Revolution Mike B

Absolutely no need for all axle drive when a model carries as much weight as this one, and it’s strange that people get fixated on it. If anything, it aids traction due to preventing see saw motion. The Deco sample I borrowed pulled 38 coaches on my layout without struggling. It also managed to pull every wagon I had at the Taunton show.

My point is that the locomotive has prototypical lighting and not ‘toy train’ lights that would be too bright by even the most modern railway practices.

Fantastic effort all round chaps. Not many people would take the time to accurately model features of the real thing like raised grills and exact livery colours. Other features that go unoticed such as the light lenses and correct light projection are something never seen on a model of this scale. The removable roof panel is seamless, and the relief on the bogies is something else. You’ve certainly set the bar high for the 60!

Can I just remind folk that Mike H has mentioned several times, when a balance invoice is paid, it automatically generates a dispatch email. This doesn’t mean your models have been shipped, it’s just a glitch in the payment system. Ben, Mike H and Simon are currently packing the TPE sets as I type, but there are only so many hours in the day….and all three of them have a fair amount of other work to do within the business too. Remember….theres only four of us. The orders will be worked through in time and we thank you for your patience. Cheers Mike B

These will only be the ARC version that worked out of the Mendips.

Because we partner ESU for our sound decoders, the 21 MTC interface is more suited to how we’ve arranged the auxiliary outputs. This has been designed for us by ESU so that we can access all of the functions we’ve asked for. The Plux interface does indeed mean just one decoder type but ESU weren’t keen to go down this route, despite them making Plux 22 decoders.

The original announcement was for a Plux 22, but on the website for pre ordering it was changed to DCC socket. The 21 MTC decoder has one extra output which gives us the flexibility needed and is the reason we’ve chosen to go with that interface. Hope that helps.

21 MTC offers greater flexibility over Plux 22. We didn’t announce them with any particular interface, just DCC Socket.

21 MTC interface with two speaker to suit. There is space for larger speakers however you may need to remove part of the interior if you go too large.

To keep everyone in the loop, emailed Joel to ask for the MOQs on both wagon and liveries. Once we have those then he can work out an RRP per wagon. Cheers Mike

Let me be perfectly clear here. The price will be reflective upon the MOQ and what the factory charge Dapol to make them for. Small detail parts will fall off - it’s inevitable. As with any inside bearing bogie, there will be some drag in N Gauge. It’s near on impossible to get needle roller bearings like we would use in OO. To be fair on the O&K version, once you’ve added 0.25mm shims to the bogies, they run very well. I’ve got quite a few now and there’s no issue. Cheers Mike

Last year, I spoke to Joel (Dapol) and asked if we’d see the PD JHAs in N Gauge. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think it would be viable as the O&K ones didn’t sell as quickly as they’d hoped. With that in mind, I asked him if he would consider making some if I could muster enough people to ‘put their money where their mouths were’ and make it happen. As with most things, my day job has rather got in the way so this is as good a place as any to drum up some interest. I’ve not got any figures yet but when I get five minutes, I’ll ping an email off to see what the MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity for those that aren’t familiar) is and we can go from there. Obviously, the lower the MOQ, the more chance we have of making it work, but the higher the unit cost will be. If anyone is seriously interested, please register your interest here (as my friends at Dapol monitor the RMWeb posts) and we’ll get the ball rolling. Cheers Mike

One thing to check is your spam folder. Unfortunately, emails have a habit of finding their way to it! Cheers Mike B

Make up some 10thou plasticard shims. They run a dream afterwards.

One thing to remember with unpainted samples is that every detail looks a lot more pronounced. The reason for this is so that the detail doesn’t get lost underneath the paint. cheers Mike B

For those interested, here’s a brief update on the OO scale units. Just before Christmas, we took delivery of the first EP samples of both units. For anyone who isn’t already aware, the units are driven from one end using a low profile chassis, cardan shafts, universal joints and integral bogie / gear towers. DCC control is via one decoder, and power transfer through the unit is provided by a 14 pin ‘plug and socket’ coupling system. Lighting incorporates day and night time running headlights, tail lights, illuminated destination boards, central door locking lights and interior lights. There is also the ability to turn the head lights, or tail lights off independently, as well as the ability to display parking mode with both ends showing red. There is a sugar cube speaker in both driving cars to enable the sound to be spread out across the unit, regardless of 2, 3 or 5 car formations. Unfortunately, the horn will sound from both ends but we had to make some compromises to allow ‘one decoder’ operation. The speakers are mounted towards the inner ends of the cars which helps to disguise this. DC users have a blanking plate with DIP switches for control of interior lights, head lights and tail lights only. As they both share a common chassis and drive train, the factory only sent the 180 unit with electrical components inside it, and I had this set for assessment over the holiday period. The coupling system works extremely well with the corridor connectors almost touching in a straight line but opening up around corners to allow the unit to traverse Peco radius two curves. It also ran through back to back Peco medium radius points without any issues at all. The working ‘dummy scharfenberg’ couplings lock together well and also allow coupled units to traverse the same radius track as the main couplers. As a first EP, we are very pleased with the factory’s progress so far. The next stage is to amend a few minor things that we’ve picked up and crack on with the painting diagrams. Mike H will have the driving cars on display this coming weekend at Rails of Sheffield, and for those of you attending Model Rail Scotland, they’ll be on display there too. Cheers Mike B

Unfortunately, the ‘big orange connector’ would prevent the kinematic motion of the coupler, which is why we’ve omitted it. You will find it’s very similar to another manufacturer’s front end coupler which provides function over form. Hope that helps. Mike B

When you say “lack of detail around the couplings”, in what respect? Cheers Mike B

It’s that time of year when most of us down tools, eat and drink way too much, and watch constant repeats of the last twenty years worth of TV. Whatever you get up to…..Merry Christmas from me to you.

