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Oxford Rail announces - OO gauge Mk3 coaches


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9 hours ago, John M Upton said:

A question. Thinking ahead to a possible future project and given how bargain binable the early releases of Oxford's Mk3s have been, how suitable do you think they would be for a Class 442 conversion project?

 

Doable John, but the Roof vents would be wrong and probably the underframes, unless you dont really care about any of that

 

NL

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2 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

 

Define "great value".

£45 for a coach isn't what I'd call great.

 

Its better than £66 for a 2f or £81 for a dbso, £55 for a Thompson or £69 for an Autocoach. Plus the spec is good . This is not a Railroad Mk1 or2 

Edited by Legend
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On 10/03/2019 at 14:26, John M Upton said:

A question. Thinking ahead to a possible future project and given how bargain binable the early releases of Oxford's Mk3s have been, how suitable do you think they would be for a Class 442 conversion project?

 

Not too difficult to match the resin casting off ebay to the Oxford body profile, takes some filler and work.

20180723_212828.jpg

20180723_212818.jpg

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The reviewer in Modelrail 259, Richard Foster, has given these a +ve review and thinks the colours are “excellent” His only slight comment is that the upper grey band is “a touch on the dark side”

 

he clearly opted to not compare them

side by side with the BM 47/7 and DBSO which he recommends you run them with.

 

we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised.

Edited by black and decker boy
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5 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

The reviewer in Modelrail 259, Richard Foster, has given these a +ve review and thinks the colours are “excellent” His only slight comment is that the upper grey band is “a touch on the dark side”

 

he clearly opted to not compare them

side by side with the BM 47/7 and DBSO which he recommends you run them with.

 

we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised.

 

Which is a cop out  I’d say . If he had compared them to 47 and dbso he would have found differences . However the model railway press just don’t like saying anything negative about new products . This is the case in point . No doubt the dbso and 47 were reviewed and no issues seen and now the Mk3s which are clearly a different shade . So which is it..............oh no doubt it was another reviewer that did the test on the dbso . Let’s call them out. Come on given the different shades which one is right?

Edited by Legend
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16 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

The reviewer in Modelrail 259, Richard Foster, has given these a +ve review and thinks the colours are “excellent” His only slight comment is that the upper grey band is “a touch on the dark side”

 

he clearly opted to not compare them

side by side with the BM 47/7 and DBSO which he recommends you run them with.

 

we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised.

 

maybe someone should recommend he goes to specsavers too

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎12‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 02:48, Legend said:

 

Which is a cop out  I’d say . If he had compared them to 47 and dbso he would have found differences . However the model railway press just don’t like saying anything negative about new products . 

just like most facets these days.  say something other than positive and you rattle the cages of all the now easily offended snowflakes we seem to now have to tread carefully around......

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Jeffersons 'The Train Shop' in Scarborough had the SO and FO in stock for approxmately £31.99 yesterday (23/3/19) if this is any help to anyone looking for either the ScotRail or Intercity Mk3s - I have no connection to the business but called in yeterday and found them in a back cabinet together with a few other hard to find items. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

OR have released details of a new twin pack of TSO's. While I admit this is a good idea, the numbers are 12015 and 12030. Why couldn't they change the other 12015 to another number?? Seems like an own goal? 

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1 hour ago, Tiddles47 said:

OR have released details of a new twin pack of TSO's. While I admit this is a good idea, the numbers are 12015 and 12030. Why couldn't they change the other 12015 to another number?? Seems like an own goal? 

Odd. Hatton’s quotes 12015 but Kernow 12014.

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I’m quite pleased with this announcement as I held back from buying multiple ScotRail TSOs as Oxford had said they’d produce more with different numbers if they sold well, I’ve already got my order in for this pair. 

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Very easy to renumber with the superb Railtec transfers. I rubbed the old numbers off with a cotton bud and Brasso, less than 2 minutes a coach.

 

I am just completing my respraying into executive light grey and my coaches now perfectly match my Bachmann DBSOs - also renumbered by Railtec Decals.

 

John

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  • 1 month later...

Advice time

 

I tried to change the couplings and the springs ended up out of place. Getting them back in was tricky but now the small screws that hold the seating plastic to the chassis aren't gripping. Has anyone else had this issue and recommend a solution? It's critical because the seating plastic keeps the coupling mechanism in place, otherwise it hangs low.

 

These really are such poor build quality, I ordered Hornbys latest virgin MK3s because I was so disheartened with these.

