lochlongside

The pending Accurascale model prompts me to update here (if going back to the steam age can be considered updating👴) . Memory means I have got to to add their banana vans to my Ratio and HD models. The Van Geest Bros lived in Spalding (their children were my contemporaries at the local School) and I noticed their branded banana vans were quite often loitering in the Spalding yard when trainspotting. Of course I took no photos and no notice of the detail - you rarely do at that age (another missed moment!!) - I do remember the vans were grubby brown and carried a Geest log - not Fyffes who were the big players at that time! For Geest sites look on Geest website - they started importing flowers, fruit and Veg from Europe in the 40s , and then importing bananas from the Caribbean in the early 1950s with ripening centres at Heathfield, Airdrie, St Helens, Spalding, Stanstead, Burnham, Lingfield, Shenstone and Warminster from 1960/1 onwards - I reckon you could justify them en route from Liverpool to all these areas and on link routes in between. There's even a small sepia (makes you feel old just saying it!) photo of some 60s style vans being unloaded if you page thro their history. https://www.geestline.com/history/.

Bit of a seeker after knowledge here as to what I am looking at ..... I have a a query on colour (livery??) I know it is subjective but the 3 wagons described as being in in BR brown do look very dark to me - the ref nos are 5-pls 906007, 906017 and 7pl 907008 - and to me they look identical to the 7pl 907007 described as SR brown (pre-'36) but BR numbered. In my ignorance from the differing description I expected the BR browns to be different to ex-SR brown (guessing here but horribly worn or even possibly more like the Bauxite of the BR livery gunpowder vans even though they are not vacuum braked). I realise BR did not necessarily repaint all non vac-braked wagons into grey immediately on nationalisation (if ever !!) but are these wagons all actually depicting the same condition upon nationalisation. i.e. Are they all actually intended to represent BR style numbered wagons with number applied straight over their previous SR numbers but retaining the same old SR brown livery - in which case why is 907007 described differently ?? I don't have an issue if this is so but would appreciate if anyone (Rapido ??) can clarify.

Just been checking a future P2 delivery on Hornby website - it appears all the P2s (R3983/4/5) have been slipped to Summer 2023 - is this recent??

Hi Jo, many thanks for the tip - Thanks to DCC supplies who sent me two couplings (still waiting for the retailer's springs) I now have a complete working rake of 5 - As a matter of interest I first tried sliding the spring off a pin and onto the longer superglued projection but that had a major fingers/pin access problem, so I then used a scalpel blade just jammed between the spring coils to lift it up and position it onto the same projection and that worked a treat - it then just slotted into position on the other pin again using the scalpel blade to position it.... too easy. I will slide over the bit where initially I thought I could just replace a complete coupling (a really very bad move !!) and ended up virtually dismantling a wagon .....and still failed; but on the plus side I have a great deal of additional respect for the assemblers in the factory - The build is seriously complex and I can see why this wagon is in the £40-£50 category.

Martin, thank you for your photo - obviously the accessories upgrade for the second run justifies the rise in price between the first 5 that I bought and these (newer?) ones - I guess I will have to sink my pride/irritability and buy another set of five so that I can use one of the "spare" springs to complete rake no 1 ! (Might be the only solution to getting that spring !!)

No help on the new batch but a para of warning based on the current batch - I recently (22 Nov21) bought 3 inners and 2 outers and given my experience I am seriously considering whether to buy any more. I had 2 misplaced springs and one missing spring in a set of five wagons. There is no spare spring in any of the five still sealed accessory packs and it is not listed in the instruction sheet parts instruction as being included in the accessory packs. Neither is it obvious from the DCC website if it is available as a spare..... possibly being same as their N gauge coupling spring? In my case I had an unfortunate attack of altruism - in the spirit of keeping supplier costs down I suggested to the supplier that rather than me send the whole batch back or even just the two faulty wagons that they simply send a spring in an envelope instead - the road to hell is paved with good intentions - eventually they assured me they had done so at the end of January but I cannot believe how difficult it has been to get that missing spring..... between Royal Mail who in our area are currently randomly delivering once or twice a week and the supplier (and DCC supplies from whom I also requested a spring because of slow supplier response and who said they would supply) I am still waiting. In an act of desperation I also asked DCC supplies will a Kadee H0 buckeye spring fit - still awaiting a response on that. So to anyone buying these wagons I would say - open them very carefully over a fairly large flat white non-bouncy surface and be prepared to pick the springs out of the wagon packaging - then get yourself a very good magnifying lens and prepare for some serious fiddling to get the little b***** back in place..

What ........ !!!! (McEnroe moment here !!!)