We’re actually all full time now but as you’ve quite rightly said, there’s only four of us, we wear many hats at once, and we can only juggle so many balls at any one time. Posting out thousands of parcels for example, is very time consuming and evidently eats in to other tasks. Cheers Mike B

Just to clarify on the coaches. The open thirds have two different types of mesh. Diamond and Square, depending on year of build, with both currently running. Bernard has covered everything else. Hope that helps.

We will have some news about the non sound decoders shortly Cheers Mike B

They're wired in series using an 8ohm sugar cube and the 4ohm EM1 giving 12ohms - perfectly acceptable for a Lolsound V5 in a Class 59 which doesn’t need to blow the windows out of your house. Hope that helps. Mike

Hi Folks For those of you that have asked questions, here’s some info on the 66. Our ‘Shed’ uses the same chassis as our Class 59, which incorporates a coreless motor mounted in a die-cast chassis block, driving internally geared bogie towers via cardan shafts. All 6 axles are driven, but the centre axle is slightly sprung which helps smooth out any bumpy track joints (it won’t unfortunately compensate for misaligned track though - we’re not miracle workers!). The model will weigh approximately 105g and kinematic coupling mounts are provided at both ends. All models will be supplied DCC ready (DC) and DCC fitted only, and use an ESU E24 decoder interface. Our sound fitted models use a Loksound 5 Nano decoder, and for those of you wishing to take the DCC ready option, there is a Lokpilot 5 Nano decoder that will be available shortly. RRP for the Lokpilot is yet to be announced but we believe it will be comparable to any decent ‘non budget’ decoder at around £37-£42. Decoder access is via the lift off engine cover and all models come pre fitted with a speaker. Our models have fully functioning, prototypical lighting, as per our Class 59, which will allow for light engine, train mode (some people including us may call this by another name) to allow head or tail light only operation, park mode, shunt mode, day and night time running and directional auto off cab lighting. The lighting arrangements cover original BMAC light clusters (sometimes referred to as IOo) through to present day revised lighting clusters where all four lights plus the top marker can be illuminated. For DC only users, only the head and taillights operate and can be switched on or off via switches mounted on the decoder blanking plate. We have tooled for three different body variations. Original Tier 0 (non low emission), and Tier 1 (low emission or ‘5 door’) London built and Muncie built locos. Various ‘tie down loop’ arrangements have been catered for along with cosmetic swing head buckeye couplers where applicable. There are three different horn grilles, original Class 59, U.K. and European. There are two top marker lights, UK and European We have allowed for both two and three piece cab side windows. There are two bogie types which are prototypical to each individual loco (however some may have been swapped during the course of the locos life) and will be fitted accordingly depending on the era that we’ve depicted the loco. The models will come super detailed at one end. There will be a separate accessory pack containing one blank air dam, one air dam with a coupling slot, a standard Rapido coupling, and some additional pipework if you wish to either detail both ends, or add a coupling for double heading. ‘Revolution Bespoke’ will allow you to pre-order certain models using a base version and have a number / name of your choice (within a given range) added by Rainbow Railways at an additional cost. Full details will be on our website in due course. The decorated samples on display at Warley were hurriedly assembled and painted in order to get them shipped over in time for the show. As was the case with the Class 59, the production process will be tightened up and the fit of parts, and paint finish will be considerably better. We are currently finalising the rest of the livery drawings and the deadline for ‘early bird’ price is the end of January 2024. I’m sure I may have missed a few things but I hope that helps to answer any questions. Cheers Mike B

I’ve had a few questions asked about the loco so I thought I’d post some information for people to reference back to. The original radius curve specified for the loco is 457mm, however, as a light engine, it easily managed 263mm when tested. Despite the considerable overhang and body mounted couplings, both loco and coaches ran through 305mm radius crossovers without issue. We will test again using 263mm but please don’t be surprised if that’s a little too optimistic. At present, there are two versions of the loco. DC, and DCC Sound. The DC version has a blanking plate fitted to the decoder socket. The DCC sound version will have a Next 18 decoder fitted. There may be a DCC only fitted version but that will be for Model Rail to decide nearer the time of production. Access to the decoder is via the smoke box door, and the decoder pcb is simply pulled forward to gain access for those of you wishing to fit non sound decoders. The factory fitted sugar cube speaker is also inside the boiler behind the smoke box door and sits below the decoder pcb. The loco has a glowing firebox, which works on DC and DCC. The firebox doors can be opened and closed by using something small such as a blunt cocktail stick to push a brass lever inside the cab - DCC controlling this was a stretch too far. 😉 The loco is modelled up until 1986 with livery options and RRP still to be finalised. Hopefully that helps to cover a few questions that have been asked. As a further note, The Vale of Rheidol Railway has been very helpful in assisting us and it’s an absolute pleasure to be working on this project. I’ll post another update in the New Year once we’ve had a chance to make some small design changes and carry out further testing. Cheers Mike B