JR_P

Flickr is your friend - get the app; it makes research very quick and easy…. 😉 ! Curiously, it appears that 66001 never had a buckeye fitted, ever…. this was something of a revelation to me because I thought the whole fleet had buckeye as standard, but apparently not…. every day is a learning day 😆 !!! Photo evidence suggests that 66004 gained its buckeye in 2003…. However, I do know the wing mirrors were a later addition - seems to be a fairly universally applied update in 2005…. again, that detail feature of the model as offered won’t be appropriate to a brand new, as-built 66/0 if that is what you’re after…. I imagine the buckeye might be an easy-to-remove detail, but I’d be much more nervous about yanking off the wing mirrors…. 😬

With the official deadline passed and the order book to close imminently, to save people time and in case this is useful to anyone still wanting to order some bespoke EWS 66s, the following are some locos that remain in full EWS livery in 2024…. 66106 66129 66151 (shabby roof) 66160 (shabby patch on roof / upper body side) 66161 (battered bodywork) 66170 66171 66194 66199 De-branded EWS with small DB logos [front & sides] and original headlights; selection is based on longevity in this livery/branding permutation…. 66002 - 2014 (Sep) - 2024> 66023 - 2015 (Nov) - 2023 (Jun) 66053 - 2014 (Aug) - 2024> [note: horn grilles are black, rather than standard maroon from 2023] 66080 - 2014 (Oct) - 2024> 66088 - 2014 (Sep) - 2022 (Dec) [very shabby roof from mid-2000s] To be clear, my research was not exhaustive (although it was exhausting 😝 !) and I discarded several potential loco numbers on the basis of minor livery variations or general shabbiness…. …. but I’ve put my money where my mouth is, cos I’ve ordered from these two lists myself, albeit not all of them…. 🤣 !!! I would recommend anyone wanting to use any of these loco numbers performs a cursory search of Flickr for themselves to ensure the individual loco suits their modelling requirements…. for example, some of them seem to have been fairly geographically restricted for extended periods of time to such areas as Cornwall / West Country or South Wales…. which doesn’t bother me, but would some people…. Anyway, I hope this will help save others some time trawling the internet for validation of particular loco numbers!!!

Thanks Mike! …. clarification must appreciated - at least with a couple more days to spare for research, the wife won’t b completely ignored this evening…. 😂 !

Hi Ben @Revolution Ben - just to be crystal clear about this; the EWS bespoke (which only became available to order on the website this afternoon) still has the same order deadline (ie. end of day today) as all other 66 liveries….???! …. cue mad scramble on Flickr for research and purchasing frenzy on Revolution website…. 🤣 !!! Glad I did my Flickr research months ago and already have my shortlist…. looks like this evening will be spent refining and tweaking before submitting my final list…. I just bought two more bespoke Freightliner 66s this afternoon…. think the EWS bespoke will have to be a 50% deposit, else you’ll bankrupt me…. 😝 😂 !!! cheers, Jake

Just got my pair of 59/0 this morning…. incredible detail and running performance 🤗 !!! Surely a contender for model of the year! Really pleased with the weighting of this loco too. Livery application is excellent and really well executed…. no clogging with paint of the fine etched grilles either, which was a reservation I had about use of such fine etches. The other design aspect that I had reservations about was the removable hood, as per the real thing - I can confirm it is virtually seamless on the model…. in fact, having spent lots of time on Flickr, the removable hood on the real thing is actually surprisingly ill-fitting - the model hood has a much better fit 😉 ! I did have [apparently] two detail parts loose in the inner plastic sleeve; one I spotted before opening and the other I felt hit my foot, but despite scouring the floor, I cannot find it - on the other hand, I also cannot see where on the loco it would have come from either, so I guess it doesn’t really matter…. 😂 ! The part I did notice was the object deflector footstep; that’ll be an easy remedy, so no bother. The packaging is also excellent and clearly mindful of the abundance of fragile super-detailing, the guys have really made an effort to cradle the loco as best as possible. The continued use of a strong cardboard outer is a commendable [and I believe conscious] effort to reduce the use of plastic packaging…. shows the level of thought that is going into these models, as even the packaging is carefully considered with each new model. In conclusion, if you haven’t bought a Revolution 59, why not…. 🤣 ???! Best loco I own - only a Dapol 68 comes close. This also has me salivating for the class 66s I have on order with Revolution…. sharing much of the same design, it will be an incredible loco too, of which I have no doubt; so go buy a bunch of those as well…. 😛 !

