Foden

My sound fitted 66001 arrived earlier in the week and I've had my first chance to open it up and see what it is I've bought. This is my first accurascale model I've had delivered, so no previous personal experience of them as a manufacturer, but what a first impression it was. Opening the box felt like a real treat in its own right with all the reading material and limited edition certificate in there. The model itself is an absolute gem, perfect to my eye, running is excellent, and the sound file and driveability is also oustanding, I really appreciate the stay alive provision as standard on a sound fitted loco, I wish all manufacturers offered this. In conclusion I really couldn't be happier, it's the first loco I've ever bought which is genuinely ready to go bar a bit of weathering, no retrofitting better speakers or adding capacitors! I've also got a few 31s, a 37, and a 50 in the pipeline and on the basis of the quality of this model, I'm even more excited to see those arrive. Bravo guys, this one's a gem.

Very, very sad news to hear. Aside from being a very contented customer of theirs for decades, including the yearly Christmas presents that my wife genuinely enjoyed phoning up and ordering from, rather than doing it online as she enjoyed the chat, they dealt with the very sensitive task of purchasing my late Grandfather's collection some time after his passing, something they dealt with in a thoroughly decent and compassionate manner, turning something that was difficult and upsetting into a sense of closure. I'll forever be grateful for that, the business really felt like it had a good heart, and the staff and management there deserve the greatest of credit for that. I can only give my best wishes for all persons connected with the business for their futures, and thank them for everything they've done through the years. The hobby is sadly losing one of the good guys.

I came here to make exactly this post, so pleased someone already has. There was a good amount of excitement and interest when the crane was announced. I think Hattons may have been disappointed by a lack of expressions of interest in pre-orders at the time though. I'm sure AS now have enough experience of this format of 'announce > take pre-orders > release to wider market' to know how well things sell outside of pre-orders, and I hope that information is encouraging. I confess, I say this through the rose tinted glasses of actually wanting a few myself, but I've said it before, I think engineering/departmental stock fits on so many layouts, in so many interesting formations large and small, it surely has an incredibly wide appeal.

It's getting concerning how easily, and frequently you guys manage to reach into my current account and help yourselves lately. If you're managing to knock out top quality products for 170 quid whilst still clearly investing in further developments AND turn a decent profit to make it all worthwhile, then more power to you. But if you wouldn't mind cracking on with a couple more kettles, or something else I personally am less likely to buy for the time being, that would also be lovely.

Comparing the CAD above to the size of the bogies on my Flangeway Salmons, it certainly appears to be the 8ft bogies Hornby are modelling, which adds some nice variety. No complaints from me, I'd like a couple more anyway.

Bit unfair to tar Accurascale with that particular brush (no pun intended) on their first run though isn't it? They're releasing no less than six different liveries, and differing variations of them too over a broad timescale of the prototype's life. Furthermore two of the most asked for examples, the aforementioned 31/5 and blue 31/4 are in the first run. I've little doubt that by the second run, a good many more will be available too. Hornby have produced the higher spec 31 for what, 17 years? In that time we've never seen a Mainline livery, which is in the first of Accurascale's releases, never seen an EWS livery, and it took 16 of those years to see a dutch 31 that didn't crumble away at the floor, and even then it was wrong.

I appreciate you said mixed, rather than poor, but I always quite liked the 'new' super detailed Hornby 31. Early mazak rot issues aside, every one I've had has been a great runner and could pull decent loads. I'm sure more keen eyed modelers could point to some inaccuracies, which is fair, but I've always looked at them as a really good representation of the class, with perfectly decent features, and lighting functionality for the time, even though I've removed the fan drive on all of mine. That said, now the Accurascale model is on the horizon, I won't buy any more, but I wouldn't sell off my 5 Hornby models either. I think Hornby's biggest mistake with the class (and others too) is they've had the model in their range for many years, yet customers have been asking for releases, and re-releases of various subclasses and liveries that have been overlooked again, and again, such as 31/5 in dutch, banger blue 31/4 etc. Had they released more examples through the years, and less oddballs and namers, maybe the door wouldn't be left open for the likes of Accurascale, although ultimately I'm glad it has been.

It’s a slippery slope, one which I gather Bachmann acknowledged they were also on. To their credit, they rethought the way they were announcing/delivering products, and while it’s inevitably not pleased everyone, I’d go as far as saying the larger majority of their customers prefer things the way they are now. Whether there’s talk between manufacturers behind the scenes on what is in the pipeline I don’t know, from what I’ve read I’ve picked up that some of the newer manufacturers at the table have more of a cordial relationship, and perhaps have some lines of communication and understanding between them, I admit I’m just speculating based on snippets I’ve read, and heard.

I share this same arrangement. This year, (way back in November, he says very smugly), as I was passing anyway, I decided to actually enter one of their shops, armed with a shopping list of lotions, potions, and those ‘bath bombs’ that resemble a mento being dropped into a bottle of diet cola. Let’s just say I hastily left a few moments later with what felt like the beginnings of a respiratory complication. I don’t mean to sound pretentious, the many aromas in isolation were mostly lovely, but the combined clout of all of them was truly a force to behold!