 

Thanks in advance

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Hi James90012,

 

I fitted lights to my rake of Oxford Mk3’s and also had a few problems when reassembling. Three suggested options:

 

1) Add a drop of super glue to the plastic hole,  leave it to set, then reassemble using the original screw: It should now ‘bite’ into the the plastic+glue and re-thread itself. This will allow un-screwing at a later date.

 

2) Could find a slightly larger screw and reassemble, again it should re-thread itself and be able to un-screwed later, however finding a slightly larger screw that isn’t too big can often be a challenge (Sod’s law principle!)

 

3) Carefully glue together to form a permanent bond - although by nature, difficult to take apart in future.

 

I used a combination of 1 and 2 (as I was lucky to have some spare screws) and have had no problems since. I actually like the Oxford Mk3’s, especially once a bit of improvement work is carried out, but do agree that they could have been engineered and finished a bit better.

 

Hope this helps and good luck with your Mk3’s.

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Hi James90012

 

The easiest solution I have found is to remove the screws holding the ballast weights in place, gluing the weights instead, and then use those screws to secure the seating plastic ends.  They have a far better grip and keep everything in place.  One suggestion if you go down this route is be careful how far you tighten them, make sure that the self centring mechanism still works.  Loosening the screw very slightly can make a big difference to the smoothness of the self centring mechanism.

 

I would also suggest adding a small amount of super glue to both ends of the springs in the self centring mechanism.  This helps hold them in place and stops them disappearing if you are taking the coach apart.  

 

I have made these changes to about 20 coaches and they work well.  Sometimes after a while the self centring mechanism tightens up but it is easy to simply loosen the screw slightly if that happens.

 

Best wishes


Roddy

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On 30/07/2019 at 20:52, James90012 said:

Advice time

 

I tried to change the couplings and the springs ended up out of place. Getting them back in was tricky but now the small screws that hold the seating plastic to the chassis aren't gripping. Has anyone else had this issue and recommend a solution? It's critical because the seating plastic keeps the coupling mechanism in place, otherwise it hangs low.

 

These really are such poor build quality, I ordered Hornbys latest virgin MK3s because I was so disheartened with these.

 

Thanks in advance

The only rtr alternative to the Oxford Mk3a is the Jouef Mk3a, Hornby have only ever made HST Mk3 trailers. There’s a myriad of detail differences between the loco hauled and HST version.

The Oxford build quality isn’t the best but this is reflected in the price. All easily rectified using some basic modelling material, as explained above.

Brian.

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  • 2 months later...

I emailed Oxford rail asking if they are any further on with the licence for the virgin west coast livery as it’s been nearly 2 years since they announce them. Also about the HST versions of the coaches, email back from them saying still waiting for licence and that they never said they were making the HST  versions but to watch this space. I am sure in their original info it said they were making them and along with the drawing of the mk3 body with the different variants showed a TGS, also a photos of 5 coaches in a display case shows them to be HSTs, as the roof clearly shows the space were the square roof vent goes and no grab handle on the end of the coach. Or am I just imagining it as I can not find a link anymore to the original press release. 

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I get the impression Oxford are back tracking on a lot of things at the moment, their die-cast range has slowed up and they most definitely did say they were going to release HST versions of the Mk3 and showed initial drawings showing they had correctly incorporated the differences.  The news on the Virgin stock is disappointing as I was hoping to assemble a rake for the last days of loco hauled Mk3s in 2005.  There again, "Kit-Kat" liveried Mk3s did run without the "Virgin" logo for a while so if it is that which is delaying the release why not put out the de-branded versions?

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2 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

I get the impression Oxford are back tracking on a lot of things at the moment, their die-cast range has slowed up and they most definitely did say they were going to release HST versions of the Mk3 and showed initial drawings showing they had correctly incorporated the differences.  The news on the Virgin stock is disappointing as I was hoping to assemble a rake for the last days of loco hauled Mk3s in 2005.  There again, "Kit-Kat" liveried Mk3s did run without the "Virgin" logo for a while so if it is that which is delaying the release why not put out the de-branded versions?

 

I don't know much about the Oxford Rail MK3s except that the Stobart Rail MK3 has been released earlier this year. I would really like a rake of Chiltern liveried MK3s that work with the Class 68s. Hornby haven't produced these yet, so that could be a really good product to announce by Oxford, especially considering Dapol have produced three Class 68s in Chiltern livery and with them mostly running with said MK3s they don't currently have much to run with in OO Gauge. 

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