Having had a week to mull over this announcement, my conclusion is thus…. At first, I thought the mk3 sleeper announcement was lunacy and a massive retrograde step for the hobby, being as the tooling is decades old…. ….. but having had a week to ponder over this this whilst riding many ski chairlifts, I’m starting to think this might be a commercial masterstroke by Bachmann…. to be clear, I’m only talking about the GWR twin packs…. Anyway, my train of thought is this; a) many people feel the Farish mk3 body shape is superior b) Farish livery application is vastly superior (and the Dapol GWR mk3 sleepers have errors) c) Dapol have missed an obvious opportunity by not announcing the matching [GWR] ‘day coaches’ (yes, I know there is no tooling for the ‘brake’ coach) in their latest batch of local hauled mk3 coaches d) the clear shell+printing allows Farish to correctly portray the ‘brake’ coach (BSO?) e) Farish produce mk3s as ‘money for old rope’ - just cost of production I’m wondering if with a little modelling (fitting interior, swapping bogies from Dapol, fitting NEM coupler pockets) the Farish offering actually makes more sense overall - especially if they can be picked-up cheap in the bargain bins in a few months’ time - even at knock down prices, i’m sure Farish will make money on these. Finally, whilst there is no denying that the Dapol mk3 is ‘next gen’ compared to the Farish mk3, it is also quite apparent that the Dapol mk3 is now itself a generation behind, if (for example) compared to the Revolution mk5…. so my final thought is; perhaps there is a opportunity for someone to release a new generation mk3…. 😜 ???!

I’d take a rake of Hanson - total number I’d purchase would be down to weight and rolling drag…. which we wouldn’t know until they arrived - which makes it hard to judge how many to pre-order…. Generally these days I’m finding modern rollingstock just too heavy to form prototypical train lengths; Farish excepted…. although I notice that even some of their most recent toolings are heavier than they might traditionally have been…. although I reckon a Farish 66 would still easily handle 20 HKA (the HKA being on the heavier side for Farish). From my perspective, the single biggest consideration for purchasing large numbers of a particular wagon is the weight (coaches to a lesser extent)…. if a loco can only pull ten of something, I’ll only buy ten…. if it can pull 20, then I’d probably buy 20 - you get the gist…. I’ve often felt that manufacturers are ‘self harming’ their sales by making their wagons too heavy…. I will say that cost of living is now taking a bite too…. Anyway, rant over - count me in @Revolution Mike B Finally, it would be good if they came with those cosmetic knuckle connecting bar couplings, like came with the O&K wagons…. in fact, I think Dapol should make those available separately, cos they could be used for a variety of modern wagons.

This really helpful page I found recently gives destination blind locations for all variants…. https://news.Bachmann.co.uk/2023/11/product-highlight-n-scale-class-158-dmus/?amp=1 Seems both cars of each 158 say the same destination…. at least, that is my experience with my GWR examples…. rather than destination pairs, eg. Cardiff Central < > Portsmouth Harbour, which would be better…. very minor grumble though….

No, the ‘warming up’ thing is present in all of my 60s (latest batch) and both of my 90s - although less pronounced with the 90s. The 90s top speed is higher too - as you would hope! I do also find that both classes’ top speed is higher on DC than DCC, for whatever reason…. The other loco class that I am aware of that needs to ‘warm up’ is the Dapol 68…. it speeds up considerably and its top speed is probably more than necessary. I believe it is also a coreless motor, so that means that there are coreless motors available that are fast….

I do like the sound of this new piece of kit and I am overdue an upgrade to my deteriorating GM Prodigy Express2…. This thread also alerted me to the presence of the z21 system, which I seem to vaguely recall the existence of, but my current system handset was in better condition then so never really paid much attention! Having moved house recently, my railway room is now in an outbuilding beyond the range of our household WiFi network, so the question for me is (and having read this thread, it still isn’t clear to me!), do I need a household WiFi network to use the ‘wireless’ aspects of the handset and/or RailController on the laptop??? …. or is the “built-in WiFi connectivity” referred to in the blurb it’s own WiFi network???

Did anyone get to see the 66 in person at the show today?…. I’m certain it will be a cracking model. One additional thought about the bespoke numbering by Rainbow - having seen their handiwork firsthand, whilst it is top quality, I do wonder how the colour density compares to a running number that the factory has tampo printed (eg. 66083)….? By which I mean, if a place 66083 alongside a running number of my choice, will they appear somewhat different?…. really only talking about the colour density I think and fractional variation in colour, just by virtue of different printing processes….