My beloved knows a lot more about this hobby than I give her credit for. She’s not a hobbyist, nor a train enthusiast by any stretch, but over the years enough passing interest has lead her to understand things somewhat more than I assumed she did. Regarding gifts, she generally picks from a list that I give her (and the opposite is also true), I don’t know exactly what it is I’m getting, but I do know it’s definitely something I would want, it works quite well.

Space permitting, New Street seems an obvious one. Depending on era, could also be quite a boring one once the majority was built over, so perhaps I’d be tempted to model it up to the ceiling above track only in that instance. On a more personal note, the idea of modelling Nuneaton Trent valley has always appealed to me, and has been a ‘pie in the sky’ ambition for some time. You’ve got the new (or old) grade separated flyover at one end, and a four lane over bridge the other. Still would need considerable space to model it true to scale, but a good variety of movements along and across the layout, both freight and passenger, and particularly for anyone interested in the WCML. Quite extensive goods yards too in older eras. (not my photo)

Hi guys, just to get back to you on this, as I've had a spare moment with the voltmeter to take some readings. I'm using a Digitrax DCS210 as my command station, and I'm seeing around 14.6v AC at the track. With the loco on track with the power on, and playing the sound file at idle I'm getting DC voltages of 14.2V before the lifelink, and 13.2v at the capacitor end. When the power is turned off, they both drop pretty well instantly to ~2v, so it would appear the capacitor is toast. It looks like I've made an error in assumption that the Zen type stay alives are suitable for this application, clearly they are not for the reasons Nigel has posted above, and are only suitable when used with their own management PCB. Fortunately, in this case only a capacitor is ruined, not a more expensive decoder, or loco, or worse.... As designed, the three wire PCB is connected/soldered to the decoder, the capacitor itself is only two wire. In this instance I've simply cut the plug off the tail of the capacitor, and soldered it to the lifelink. I've just ordered a selection of the Lias kung-fu stay alives recommended, they look really good, so will see how I go with them. Always useful to have a selection of different types and sizes for different installs, so thanks for the recommendation.

Thanks Nigel and Paul, sadly I can’t find my voltmeter at the moment, I’ve ordered another one off Amazon, which means I’ll find it as soon as the new one arrives, then I’ll have two! Originally I used 3x 470uf tantalums due to their small size, I wasn’t expecting much from them, but maybe enough to keep the sound on and the motor going over brief dead sections from dirt (all my turnouts are fully powered unifrogs), I didn’t notice any improvement. I then turned to some of the larger ‘Zen’ stay alives I use on my other locos, all of which are Loksound V4&5. https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/3-wire-large-stay-alive-for-zen-black-blue-decoders/ I use these 3 wire pcbs soldered to the decoder on my ESU examples, in this case I just cut the plug off one of these and wired it to the life link board instead. I’m not sure what the capacitance is as it doesn’t appear to be stated anywhere, but as a point of reference I have several of these installed as above, and they give between 1, and a few seconds of sound and motor power after the power to track has been lost depending on the loco. Clearly I’ll know more when I can get that voltmeter in, I’d expect if everything is working as it should, the zen capacitor should be offering some improvement as it does on my other installs (unless for reasons I can’t fathom it’ll only work with the zen pcb provided), the 1410uf from the tantalums I couldn’t say, I’ve never used that type of capacitor before, I simply followed the tutorial off the youchoos website as it looked like a tidy install on a small loco. https://www.youchoos.co.uk/Index-Resource.php?L1=Guides&Item=OOBachCL03N18 I’ll report back tomorrow evening with my findings with the voltmeter. Again, Thankyou guys for your help. I’ve done several sound and stay alive installs on my Loksound fitted locos without any bother, but this little loco is a right head scratcher, and being a Zimo is more alien to me in its operation. I don’t want to give up on it as it’s a lovely loco, the sound file is great, and I’d quite like to broaden into using more Zimo decoders along with ESU in future also. However I can’t help but feel I’m missing something obvious and being a bit of a numpty!

Guys, if I may ask another question in regards to my first post. The loco runs sweet as you'd like for a short wheel base shunter when there's no sound, there's no hesitation. However, when sound is on, the performance is terrible, it'll often do merely an inch or two at low speed, higher speed is better, but it often struggles getting there because it cuts out and needs a nudge. I figured that this was simply down to the fact that sound requires more power, and the lack of pickups of a larger loco means the loco has insufficient pickup for power and sound, hence the journey to install a stay alive. After various stay alives have been fitted (via a Youchoos life link) I'm yet to see any noticeable improvement, what I've mentioned above remains the case. I can lift the loco from the track after it's had over 10mins with power, and there's no continuation of sound whatsoever the moment it is lifted, equally if it's lifted while in motion with the sound off, the wheels stop straight away, simply put, it's like the capacitors are not there at all. I've looked through the CV list online, and can't find anything relevant other than maybe adjusting #153 for run on time, which makes no difference if it's 0, 255, or anywhere in between. I can't imagine it's a fault of the capacitors, as I've tried a few now, they can't all be faulty. I suppose the life link could, but maybe I'm missing a setting somewhere? Update to add, the track, the wheels, the pickups are perfectly clean, I've chased dirt and pickup contact and continuity obsessively trying to get the damn thing to run better with sound, to no avail. I have however noted it runs rather better with sound on my code 100 test track, than my bullhead layout plank.

Thankyou very much Andy, I appreciate the help.