Just to clarify please As per a number of your other models, will there be any difference livery-wise between your version of Boxhill and Rails' version of Boxhill e.g. will yours be a hi-gloss version, or will they be absolutely identical ? Thanks

Try Hornby service sheet HSS276H off their web site - its got an exploded diagram which you can expand on screen until you can see whats what - its what I used to pull the bogies apart - good luck. PS. The white glue masquerading as grease Hornby used around 2008 in their diesels is just awful. I had a Class 56 which had locked up completely while sitting on the shelf -I ended up using pliers and a rubber jawed vice to break the grip of this white so-called grease between worm shaft and the bearings - it was more like Loctite. I cleaned the whole lot out with meths and paper towel and used electrolube and now, like you, I have a smooth running loco pulling 20+ coaches on around 300mA ......as the designers intended.

Quick question - Which/whose track are you using it on - presumably one of the code 75 brands? Just asking before I buy (or not!!)

Hi C - I think you just need to persevere on this - your situation is virtually identical to what mine was a few weeks ago when I had mentally written the money off as a crowd funding "fail".. I followed the advice on this forum - relevant posters are almost too many to mention but they posted at some length earlier in this forum. It would be invidious to pick one out but you can see who they are and in passing thank you very much to all those who offered advice - I could not have come out with a success without it. So to my experience - ....... I found the approach of polite but persistent reasonableness paid off for me. Following card company telephone notification pushback, I first of all registered as a creditor with the liquidators I then reverted to royal mail and sent the Card company an explanatory covering letter and a mass of documentation that covered the key points.... 1. A copy of the payment out of my credit card account 2. Proof this was a deposit for items in excess of £100 (invoice, receipt and website proof) 3. Proof that DJM were bullish on development (newsletters) right up to the point they went into liquidation - hence timescale between payment and claim 4. That I wasn't going to get the items because DJM had gone into liquidation without warning, and that there was little chance of a refund because his debts and assets were disproportionate (Receiver documentation) and therefore I was asking for Sect 75 repayment to be applied There was then a bit of multiple to-ing and fro-ing ( including a card company questionnaire) over the following 4 weeks in which I pointed out answers to their questions were mostly in the relevant parts of the documentation that I had sent them by Royal mail, (apart from having to add that I paid direct from my C/Card to DJM via his Paypal business account because that was the only way at the time we could pay.) The final comment to me was that paying up front for something not yet in production was a bit risky - to which I explained that in the current era of small scale runs for specialist items of limited interest it was now actually quite common in this industry for manufacturers to take deposits to ensure that there was commitment from customers and that some quite well-known national organisations (not a million miles from northern England?) were now doing this. Following this they paid me (some 4 weeks after my initial royal mail letter) - TBH I am still unclear as to whether this was a good-will payment or Sect 75 - the actual wording was hazy but the result was essentially the same - so I thanked them accordingly. So follow the advice of this forum - and for goodness sake do not muddy the waters by mentioning crowd-funding -(TBH IMO FWIW this wasn't really crowd funding as is normally accepted it was DJM taking staged deposits for the final product as he (potentially) achieved milestones). I hope that helps - keep fighting.... but politely !!

Just come across this - (must be plenty like me - occasional accessors !! ) Have entered my 2x Cl 92 deposits. Thank you for that - and progress ?? - well still negotiating with my C/C coy (having got a verbal brushoff - I went snail mail with masses of documentation - response was via "secure Email " !! asking for all the stuff I had sent them via snail mail - I await their response to my cross-referenced response with almost unbounded and eager anticipation :-) )

Good day, I approached MBNA today regarding a Section 75 claim (my payment in CC statement was marked Paypal *DJModelsLtd - as I expect several hundred others were) ready with all your advice to date (Thank you for that - most helpful) - and they initially said they cannnot payout until the company is formally liquidated, but in the subsequent discussion also said they basically needed the documented answer to 2 Qns: 1. Is there any likelihood of the product being delivered 2. Is there any likelihood of the deposit being repaid. I have emailed CG-Recovery with these two questions explaining why I need the answers - and also suggested that they could save an awful lot of bother if they put the answers up on the DJModels website as it will save us all flooding them with Emails. I await the response with bated breath but I guess that when presented with the probably unpalatable answer the CC discussion will then move onto the Paypal reference !!

Hi Damo666 Thank you for that - it really was most informative. Much appreciated as I had mentally written off the deposit but now..... Can you just clarify/confirm before I go down what is hopefully the same route - I and probably several others who paid Cl92 deposits at the same time as you (Jan/Feb 2017) will have paid by credit card but at that time DJ Models only had a Paypal account - and many of us I guess would have received a receipt that came via Paypal stating along the lines of the following ..... You sent a payment of £60.00 GBP to DJModels Ltd..... Dear xxxxxxxx, This charge will appear on your statement as payment to PAYPAL *DJMODELSLTD. etc etc To my (rather simplistic!!) mind this is a payment to DJM not to Paypal - they were just acting as his bank account holder (and at that time there was no other way of paying anyway) - however were you also in this position or had you formalised (possibly at a later date?) the original transaction with DJM such that you had a separate direct transaction with DJM without Paypal as his account holder? I too am anticipating possible pushback from my credit card company (also owned by Lloyds) and just want to get my case prepared in advance.!! (Incidentally I now note some other quite wellknown online model suppliers also use this paypal facility - although they haven't done a DJM.... to date).