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Oxford Rail announces - OO gauge Mk3 coaches


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These coaches only sold because there is NO RTR correctly liveried alternative to purchase, if there had been, it would have been a completely different outcome.... !

Cudya, wudya blah blah, what could have been isnt really relevant to what is though is it.

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Have Oxford got the colour wrong? In my view, yes.

 

Have Oxford made a commercial mistake? In my view, certainly not. They have apparently sold all their production run. Well done.

 

Will another manufacturer ride to the rescue and provide the perfect Mk3 in every respect. Most likely no.

 

If you “hate” the colour and other issues, don’t buy them.

 

I have some on order and will try to make the best of them, to my mind that’s what you do in this imperfect world.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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It could be a lot worse. The main thing is that the ride height between OR and Bachmann looks spot on and they close couple nicely. I'd be happy with them and time wasted on this thread could have been spent re-spraying the bottom part of the coaches.

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I'm a bit puzzled about all the talk about these being 'sold out'. The Liverpool box shifter had them up first and, yes, the TSO went pretty quickly. But the other coaches are still available with 'over 10 in stock'. And now I see the Sheffield box shifter has the TSOs freely available. All the coaches are also available at my local shop. Could Oxford have maybe sent these out in a limited way initially and the sellers are still waiting for proper stock? Anyway, whatever the answer, perhaps a tad early to say they're sold out.

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The announced Hornby "Sliding Door" vehicles are in "cat amongst the pigeons" territory I think, and we'll have to see what they actually turn out to be but they're priced head-to-head with the Oxford ones (if not actually competing directly) and look to be to at least a similar specification. There's some obvious next steps for Hornby down the line of course, notably if they can put these new underframes under the existing MK3 range bodies.

Not likely as the 'Sliding Door' MK3 underframe has a the very obvious CET tank in the underskirt on both sides which the 'Slam Door' MK3 doesn't have.

 

I received my two OR ScotRail MK3's on Monday and I'm happy with them, I'd describe the colour shade as 'Perth Railfair' condition as this was the only time I seen an immaculate rake and loco, from then on I only observed them either stationary under the gloomy sodium glare that was 1980's Waverley and Queen St. in their more normal brake dust and sewage splattered condition or hammering along the E&G and more interested in the loco number and name than observing the shade of each colour.

 

No ScotRail blue stripe passenger coaches produced for decades and then two manufacturers produce in the space of a few weeks all the coaches required for an E&G push-pull rake, great times now in the world of Scottish 80s railway modelling!

 

Hopefully OR release a further batch with different numbers as the said they might do if sales were good enough.

 

Brian.

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I'm a bit puzzled about all the talk about these being 'sold out'. The Liverpool box shifter had them up first and, yes, the TSO went pretty quickly. But the other coaches are still available with 'over 10 in stock'. And now I see the Sheffield box shifter has the TSOs freely available. All the coaches are also available at my local shop. Could Oxford have maybe sent these out in a limited way initially and the sellers are still waiting for proper stock? Anyway, whatever the answer, perhaps a tad early to say they're sold out.

Not puzzling when you consider the real life concept of these coaches. The push pull rakes originally contained one FO and later on this was replaced by the CO. Ergo for a protypical rake you need 3 or 4 TSOs and only a single FO/CO, hence the TSOs are going to disappear much faster than the others.

This fits in with something I've always noticed with runs of other types of coaches - the first class vehicles are always the last to sell out.

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All the coaches seem to be everywhere at the mo. They have hit eBay. My local model shop has lots of each type, including the TSOs. Looks like they went on sale in Liverpool first and the TSOs went quickly from that seller. But they are widely available everywhere else, as the stock comes on stream across multiple outlets.

Edited by jixer
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All this speculation about sold out...

 

A quick fact check, on Oxford Diecasts own website shows every mk3 released so far is still available for sale and in stock, apart from 2x blue greys, which are marked future, albeit released already, perhaps expecting more stock, as unlike other Non-Mk3 items in their list which say “sold out”.

 

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/collections/oxford-rail?page=2

Edited by adb968008
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All this speculation about sold out...

A quick fact check, on Oxford Diecasts own website shows every mk3 released so far is still available for sale and in stock, apart from 2x blue greys, which are marked future, albeit released already, perhaps expecting more stock, as unlike other Non-Mk3 items in their list which say “sold out”.https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/collections/oxford-rail?page=2

I think the conversation was in relation to the Scotrail livery TSO’s.....they have all but gone within a a day or two....

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All this speculation about sold out...

 

A quick fact check, on Oxford Diecasts own website shows every mk3 released so far is still available for sale and in stock, apart from 2x blue greys, which are marked future, albeit released already, perhaps expecting more stock, as unlike other Non-Mk3 items in their list which say “sold out”.

