Darth Vader

I picked up mine at the post office today (Victoria Australia), very impressive beasts. Well worth the wait Was very surprised at how heavy the box was.

The Hornby Class 60 has on my layout out performed any of the other Hornby products when it comes to pulling power. Cheers Manfred

I ordered the gunpowder vans from Kernow Model Centre. They have all the Rapido UK items listed on their website including the Titfield Thunderbolt items. Cheers Manfred

Maybe Rapido could actually finish off the gunpowder wagon that they were going to produce.

If your oven cleaner is in an aerosol can, then check to see what propellant is being used, most propellants are LPG, which is a hydrocarbon and will attack the plastic. I assume that when you say restore, this means you would like to keep any painted surfaces intact and not clean the model to bare plastic. Most paints used in Tri-ang models are fragile in that they can be removed with methylated spirit. This will not affect the body but will ruin any painted finish. So beware. Whatever method you choose, I would recommend testing it on some Tri-ang model that if ruined will not be the end of the world.

Typical of survey producers, they don't get the end user to try out the survey to find out if there are bugs or things that don't work. If you put out a survey that is flawed then the results will be meaningless.

It would appear that Horny have released both types. R4899 and R4900 are the later versions of the clerestory coaches with the printed sides and Dean bogies. R4913 and R 4914 are the old Tri-ang short coaches from the 1960's

The ones fitted with the Dean bogies were a much later tooling that Hornby produced in the late 70's or early 80's and are totally different from the ones referred to in the original post. If you Google "Hornby clerestory coaches" and then select images you can see that there are two very different mouldings.

These coaches are from tooling that dates back to the early 1960’s and are therefore quite rightly part of Hornby’s Railroad range. This is aimed at the budget end of the market. I would suspect Hornby are trying to squeeze a few more quid out of a really old tooling. No point in fitting a NEM pocket unless you intend to switch couplings. You will need to snip of the awful angle iron that is the coupler moulded to the bogie. As for Kadees, the best option would be a 146 fitted to the body. It will require some packing behind the buffer beam to allow attachment to the body. This will allow for the coupler box to fit snuggly against the buffer beam and the shank will be long enough to clear the buffer heads to avoid buffer lock. This all depends on how tight the curves are on your layout. If the curves are too tight for a 146 then the next option would be to fit the 146 coupler into a 252 coupler box, this will extend the coupler head out a little further but still keep the couple box snug against the buffer beam.

As Bachmann have been re-tooling their older coaching stock, my guess would be a re-tool of the Mark 1 suburban coaches. From a manufacturing point of view, a class 104 would make sense, as the tooling could also include a the front end for a class 110, which had an identical body but was fitted with the 4 character head code box.

The cement truck that could be filled directly from a presflow wagon as in the attched link. http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=British%20Transport%20Commission&objid=1996-7038_BTF_C5_41

First let me say that the selection of a coupler is a modellers own personal choice - not for me to judge. While not a fan of the tension lock coupler I can see why they are used by manufacturers. They are reliable and rarely uncouple. The only issue is when you try to mix the different types produced in the past with the modern slimline ones. As for the NEM pockets, it’s not always a simple matter of plug and play. Each manufacturer does not seem to understand that ‘NEM’ is a ‘standard’ and needs to be manufactured conform to the standard. No end of times, has different rolling stock (from the same manufacturer) had NEM pockets that are set at slightly different heights or set back too far or not far enough from the buffer beam. Quite a lot of NEM pockets have too much slack and the replacement coupler sags. Most time for me, it’s out with the xuron cutter to chop the mounts off and fit the desired coupler straight to the body at the correct height. It usually works out quicker that trying to fettle the NEM pocket to get it at the right height or position. The other pet hate of mine is magazine reviews that state the item has a NEM pocket, but never fit another coupler to see if it works properly.

Hi Dave Thanks for the reply, just committed to 17. Cheers Manfred

Just checked the crowd funded web page. There are wagons listed as 'BR Grey', but there is no mention of numbering, either pre or post TOPS. I like the idea of being able to but 17 wagons each with a different number. It's about time the UK manufacturers woke up to this concept. Local manufacturers here in Australia have being doing multi packs for years and they sell out very quickly. If they are TOPs then I won't bother. Don't want to place an order only to find that I have to renumber the lot to pre TOPS. Dave could you confirm the numbering, pre or post TOPS. Cheers Manfred

Tried looking for these, but the website does not even list Dapol as a brand. Tried the search function , but that did not get a result either.

