Harlequin

Not only does Russell say that, Holcroft the man who drew up the design, says, "Although no thought of it had entered into the decision what had been achieved was a tender engine edition of the '3150' class 2-6-2 tank."

Are these any use? I took them near a window but clearly there was not as much light as I thought. Sorry. Seems to be plenty of clearance at the end of the slide bars...

I fitted a decoder and speakers yesterday and so I'm finally able to report back on the running qualities of the model. She's very smooth, quiet and reliable. I don't think I have had to poke her once to get her to move. The gearing is a bit high, as others have noted, and top speed would be crazily out of scale but I haven't dared to go there and I haven't measured it. Under DCC control, with the speed table flattened to roughly halve the top speed (and with PWM and back-emf motor control of course) she crawls absolutely fine. The firebox glow is disappointing in three respects: There seems to be a transparent plastic light guide that is clearly visible from some angles (i.e. you see something glassy reflecting at you where you should just see a hole). It's very weak (I haven't applied the YouChoos tweak of putting some foil behind the LEDs yet). The yellow and orange LEDs just cycle regularly like Christmas lights - they don't use the random flicker effect that the decoder can produce. DCC notes: The firebox glow is not connected to any of the function outputs you might expect - it's connected to F0 fwd and F0 reverse. So you have to sync those outputs with the coal shovelling sound. Chuff rate sync for YouChoos 43XX Zimo sound project: CV267 = 34 (Chuff frequency) CV354 = 9 (Chuff frequency adjust at speed step 1) The clever tender draw bar has a very positive click so it feels like a strong connection - at the moment. (Probably not a good idea to repeatedly connect and disconnect it, though!)

They are the right ones. Sorry, I just didn't search the DCC supplies website properly. They are in stock, as you say.

Yes. Dapol quote part numbers for both speakers. They aren't available on the DCC Supplies website yet but They are on the DCC Supplies website and I think I have also found a speaker that would exactly fit the tender without modification on Road & Rails.

Hi Neal, Reading the Mogul's manual again I realise I made a mistake about the smokebox speaker. Dapol's intention is that a gasket should be fitted between the sugar cube speaker and the clip-on cover, so the speaker would then have a sealed enclosure to improve the sound.

No apology needed! The spare parts that are listed, including smokebox doors, are a very good thing. A step above most models, as you say. It's just a shame that outside Steampipes are not among them - seems like a natural addition for the class where they varied so much.

Sadly, steampipes are not on the list of Spare parts in the manual. (Not in mine at least.) I guess we're going to have to use 3rd party parts if we want to add them to models that don't have them as supplied.

Yes. In fact it almost drops out when you turn it upside down.

I have opened up the tender to investigate what sort of speaker can be fitted: The chassis is plastic, most of the weight comes from the casting. The casting includes the speaker well and two fixing screws - looks designed for a very particular speaker. As you can see the weight can be removed but then the close-coupling mount (the spring and Y shaped part) for the rear coupling is uncovered. So if you wanted to remove or replace the weight to fit a different speaker you'd have to arrange something to keep the coupling in place. Pickup wipers bearing on the wheel flanges.

I'm sure it will be possible to program the effect like that eventually but at the moment, if it's like all the other firebox glow effects I've seen, it will come on when the shovelling sound is playing and off when it stops. But that's not just a gimmick - it's a small step closer to modelling reality. How accurate does a feature have to be to escape gimmick status? After all the fireman doesn't move while he is notionally shovelling and when the loco chuffs there's no realistic blast of smoke and steam from the chimney but we put up with those discrepancies. The speaker in the firebox of the Mogul is a standard sugar cube that clips to the pullout PCB. It has no enclosure so won't be making deep bass sounds... A gasket between the clip-on cover and the speaker form a sealed enclosure to improve the sound. The speaker mounting in the tender is a generous well in the cast chassis cast weight (39 * 20 * 8.5 mm), which should be big enough for a reasonable sized enclosed speaker but may need some grinding down to fit a really bassy speaker. (Or the entire weight could be removed but then something would be needed to keep the rear coupling mechanism in place.) P.S. Any decent sound decoder will be able synchronise the firebox glow with the sounds. If it doesn't do it "out of the box" it's just a matter of CV twiddling to change which function output is turned on when the sound is triggered.

The manual says on Page 1, "Designed by G. J. Churchward..." It's a shame no mention was made of Holcroft, the man who had suggested the idea for a new 2-6-0 after a visit to Canada and who really put the design together from a broad outline spec by Churchward.

@Miss Prism Here's the smokebox door of 6336 under flash illumination. It shows up differences in materials/finishes that you don't normally see: Here's 6336 without flash: Here's 6116 for comparison: I measure the colour of the Mogul tender sides under a D50 illuminant as CIELAB = 22, -8, 4. (For comparison the Hornby Large Prairie 6116 is CIELAB = 25, -5, 7. So the Mogul is slightly darker, slightly greener, slightly less yellow than the Prairie.) P.S. Correction to earlier statements: The smokebox door is not held in place by magnets - it's a simple friction fit.

That's the agonising part for me - she won't move until Monday, probably, because I haven't got the right decoder! Someone else will have to oblige.

'Yer 'Tiz! She's a little beauty! The smokebox door looks OK to me but I'll try to get a better photo for Miss P. later this evening.

Remember that decoder fitting is via the smokebox door on these models and the door is held in place by magnets so, a. the door(s) in the photo(s) may not be seated properly, or b. the magnet mountings might push it out more than would be ideal, or c. the door moulding might be a compromise to allow it to function as the decoder access. We shall soon see... Correction: The smokebox door is a friction fit, not held in place by magnets.

I'm going to fit a sound decoder myself so that I have more control over exactly what I'm getting, in terms of make and sound project. I reckon that a Zimo MX659N18 (small Next18 sound decoder) will fit and YouChoos have a Mogul project based on recordings of 5322. Edit: Amazingly, it looks like Hattons got my Mogul out of the door yesterday because I can see it in the Royal Mail tracking system! I might get the loco before I have any decoder to make it go... Edit2: It transpires that the larger MX658N18 should also fit - because that's exactly what Dapol will supply in their sound-fitted versions according to the manual.

Only because there were hints in the froth that it might be a GWR model.

What a let down! STEAM should hook up with the model manufacturers in a similar way to drive the GWR agenda forward.

Good point. So what is in the NC that involves Collett (Mike's clue) that has never been available RTR? Never mind. We'll find out in 2 hours. (Note to self: Don't get pulled into the froth.)

Locomotion/Rails/Bachmann, in fact. "... New ready to run locomotive. This model has never previously been available in ready to run form in OO Scale." The Great Bear?

Why cast aspersions before anyone has had the chance to test one for real? We don't know what their pulling power is yet.

It would be very cruel of @AY Mod to blow air into the froth of a GWR thread if the announcement was for a lesser railway company... Wouldn't it...?

Well, Rails' optimistic prediction did not come to pass, despite their close working relationship with Dapol.

Thanks! Ahhhh, Closure...