Best thing since sliced bread 😃 !!! Likewise, I also couldn’t figure out how to order bespoke running numbers…. perhaps the webshop isn’t set-up for that quite yet. Also, as an example of ordering bespoke locos; I suspect I will want a couple of cab-end DB branded maroon/gold livery - to be accurate, the large bodyside “EWS” branding should not be present…. I presume it will be a case of the factory simply not tampo printing the large bodyside “EWS” for those body shells destined to become maroon/gold DB branded locos….?

Yep, me too - mine was Redland large…. no wheels is a bit of impediment for a train 😂 ! No big deal - RoS had a replacement pair with me the following day. A really top class wagon…. been trying to justify the all-white to run with my DB HKAs - there was a fairly short cross-over of them running together, but could be hard to resist….!

Another great announcement for the Farish range 🤗 ! Moreover, reducing RRP of forthcoming models where they can - Bachmann should be absolutely applauded for that - they are, after all, in the business of making money, so they didn’t have to do that - I’m sure many of us have pre-ordered 158s quite willingly [at the higher price] - Bachmann could simply have taken a bigger profit, but clearly felt they would pass on savings if they could 🙂 !!! I wonder if the RRP was based around tooling and production costs when the value of GBP was worthless against the US$, courtesy of Truss-onomics…. anyway, the non-sound version is £25 cheaper now, which is quite a substantial decrease. Nice to see the 158 in ATW livery as a late addition as well. HRA was a nice surprise too…. that’ll be a potential discretionary purchase for me, cos I already have plenty of similar wagons and I’d rather build a rake of the recently delivered ‘Lobster’ wagons, as they are a bit more visually interesting and I can’t keep buying loads of red DB bogie wagons - already got plenty of HKAs which are sufficiently similar to the HRA, I’m not sure I’ll be able to justify a rake of both.

I’d like to see additional mk3 coaches in NR yellow for the NMT - I know the two simplest have been done and the remainder are increasingly esoteric…. However, I wonder if the mk3 (977993) with the pantograph on the roof might be next easiest - would require a new roof tooling, but the window arrangement looks like a standard TGS vehicle. Considering I’m about to pay £47 for a Farish mk2F in NR yellow, I’d pay a similar amount (perhaps even fractionally more) for 977993 with fully represented roof equipment - would bring the NMT up to three trailer vehicles which would make it a bit more credible looking. Considering all the NMT sets sold through (and I believe more in the pipeline), that must be x250 booksets sold, so you might sell a similar number of 977993 - @Adam1701D perhaps do the maths on tooling that roof and see if that works for a circa £45-£50 mk3 model…. I also wonder if doing the Colas HST cars in earlier liveries than the ex-EMR purple might garner more sales - Colas has ex-VTEC/LNER and ex-EMT Colas branded power cars back in 2020 (perhaps even slightly earlier).

I also have had an issue with lights on the 9-car Avanti - was mis-assembled and wiring loom for lights got crimped between chassis and bodyshell…. if Rapido weren’t so fond of a millions wires inside their models, it would have a) never occurred and b) might have been an easy fix for me without activating warranty repair…. I will say the other half dozen Pendos are perfect and in fairness, once the lights blew [very quickly] that particular power car was a wonderfully smooth runner 😆 ! A great model all around and looking forward to receiving my 11-car full Avanti too. Moreover, a house move has meant tearing up the old layout, however, the new house has a garage annex that will be perfect for a high speed four-track mainline which my Pendos can hammer around 😂 !!!

These were wagons of my childhood, having seen them many times whilst waiting on the platform for a train from Peterborough back to Huntingdon, after family trips to John Lewis in the Queensgate Centre (and McDonalds 🤣 !). …. mainly for nostalgia reasons and because the model looks magnificent, order duly placed for a $*** load of these - if that doesn’t push the project into profit, nothing will…. 🤑 😂 !!! Look forward to them arriving soon!

No need for an 87 personally, but good news for N gauge more generally to see Dapol committing to new tooling in N gauge, even if using an existing chassis. Am happy for those that were seeking an updated 87. I guess the 88 might be the TINGS announcement; well that’s what I’ll hope for 😉 !

Agreed - I would like to think the RoS announcement would pave the way for the class in N gauge…. with or without Rails’ participation. I’d happily welcome a couple of 88s to my layout - further traction diversity for pulling the growing variety of DRS nuclear flask/waste wagons available/soon to be available; KUA, PFA and FNA-D all from Revolution. As always, Flickr is a good friend for inspiration….