 

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/collections/oxford-rail?page=2

 

 

Please take heed of what 87029 said in post number 1901 before saying this is all 'speculation' as regards the Scotrail TSOs

 

I hope the originator of this e-mail from within the Oxford company will not object to me re-producing the relevant part here, but this will explain as to why the ScotRail 2nds are no longer available from some shops, and have taken them off their websites:

 

"I’m really sorry to say that we are sold out and will not be able to ship any further models over and above those that we have shipped in the past days. I knew that numbers were tight on this coach, but I didn’t think that they were quite this close. I know from those of you who I have spoken to that early sales of these coaches have been excellent – so much for the online critics. We are urgently considering either a re-run or an alternative numbered version and I should know more about this during the Toyfair next week."

 

Some shops may have some left. Then we will have to wait a week to find out what will happen next.

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Please take heed of what 87029 said in post number 1901 before saying this is all 'speculation' as regards the Scotrail TSOs

 

 

I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make Phil, they are still available on their website this morning and also my local retailer has all three variants in stock and only arrived this Tuesday.  Clearly some retailers will have run out of them though.

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That there was evidence from the horse's mouth that OR had sold out of Scotrail coaches, it wasn't just pure conjecture. That they're now on the OR website is a little odd.

 

 

Which was a reference to stock available for further distribution to the retailers as opposed to the stock held by them for their own sales. It may be odd that they are available however its an inescapable fact and there are other retailers who may well still have some.  I certainly know of one.

Edited by Bob Reid
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All 3 Scotrail showing instock at Oxford Diecast...

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/search?q=Scotrail*

 

2 @ hattons..

https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/SiteResults.aspx?searchfield=Scotrail%20oxford

 

Searching on Rails”s website reveals 1201 items (ive stopped using that site as its just not working for me) but if youve got the time and motivation they are in there somewhere.

 

All showing at Kernow..

 

http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/c/1639/Oxford-Rail

Edited by adb968008
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Some time back there was discussion about ORs flimsy cam coupler arrangement in the Mk3s... as I started fitting mine with Roco's bar couplers I fell foul of this and managed to dislodge a coupler mechanism.  The fix however was actually quite easy...

 

The cam coupler runs in a recess in the coach underframe and is held in place by the interior seating moulding sitting on top.  What seemed to be the issue on my Mk3 was that the seating mechanism which is held to the underframe by a very short screw simply popped up slightly allowing the coupler to jump out of the recess and render the whole thing unusable. 

 

Opening the carriage up was a piece of cake - as others have said unclip the ETH(?) cables at each end and the coach body simply clips off the underframe when the outer edges are gently prised outwards - a little more of this is required to clear the seat mouldings and you have the chassis separated from the body in no time.

 

On my example I am unconvinced there was ever a screw at one end (holding the seating unit to the underframe) as there is no sign of distortion on the plastic from the screw being tightened that exists at the other end... it may however have dropped out at some point.  The screw at the other end was easily popped from its thread showing the weakness, and re-screwing it tight just resulted in popping out again.

 

Anyway the fix was a really simple one... in a moment of inspiration I wondered whether the screw from an Oxford Diecast car casing (the ones through the floor of the casing that hold the car in place in its display cabinet that we remove and throw away) would work and what I found was that screw was similar diameter but longer shank than the supplied screw in the Mk3.  So I held the cam assembly together in position and screwed the seating unit to the underframe with these screws.  Seems far more robust and got carriage back together in a few secs.

 

Overall with this fix made the mechanism seems fine - the frailty seems to be a very simple one to fix (i.e. not so much a design issue as a poor choice of screw for assembling).  When I eventually get around to installing passengers in my other coaches I may well change the screws as a matter of course having seen how little length there is in the shank to purchase on the plastic, as can see this vulnerability repeating otherwise.

 

M

Edited by Matt
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All 3 Scotrail showing instock at Oxford Diecast...https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/search?q=Scotrail*

2 @ hattons..https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/SiteResults.aspx?searchfield=Scotrail%20oxford

Searching on Rails”s website reveals 1201 items (ive stopped using that site as its just not working for me) but if youve got the time and motivation they are in there somewhere.

All showing at Kernow..http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/c/1639/Oxford-Rail

Not quite....

 

Hattons/Kernow/rails/modelrailways direct/gaugemasters all out of stock for the Scotrail TSO’s.... Hattons and rails have now removed the TSO’s from their sites, whilst the others when you view/select tell you they are out of stock....

 

I’d imagine that oxfords website doesn’t get updated every day....

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I have just received a full push pull rake-

DBSO CO TSO TSO TSO TSO.

And 2 of them had a broken couplingpost-7144-0-42768500-1547911261_thumb.jpg

 

Has anybody else had this issue.

Hattons has replaced the CO.

I bought the other one from Kernow who have promised to replace when they get more in.

Phil

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