have a go at the last axle next.  I'm not comfortable removing it from the coupling rod (which would make scraping the gunk off easier) but even leaving it attached it looks like scraping the stuff off is doable.  At least re-quartering the wheels of this loco is pretty easy.  I remember I once re-quartered a Minitrix 2-10-0 where all the axles are both geared and also physically connected to the rods.  A complete pain in the backside.

 

As for Jerry's comments about taking the front wheels off the tender, there is brake rigging under the tender axles,  Is there some way to take that off without breaking it?  I can't remove the wheels unless I do that first.  I've examined it and the part seems flexible but it's also stuck in pretty tight.  (I want to take out all the tender axles now not b/c of the loco pickup issue but because the tender wheels are also covered with the same gunk and I want to scrape it off to improve the tender pickup)

 

Thank you to everyone for the help.

 

Matt

[Tom J]

Oh dear. I thought that by now things had improved with this one. I ordered a 92226 from the recent batch. Yet another dog of an engine going back to the shop I fear, and the second successive birthday where my son's present (a Dapol steam loco - he had an 'A4' last year) has let us down.

 

Is the radius rod supposed to move on these locos or not? Either one is jammed or one is loose!

[Tom J]

To follow up, yes it did go back and no, I am not impressed with the replacement, which has got slower and slower whilst running in and seems to have no adhesive weight at all. Very disappointing but no great surprise after the (mechanically similar) Britannias and A4 we've had.

[Elvinley]

The earlier runs of these differed a lot, but if you got a good one they weren't too bad. I found the re-released Q1 to have a lot of problems and after getting it replaced many times, got rid of it.

[Tom J]

Visited the well known Merseyside retailer and tried some others out - it got a bit like Wacky Racers! I settled for a 'least worst' one for poor quartering/concentricity issues and will see if it survives running-in. Dapol have only had any money out of me for some time now because the have made particular prototypes popular with my lad. I will not buy anything for myself for their loco offering any more, to the point of not modelling my own wedding train because I doubt I will get an acceptable 'Hall'!

[Dr Al]

Surprised that you have so much trouble - wonder if there's something amiss with this latest run of models. I've 2 from the second batch and both are fine in this respect (I've improved them in other ways :-) , but quartering always solid).

 

If you really want a 9F and aren't too bothered of the number then might be worth seeking out an older version from the second batch - 92220 unweathered and 92233 (ND-090K) were a couple that I have from this batch.

 

HTH,
Alan

[Tim H]

My 92226 is having problems as well - Runs smoothly enough but the pony truck refuses to stay on the track, always derailing on the exit to curves. (And there's nothing tighter tthan 12" on the layout, and 2'6" radius points are enough)

 

Seems that the sprung pony truck isn't centered properly, and leans to one side when not on the track.

 

Is this something that can be adjusted, or does it need to go back to the shop?

[Karhedron]

Sometimes the pony truck wanders if it is fitted too tightly which leads to it floating above the rails rather than sitting on the properly. Try loosening the screw that holds the pony truck by about a quarter turn and see if it holds the rails better.

[Dr Al]

Is this something that can be adjusted, or does it need to go back to the shop?

 

The spring can just be bent a fraction to center it back up - doesn't need much. If it's not centering properly then that's almost certainly the cause.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[Stevelewis]

Reading all this  makes  me  wonder  why  we  accept  all these substandard  locos?

 

As an N gauge   modeller  from  the  days before  Graham  Farish  produced  N  gauge  I have  purchased items  from  many  manufacturers,  some manufacturers  products  back in  the  early  days  were   very good  ( Minitrix, Arnold etc) some  not  so  good ( Lima) but  obviously in those  days there  was  quite  a  big  price  difference  between  the  good and  not  so  good  A Minitrix  Pacific   cost  around  £7.00   and  a  Lima loco  around  £3.00  ( these  are  not  msprints!)

 

Todays Products  are  mostly  brilliant, but some time  ago  the  decision  was  made   not  to  buy  Dapol locos,  there  were  just  too many problems occuring  which meant they had to be  returned for refunds,

 

So now I find  there  is usually plenty of  choice  from  other  manufacturers  whose  products   are not prone to be  faulty.,

 

Don't  get  me  wrong  this  is  not a Knock Dapol  Post ( their non powered   rolling  stock  is  excellent)  Its  just  a comment on the  fact  that  they  need to  sort  out  their locos.

[Karhedron]

This issue is not specific to a single manufacturer or scale. I asked Hattons a year or two ago and they replied that the return rate for faulty locos for both Dapol and Farish was around 5% which is roughly the same as for 00 locos.