There is always the option to improve the Farish model. Chinese made versions run well and can be improved a lot with some fettling and buffer beam details. At least they are a half decent starting point.
Yes the Bachmann club which I joined at The N Gauge show in Leamington last year is fantastic. The magazine is huge and as good as a normal modelling mag. Every year I join the Dapol club solely for the open day and yearly club models.
They did produce catalogues up to that date so I am not sure why they aren't bothering now. To start with they produced small free ones which came regularly and to my knowledge have just done two of the larger ones. Also as members of the club I'm sure we are promised a catalogue each year.
I recieved my Pullman livery 73 today after a long wait of 2 years since ordering! Seems good so far. Etched plates and NEM coupling pockets plus DCC ready make it a higher spec than the old version in Pullman livery. Running in at the moment. Seems fairly smooth but dislikes one of my points. Very light compared to the non DCC 73. The loco comes with magnetic couplings as well as Dapol buckeyes.
Cheers
Ian.
Sitting or standing depending on what was happening at the time. Good question about crew numbers. Certainly one driver in my time on them but that was only a few years back. The shunter spent plenty of time in the cab as well. Of course there could always be another person being trained up at any time.
Yes that is true Mike. I was already a member and have been for a few years due to being a modeller with primarily N gauge interests. The membership gives you entry to the open day as well as other benefits. This was the main reason I became a member as the open day has many bargains including NQP items at very low prices. I bought my first O gauge loco for many years at the open day this year. A Terrier for 100 quid which just needed a handrail fixing to the front. N gauge locos were available for £35 NQP but many were OK after a little bit of maintenance work.
No problem. Dapol are good at sorting out any issues. An email to Joel is the best way. My replacement has both lights working and runs much better than the original so was worth sending back.
My replacement arrived and so far behaves perfectly. No tight spot on this one and both lights that it was designed to show on DC work OK. Will be DCCing mine with sound.
As I have a love of both in decent quantities it does mean I have seen a lot of issues but to be fair I have plenty of locos that (for the time being) run very well. We do expect a lot of these tiny machines but they deprive us of increasing amounts of hard earned cash.
It's the split gears, overheating motors, broken tender to loco wires, wobbles, noisy mechanisms, poor pickups, bad back to backs, dodgy valve gear, dodgy soldering, slack QC and dodgy components that make N gauge life interesting.
The 'latest thicker gears' refers to the gears being of the later type that were considerably thicker than the previous Poole ones. I think this was in the hope they would not split. They do still sometimes split as we have noted, but probably less than the older ones did.