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Dapol Mark 1 coaches?


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On 09/03/2021 at 20:17, Beclawat said:

Did you ever get confirmation of this please Robin?

No.  My main layout is 00 gauge and I have some Hornby Mk1 coaches with lights which operate on both analogue and dcc. 

 

I have not got an 0 gauge layout and I have just got a couple of wagons. One club has an analogue layout and another has a large dcc layout. I would like to buy some Dapol Mk1 coaches but I don't want to spend over £300 on the dcc versions if running on dcc damages the lights or even more money on the dcc versions if they don't work on analogue.

 

I think my best option would be to wait until some of the other club members buy some and they can demonstrate the difference between the analogue and dcc versions or to wait until someone reviews the coaches on this site.  Perhaps the Peco  Technical Advice Bureau may be able to help.  I was hoping to get more than a couple of word's advice from Dapol to explain why there are separate dcc and analogue versions as Dapol stands to lose a sale.

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You will be pleased to read that I have now received my green Mk1 corridor second and brake second.  They are wonderful models and the interiors have seats in the correct colours, miniature reading lamps, luggage racks, mirrors and carriage prints.  The corridors do connect. 

 

A couple of problems are that only the guard's end of the brake second has three link couplings and these are finer than my Dapol goods wagons.  I have not got any Dapol locomotives so I am not sure if they will couple to them. It also means that the brake second is the only coach that can couple to the locomotive as the other couplings are automatic.  The other problem is that one corridor connection has come off either in transit or when I removed it from the box and I cannot put it back.  There seems to be a screw at the bottom that I may be able to undo.

 

I have not tried the lights yet but the coach comes with full instructions and my analogue coaches will operate either on analogue or dcc. They are in Lionheart boxes. 

 

I have just received a message from one of my local model railway clubs that we may not be able to meet until September due to coronavirus so it will be a long time before I see these coaches in action. 

 

Meanwhile I enclose some pictures showing the two coaches,  the corridor connection and the broken connection at the other end of one of the coaches.

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Edited by Robin Brasher
Corrected Lionel to Lionheart
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As these coaches used Buckeye couplings in life, my approach for coupling coaches would be to use Kadee, which I think are fitted to the model.   The Kadees should go through the buffer beam though, not under.  For Buckeye fitted stock, the buffers should be retracted to be strictly correct.

 

For coupling to the loco, you don't need a full screw link, just a cosmetic drop down buckeye:

 

1435947081_P1010003(3).JPG.9c40718fd558baf6c93bfd808f93592b.JPG

 

Use the loco coupling, which you are supposed to do anyway.

 

I got these from Invertrain and used them on my Kirk Gresley BG.

 

One issue I had was that getting the screw link onto the hook is well nigh impossible.  I removed the platform at the bottom of the corridor which helps a lot.

 

Looking forward to my maroon pair in a few days.

 

John

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Are the sides and floor one piece like the autocoach or separate like the B set?

 

I fancy a BG conversion but that will be a lot more tempting if the sides come off making it a lot easier to use the leftovers on a 2nd coach.

Edited by Hal Nail
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I enclose some pictures of the green brake second with the lights on as requested.  There are two tiny switches underneath the model to switch the lights in the guard and passenger areas off. Fortunately they are supplied with the switches on.  The lights will operate on DC or DCC layouts. The interiors are the best I have seen since Peco made the interiors for 00 gauge Kitmaster coaches. It looks like you can step into the coach and sit down. There are no carriage prints as I previously thought but they do have mirrors. It looks like the body unscrews from the chassis but I don't know if the sides come off.

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Delivery from Tower Models this morning:

 

IMG_20210317_113739_1.jpg.fbe72935a9793bbacb937c4ae586a793.jpg

 

The green looks about right in the flesh and my first impressions are much better than the BCK I got from Darstaed. I'll definitely now be moving the latter on and will have my fingers crossed for Dapol doing a BCK.