The problem with buying Bachamann in Australia is that the local model shops have to buy from an importer/wholesaler who has sole rights to the Australian distribution of Bachmann models. This kind of monopoly leads to the sort of price gouging that we see in Australia. Local shops cannot buy direct from Bachmann so there is an in built extra cost imposed by the wholesaler. Most modellers that I know buy directly from the UK for this very reason

Kadee as modified and inserted into the NEM pocket - now at the correct height. The pony truck has a large amount of side play that makes the Kadee off centre at times and unable to couple up. My solution was to pack the axle with Peco fibre washers cat no R-8. It took 7 washers on each side of the pony truck to stop the side play. Edited to fix spelling!

To do this would require cutting way one of the supports for the brakes on the pony truck. My solution was to use a #146 shank and file the end until it fits in the NEM pocket. I added a some packing to make it a tight interference fit, Once the aliginment and hieght were correct, a dab of Araldite to hold the coupler in place. Will find out tomorrow whether it works, after the glue has hardened fully.

I received mine on Tuesday. The model is superb and arrived in Australia with no damage. The pony truck brakes are made from a flexible type of engineering plastic, so they can take quite a bit of rough treatment. When I went to put the tension lock couplers in the spares box, I noticed that they were cranked. (sound of alarm bells ringing) So my only criticism is that the NEM pockets are the wrong height. This is an issue for me as I don’t use tension lock coupler, as I prefer the Kadee coupler. This seems to hark back to the bad old days of Bachmann where the model is supplied with a cranked tension lock coupler to bring the tension lock coupler back to the correct height. I would have thought that a European manufacturer such as Heljan, who are familiar with the NEM pocket would have pointed out this error at the design stage. This has taken the shine off the model as I now have to modify the locomotive to fit Kadee couplers, with the now added risk of breaking some of the fine detail.

After listening to a talk from Phil Badger of Ixion about selection criteria for new models, selecting the correct model means that it has to sell or there will not be a next model. It occurs to me that by having a thread such as this, a lot of ideas get thrown into the mix. It’s a little like ‘Brainstorming’ by the masses. Someone mght trow a an idea that actually has merit. A decent steam breakdown crane, the type made by Hornby Dublo, but to today’s high standard. A J50 0-6-0t For sheer novelty value - GT3 Pie in the sky - An LNER Quad Art Edit - All to 4mm scale

I have a Heljan western, but I am going to sell it as the Dapol one suits me better. The add on detail is easier to apply on the Dapol model and the brake gear is better as well. The roof detail of the Heljan model has see through grills and better detail. The cab roof shape of the Heljan Western never really bothered me as the model was not destined for a show case but was run on my layout. When viewed running on the layout the Heljan Western was at a distance of around a metre which equates to over 200 feet if veiwing the real thing and at that distance the cab roof shape isn't an issue.

A couple of years ago I picked up an immaculate Bachmann class 66 for 30 pounds including postage to Australia. It was listed as a non-runner ex sound fitted loco, so I bought it as spare parts. When looking into why it was a non runner, the person who had removed the sound chip and speaker had forgotten to replace the chip with a blanking plate. So I got a cheap running loco when I fitted a blanking plate.

Great news, I will certainly be getting one. This also begs the question about an LNER Garrett. From memory the LNER Garratt used two class 02 2-8-0 chassis back to back on the insistence of Nigel Gresley, much to the annoyance of Beyer Peacock.

While I applaud the idea. I have wanted a brake tender for ages. Lets not forget that Hornby Magazine were responsible for the Stove R. A model that was not very good. While I don’t blame Dapol, after all they produced a model to the specification that Hornby Magazine specified. I hope this time that Dapol have more of an input and we get a model that will be well received.

Hi Pete After having seen the terrace house shell over the last couple of years, the work you have done lately certainly gives them the wow factor.