Seriously, what is going on with that utterly fictitious cab face lamp iron - I swear that thing is borrowed from their 66 tooling and it was the lamp iron particularly, which for me ruined the Dapol 66 cab face appearance. Anyway, it’s oversized and shape wise is completely wrong…. I’m sure with another 2min I can find a few more faults, but I have a baby to occupy and she doesn’t care about N gauge models…. well, not yet…. 😉 😆

You want the NSE version - if you look very closely, the NSE livery shown in the photo of the post above and the news article by @TomE is a ‘North London Lines’ unit which also ran on the southern WCML Watford DC line. In fact, the cab destination blind says Euston, so there’s no disputing that’s the one you want 😉 ! Aside from the small body side wording, there is also the NSE route branding motif, which for the North London Lines is a harlequin pattern…. I never could figure out the significance of the harlequin pattern and it’s relevancy to the North London Lines - curious to hear from anyone that knows….! Anyway, get yourself 313011 ordered - I have to say, the NSE livery sits really nicely on these units.

Thanks for sharing those photos @TomE 🙂 I think the TPE livery is probably very tricky to execute well - I do hope they do a good job of it. The SWT livery seems well captured - I see the 450s daily - the primary colours of the SWT livery now seems very of-it’s-time, ie. starting to look a little bit dated….! I will buy one for posterity, since I’ve spent the past 20yrs seeing and riding them…. But I do really hope they do the SWR livery because that is such a crisp livery and I really like it - that would certainly be a ‘rule 1’ purchase! Hard to imagine that Farish haven’t thought about doing SWR - especially since they supposedly had to tool specially for the 450 non-pan pan well….! Might as well get both of the only two liveries out of it 😂 ! As an aside, I note that on the TfW 769, they just have holes in the pan well where the [absent] pantograph would have plugged in…. frankly I imagine they could probably have adopted that approach with the 450 and no one would have complained…. possibly a few would, but I haven’t seen anyone mention it about the 769. Apart from the non-pan pan well, I’m pretty certain the 350s and 450s are identical, perhaps apart from some underframe differences of AC versus DC….? I do wonder how many of these 450s end up in the bargain bin though…. and at what price…. I remember obtaining some LM 350s for just £79…. almost impossible to imagine that these days 😐 !

It’s because Dapol announced it…. now if it had been Revolution or Farish announcing, I think you’d find there would be a lot more excitement…. 😜 ! …. only time will tell what Dapol come up with this time - maybe they can match the class 68 standards this time around…. on paper it sounds like it should far exceed the quality of their 68, but with Dapol you just never know what you’re gonna get until it’s in your hands (and running; or not!). At least with Adam Warr on board the livery should be much better and no massive slip-ups! I think this one is a ‘wait and see’…. no pre-ordering on my part….

In a similar vein, I have discovered that the B4 bogie available as an accessory uses a shorter axle than the standard coach wheelsets historically available…. I found this out the hard way when I discovered one wheelset was non-insulating - “no problem” I though, “I’ll just swap for one of my spare Farish coach axles”…. nope, the historical axles are too long…. and of course, you cannot buy the newer coach wheelsets with shorter axle…. As an aside, I’ve had a couple of non-insulated wheelsets from Farish products recently…. maybe their QC/QA is slipping a bit….

My x2 G&Y arrived at lunchtime today (despite the caveats that it might not arrive until after Christmas!)…. very pleased they did though! This is such an improvement over the first generation cl90. For a start, they are so much quieter, although I note somewhat slower too…. although this has been a feature of all the latest batch of Farish stuff; I’m thinking of cl319 and cl60 - the latter is much slower than previous batches.… anyway, I digress…. I really like how they have captured the headlights ‘behind glass’ and the underframe equipment is so much better portrayed than the previous generation. As for the availability/scarcity mentioned by others - I got mine from KMRC - they had 3 in stock at the warehouse (ie. web stock) first thing yesterday morning. I bought 2 of them at 10am - I see they have none now…. I suspect that the scarcity is two-fold; 1) I would not be surprised if they did airfreight an initial allocation, 2) I suspect that there were substantial pre-orders, given how much this model to modern standards was wanted. Hard to be certain if there will be more stock to come in these current liveries, but I do hope they will ‘surprise’ us at the next quarterly announcement with EWS/DB and Freightliner [green]…. a First Scotrail Caledonian Sleeper cl90 would be nice too, but I’d be surprised (although given some of the unusual/obscure liveries that have adorned the most recent cl08 batch, who knows?!)…. Both mine are run-in now, so tomorrow evening I can have a proper play with them 🙃 !