Grouse101
-
Posts
28 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Events
Exhibition Layout Details
Store
Posts posted by Grouse101
-
-
Anyone else having issues with the DCC sound fitted version? Arrived today, put on test track and it lets out a whistle then nothing. After thinking it might be a connection issue and re-arranging my rolling road it randomly worked perfectly for about 15 minutes. I had to turn off off and go do something. When I turn it back on, same thing, whistle then silence and refused to move. I can hear a feint buzzing in the engine and I know the track has power, but it won't receive commands. I've tried two controllers. If I pick it up off the track and put it down again then it's whistle, but everything cuts out after about a second.
-
Will need a steady hand later. Just been sent this from Accurascale - https://accuras.reamaze.com/kb/class-55-deltic/how-to-attach-the-chain-between-locomotive-body-and-bogie
Their customer service is very rapid.
-
1
-
-
Hi all, does anyone know how to reattach the chains? Does it look like I'm missing a bit? I can sort of hook it back onto the peg, but it doesn't look anything like the other 3 and it comes off again almost immediately.
Apologies if this has already been asked, but there are 240+ pages and search isn't kicking up anything useful. Keen to get this chain back on because it's stopping me from running it.
-
As a quick update. I received a letter letting me know that Action Fraud and therefore presumably the police are doing absolutely nothing about this. They just let the debit/credit card companies deal with it and ultimately the cost gets passed back onto us via interest rates and account fees. So I suspect the person/persons behind this company may do this again. In fact, now I know you can just get away with it, I may change career...
-
1
-
3
-
-
14 hours ago, rob D2 said:
I’ve no idea why people order from an unknown company with no reputation you can check, there’s hundreds of well known model shops out there - or am I missing a trick ?
This looked to be a legitimate business:
- UK based company registered with companies house
- professional website with genuine contact details that correspond to registration docs
- Google business profile
- facebook business page
- small number of Google reviews (2 of which were 5*), not abnormally low for a small business
- actual positive reviews from not that long ago from people I believe to be independent from the shop
- confirmed as being registered distributers for some big brands
- were still actively marketing products until recently
- also on Ebay
- professional order process and automated confirmation of orders
- Videos on YouTube from people having bought from that shop in the past
That's what makes this so interesting. It looks to have been a genuine attempt at doing legit business that has quite suddenly turned into a scam. I really want to know what's happened behind the scenes. They were manipulating the website last week by adding products and changing prices, I believe, to try and lure as many people in as possible with products that didn't exist at attractive prices. They've then suddenly disappeared. Did they do this in an attempt to bring cash into the business quickly in an attempt to save it, i.e. trading whilst insolvent? Or was this pure deception intended for personal financial gain, i.e. fraud? I'd like to know the outcome of this to see if what civil or criminal consequences there are for the director. What was the plan here? It's not like the company and those involved can just vanish. This wasn't some ficticious overseas entity that stole card details or took cash or bank transfers outside of the country. This is a registered legal entity with a director based in the UK taking using debit/credit/paypal and presumably a UK bank account, there will be consequences.
-
2
-
-
I'm not having much luck here. Just re-ordered one of the items from Hattons instead. They accepted my order 2 days ago before telling me today they didn't actually have it. At least they processed a refund.
-
3
-
-
I wouldn't expect a response. I've called multiple times, he never answers. I've left a voicemail with no response. I've sent two emails without response. He deleted his Facebook page whilst I was posting to it on Saturday and changed his Google listing to permanently closed. All products have now been deleted from his website. On the Dean Park facebook group there are posts saying that people are starting to report him to trading standards and action fraud, they're also submitting claims to their credit card providers. It's not looking good.
-
1
-
-
I'm following this with interest having made 2 reasonably large orders last week. Has it now been confirmed that products ordered will not be received?
Has anyone actually had any contact with Adam Cann?
Thanks
-
1
-
-
I only found this blog today whilst looking for inspiration and couldn't stop flicking through the 230 pages and over 10 years worth of fantastic work! I really hope that your recovery is going well now and that you're on the mend. All the best, Rob.