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4 hours ago, 2ManySpams said:

have my fingers crossed for Dapol doing a BCK.

Looks from the interior photo posted that the sides unscrew so theres always the option of cutting and shutting to get your BCK.

 

Edited by Hal Nail
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39 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

 

Looks from the interior photo posted that the sides unscrew so theres always the option of cutting and shutting to get your BCK.

 

 

Only to find they then do one! ;)

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4 minutes ago, 2ManySpams said:

 

Only to find they then do one! ;)

ha! Well they will almost certainly do a BG that i'm planning, although it would need a new chassis and roof so maybe not.

 

I might be getting confused but I'm pretty sure someone was bemoaning the lack of BCKs in the 4mm ranges the other day and the consensus seemed to be they don't sell very well, but that's just anecdotal.

 

Edited by Hal Nail
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34 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

ha! Well they will almost certainly do a BG that i'm planning, although it would need a new chassis and roof so maybe not.

 

I might be getting confused but I'm pretty sure someone was bemoaning the lack of BCKs in the 4mm ranges the other day and the consensus seemed to be they don't sell very well, but that's just anecdotal.

 

 

They sell well to southern modellers as, with a BSK, they make up a standard 2 coach set and these smaller sets were used multiple times to make up a much longer formation. You could easily have 4 or 5 BCKs in a multi-portion formation.

 

Hornby do Maunsell BCKs and Bachmann do the MK1 BCK in 4mm. Bachmann never did a BCK in their original Bulleid range and IMO this lost them lots of sales as the two subtly different diagrams had significant use in 2 coach sets, single coach portions and as loose coaches. 

 

Formations are very different in other regions but the BCK is essential for southern folk. A case of manufacturers not fully understanding the market?

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1 hour ago, 2ManySpams said:

 

Formations are very different in other regions but the BCK is essential for southern folk. A case of manufacturers not fully understanding the market?

I’m sure I remember travelling in a BCK on one of the portions on the Far North, back in the late 70’s.

It was only 4 coaches all told, including a Buffet Car.

Edited by EmporiaSub
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Wow, they have put the DCC interface board in the coach fastened in with Velcro so makes removing it easy easy to add a function decoder. 
 

Adding a ESU V4 FX for now but will replace it with the new V5 Loksound FX when it is out soon. 

E2A7926E-F22A-47A5-9F19-F87790C61794.jpeg

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4 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

 

I might be getting confused but I'm pretty sure someone was bemoaning the lack of BCKs in the 4mm ranges the other day and the consensus seemed to be they don't sell very well, but that's just anecdotal.

 

 

I'd be surprised at that, because Bachmann currently do a Mark 1 BCK and Replica did a decent one years before that. The Hornby Hawksworth and Maunsell ranges also include this configuration. For modellers with layouts which can only take a couple of coaches, like mine, I've always considered the BCK to be a useful vehicle, because it has an extra compartment compared to a BSK and one of these with an SO or SK provides a reasonable 1st/2nd 'mix'. Move up to three coaches and BSK + CK + SO or SK seems right. Just my opinion, other opinions are available! :D So I hope a Dapol BCK does follow on (for you guys, I don't model 7mm, although I'm well impressed with these - congrats to Dapol/Lionheart!)

Edited by Neil Phillips
Added Lionheart to Dapol
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After much searching I found the comments I remembered seeing in a thread announcing Hornby's 2021 BCK - but it was just a couple of opinions about their popularity.

 

I grabbed a random book of Peter Gray's on the west country and the split of BCK to BSK in that is roughly 50:50 including a few in use on secondary lines.

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6 hours ago, EmporiaSub said:

I’m sure I remember travelling in a BCK on one of the portions on the Far North, back in the late 70’s.

It was only 4 coaches all told, including a Buffet Car.

The Wick portion had a BCK  and RMB, plus whatever vans and the Thurso one had two or three CK's and usually several vans. In the seventies and early eighties trains were sometimes in double figures.

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