Dixie Dean

I just wondered if anyone from Dapol would care to comment as to whether they have given any thought to producing the Class 88/93 in OO gauge.

Chewing my fingernails waiting to see the DCC action and sound on this one !!!!!

Sorry, Kat, didn't pick up your reply until today. It's part of a stay at home layout that I'm building in my garage at the moment, but coming along very slowly.

Sadly I suspect that you are correct. Was very interesting though. The reality is, he made it look quite easy, but I am certain that it would have been a lot harder than it looks. Those controls looked like they needed a lot of skill to get the braking curve just right.

Thanks for the suggestion @giz. With the APT I had to remove the centre of each bogies and glue the Heljan drive units in. As a result, the bogies still resembled the APT bogies, looks wise, but inside was a new drive unit. So I presume the 158 bogies do not resemble a Pendolino bogie? And if that is the case that I will have to insert the Class 158 drive units into the centre of the Pendolino bogies if that was to work?

Thanks for replying CazRail. The one I have is not DCC at the moment, although I have a sound chip for it already, I will need to convert it. My layout has a 1:24 to 1:36 gradients all the way up from the valley level to the mountain pass. I really need to convert it to DCC and give it a trial run. Most of my other locos have centre motors driving both bogies, including the Hornby APT I converted. All of these go up the slope fine. If the Pendolino goes up no problem I might not convert it, we will have to wait and see. I understand that Olivias add an extra motor to the dummy end which

Hi everybody. Has anyone on here attempted to re-motor a Pendolino with a suitable 4 axle twin bogie central driven motor unit and if so what did you use for the donor motor? If not, has anyone any idea what might do the job from a bogie wheelbase and wheel size perspective? I have done the Heljan 26/276/33 into an Hornby APT which went OK but this was already well documented. Thanks DIxie

I watched an APT video on YouTube the other day, and the bodywork was just like it is in this picture, looks like someones gone completely berserk with a hammer all down the sides - hopefully Hornby won't try to reproduce the ripples!!

Fabio AKA Calandamountain on YouTube and Twitter has in the past 6 months published a number of RhB cab rides. Today he published the first driving video with a camera behind him in the cab and positioned to show how the throttle and brakes are used, etc. in a Ge 4/4 II locomotive, driving from Landquart to Kublis on the line to Klosters. It doesn't give a particularly good view ahead, but there is a regular cab ride video on his channel of a trip from Landquart to St Moritz. 3 more of these "tutorial" videos are to follow. It can be seen here:

Good job Hornby don't have to replicate the innards of an APT power car! Indeed, rhnrhn your hypothesis may well be correct.

That could well be correct - is that verifiable information?

Yes, and those were modelled on the original as well as black voids. I've been trying to work out some way of modelling the original pantograph holding frame, but due to the difficult in obtaining a decent BWHS pantograph I haven't yet got around to doing that. I did get a spare new class 87 pantograph from Hornby but decided to use it on my Pendolino instead. Both the Pendolino and the APT required different mounting frames, but I found it easier to adapt the Pendolino one to take the class 87 arms rather than trying to make a new frame for the APT on to which to fit the arms. It may be t

And this: Should give you something to go on.

Also found this, but poor resolution: Both appear to indicate little other than insulators and wiring on the roof.

Is this useful?