-
1
-
1
-
-
Before I sent mine back I was advised to try setting CV54 to 0 to allow the decoder to have another go at fixing this. It didn't work, it actually make it quite a bit worse with an added lurch at the start. I have now received a replacement and it's running perfectly. Having spoken to my retailer they said the slow speed stutter is a known problem, but they've probably had the usual about of returns of this model. So this isn't an issue with every one. Probably just the vocal, unlucky few on the forums desperate for help giving the impression that all these models have issues. I'm sure there are many quiet happy customers.
-
1
-
1
-
-
27 minutes ago, MatthewCarty said:
1) sounds like you’re describing the sound of the vacuum pump (used to maintain vacuum in the vacuum brake pipe through the journey rather than using an ejector). If so it should definitely be there whenever the loco is moving. I don’t have the sound version so can’t be absolutely sure.
2) mine had the same problem and I decided I couldn’t live with so have sent it back. It’s likely to improve over time, but I decided having payed the money I wanted one which was smooth at slow speeds and didn’t want to risk it not getting better.
Good to hear that the motor is capable of slower running. Having only had it for a short time I didn’t spend time playing with the CVs to try and achieve this, but did notice speed step 1 was much faster than I would have liked.
I think the pump would have driven me nuts if you can hear it on the footplate.
Just finished a 30 minute run in and it's still hesitating. You're right, it's too expensive not to be perfect and I'll be looking to return for a replacement. I think I told myself that I could live with it because I really like it and I don't want the hassle of a return.
-
2
-
-
Hi All,
Couple of questions for 94xx owners:
1) for those with the sound fitted version. Is the "chirping" noise with ever rotation meant to be there? It goes when I turn sound off, so I assume it's intentional, but I find the squeaking quite annoying. It's like there's an angry sparrow in the cab.
2) has anyone had wheels that hesitate very briefly once during rotation when at slow speed. The motor overcomes it, but I wondered if this was a common issue and if there was a known fix? I'm currently giving it a very long run in to see if that solves it. The pause is hardly noticable and disppears completely once the first few speed steps are out of the way. I think I could live with it if it doesn't go away.
Regarding slow speed control, I wasn't impressed at first, but after activating the "shunting mode" function I'm much happier and can go slower than I'd ever need.
Thanks
-
1
-
-
Glad Charlie's fixed it. Has given me a bit more confidence to give it a go, especially since I can easily get the gradient to 1.5% by using straight sections between each half of the helix.
-
1
-
-
Reading this with interest. Designing a new layout for a larger space. I want a significant amount of staging for 8ft+ trains. I'm considering a helix to allow staging below the boards, but I've had bad experiences with gradients before. I can get the gradient down to 1.1% by running three loops around part of the layout which drops the staging down by 50cm, but it involves 90m of track (double track), of which I think only 7m could be incorporated into the scenic layout which seems crazy.
-
1
-
2
-
-
Thanks all, I only had to go back to post 171 to find where to fit the part and good news on the spares.
-
1
-
-
I'm sure this has been discussed, but there's 176 pages to go through... would anyone know the answers to these questions:
1) Does Hattons provide spare parts. I've just opened my new 66 and I think one of the small pipes from near the steps (for sand?) is missing. I tried to contact them on chat, but they closed the chat window so have emailed, but I'm getting a bit stressed about this tiny detail.
2) Whilst searching for the missing pipe in the box I discovered the piece below. Does anyone know where it's come from?
I'm starting to realise that these model are very fragile.
Thanks
-
Just stumbled across this whilst reseaching Cadbury wagons. Any update on the layout?
-
1
-
-
Thanks, all really useful.
The incline from Harborne to M&B (1 in 66 in reality) is challengingly steep. I introduced the slight curves to reduce the gradient and the raised level is the lowest I could get away with. In testing smaller engines made it up with wagons without issue (and unrealistically some of the bigger more powerful stuff). There's only space for a handful of wagons or 2 short carriages so only smallish locos will be going up there. Considering gaugemaster power track just to be safe. Frustratingly my compounds are too light over the driving wheels and my black 5 is too heavy in all the wrong places to pull anything even up the slightest incline.
-
Thanks Paul, really appreciate the reply.
Thanks for the insight into the operations. Having M&B sidings served from the Harborne side solves one of my problems. Do you know if passenger services and wagons would ever be mixed on the same service?
I think I might be too far in to change the turntable position now. I wanted to put in the turntable that the original station had (see photo) which was pretty small, without a turntable the run around loop meant that the platform would be really short. Then my Dad gifted me a massive Hornby electric turntable which I could convert to DCC, would just about fit in the space and was big enough to turn all my locos (hence the addition of the mainline connection).
I'm afraid given the space my tiny loco engine shed is representing Monument Lane. I suppose I could have moved the turntable to be in the centre of the layout behind New Street, but I wanted to keep some space to model a small city centre. Otherwise it'd just be track everywhere.
I've attached the JMRI layout and a couple of photos of the turntable area which give a better idea of how the layout is in reality, cramped! The curved passing loops on the right of the JMRI layout are hidden under the M&B sidings and Rotton Park. Starting to regret putting those in really, as nice as it is to have a small goods train appear out of a tunnel that it didn't just go into they do seem to be the cause of a few derailments that aren't easy to access.
-
Interested to know how you get on. I'm currently doing a very loose interpretation of the branch line in LMS days. Discovered I live on the old M&B spur and became a bit obsessed with it.
-
1
-
-
Hi All,
I'm new to all this so please be kind. My layout started as the 6 x 4ft Hornby track mat train set and rapidly morphed into trying to (very loosely) recreate the Harborne branch line coming off Birmingham New Street in the LMS (ish) era, heavily compromised by space (4ft x 11ft), time, money, etc.
I'm learning as I go along and making all the mistakes. It's looped in reality, but in the diagram I've stretched it out as the mainlines disappear into tunnels to London and Wolverhampton in model land. Build status is that most of the track is now down and wired up with droppers, some modelling has taken place, so it's a bit late to make any major changes, but I'd be really interested to know:
1) Is this close to prototypical? I'm starting to care more about this as a learn.
- Have I got this massively wrong? Could it be more prototypical without starting from scratch?
- I've made platform 3 bi-directional as operationally it allows a through train in both directions, would that have happened?
- If a local service returns from Harborne via Rotton Park along the branch line back into New Street then it would need to travel the "wrong way" through platform 4 to head to the hidden sidings, would that have been allowed? I'm aware that in reality Harborne didn't have a direct connection back to the mainline, but I wanted locos to be able to access the turntable without having to go all the way round the branch line.
- Would a steam locomotive ever push rolling stock over extended distances? For example, if I picked up from wagons from the M&B sidings and rejoined the branch, could I then push them down the line into Harborne sidings or would this never have happened? In reality the M&B spur had access from both directions (track triangle), so this wasn't an issue, but I only had space for one set of points. This is an elevated section and I've not pinned the track yet, so any changes here are still possible, but space limited.
- I included the station approach passing loop because I had the track and the space, and it's another place to store a train which makes things more interesting.
2) Signalling
I now know I should have considered this at the start if I wanted realism, but here we are. Any advice on where to drop the signals to give this a flavour of reality? Especially interested in the bi-directional areas. Or is this too "train set" to stress about accurate signalling?
It's OO gauge and DCC should that be relevant.
Hunslet 16" 0-6-0 Saddle Tank - 00 Gauge
in Rapido Trains
Posted
Quick update on my running issues. A decoder reset seems to have worked. I've also removed the base keeper plate, cleaned out the big blobs of white grease and reapplied lubricant slightly less aggressively. However, it looks like the pipework that runs down the side of the boiler from the whistles is damaged at the bottom where it meets the running plate, probably my fault. I can't even work out where that pipework fits in :-(