RevolutioN announce 56xx in N

[Long Line]

Mine arrived on Monday by tracked royal mail.

Having looked at it and run it now I'm very pleased I supported this model by coughing up in full and in advance. Its one of the finest rtr 148th scale locos I've seen to date.

 

Was it worth the wait?... yes

 

Was it worth the confusion of delivery dates and general lack of communication over many years?.. no

 

Would I pay in advance again?.. I'd have to see how sonic fair in communicating thier next products release?

 

Will i be getting another 56xx this time via rails?.. definitely.

 

 

On a final note.. once again I hold my head in my hands at the fact that nobody has still had the nounce to do a gwr mogul in n. One of the most go anywhere do anything locos which worked right up to the end of steam?... come on guys!

[AlfaZagato]

There was one suggested.  We don't speak of the outfit concerned anymore.

[Barry Ten]

I ordered a pair of BR black ones direct from Revolution which arrived today. Running is good out of the box and they coped well on my Finetrax Code 40 track, both forward and reverse through a variety of points. They look excellent, definitely having the presence of 56XXs, and the detailing is impressive considering the scale. Good job all round.

[Revolution Mike]

1 hour ago, Long Line said:

Was it worth the wait?... yes

 

Was it worth the confusion of delivery dates and general lack of communication over many years?.. no

 

Would I pay in advance again?.. I'd have to see how sonic fair in communicating thier next products release?

Out of interest are you signed up for our newsletter/social media or do you read our website (Revolution Trains)? Because all of those have featured developments of the 56xx and our website contained updated estimates of delivery dates as we received them. 
 

As an aside no one has been waiting many years as the first orders were taken July 2019 so the longest people can have waited since ordering is 2 years (though Sonic were showing the CAD and tooled samples before then) . I can’t remember exactly when production started but the order book was open for a period before production started and then of course COVID struck.  

[Davexoc]

Well my rule 1 purchase arrived today, so a few loops of the main line in either direction at 40% on not the cleanest of tracks, and all good. Would run at about 20% quite smoothly. I was impressed by the weight, so out of interest I tagged a full length MGR coal train behind it (36 wagons), and it romped away with minimum fuss, only faltering slightly when the whole train was on the curve.

 

A couple of quick phone cam shots with something more appropriate in tow....

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Davexoc
Photo restored

[TomE]

My second 56xx arrived from God's Own County earlier this week, and I've written a few words about it here

 

It really is quite a superb little thing. 

 

Tom.  

Edited August 5, 2021 by TomE

[bingley hall]

On 05/08/2021 at 03:07, Long Line said:

 

 

Was it worth the confusion of delivery dates and general lack of communication over many years?.. no

 

 

What absolute tosh.

[Barry Ten]

Just a query, not a whinge. It was mentioned a few pages ago that there'd be pickup from the rear wheels, but neither of my two examples seem to act as if this is working. If I hold either of them on the track with just the rear wheels touching the rails, there''s no trace of any motor movement.

[Revolution Ben]

7 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

Just a query, not a whinge. It was mentioned a few pages ago that there'd be pickup from the rear wheels, but neither of my two examples seem to act as if this is working. If I hold either of them on the track with just the rear wheels touching the rails, there''s no trace of any motor movement.

 

Hi there,

 

Yes, the rear pony should pick up.   Does it have the metal pick up strips?  Do they bear on the vertical pick ups on the mounting peg?

 

If necessary please send a note to the support email address in the instructions.

 

cheers

 

[Barry Ten]

1 hour ago, Revolution Ben said:

 

Hi there,

 

Yes, the rear pony should pick up.   Does it have the metal pick up strips?  Do they bear on the vertical pick ups on the mounting peg?

 

If necessary please send a note to the support email address in the instructions.

 

cheers

 

 

Thanks Ben, Yes, I can see the pickup strips and where they bear into the mounting peg. Do the pickups work off a split axle, or they meant to bear onto the backs of the wheels? 

[Barry Ten]

I did some more investigation of my two samples. The pickups work by bearing onto the split axle of the pony truck, but I could only get them to work if I applied quite a bit of downforce at the cab end. Removing the pony truck and its axle, I could see where the pickup wires are supposed to make contact with the axle, but the contact doesn't seem to be positive enough for reliable pickup.

 

(I managed to damage and then had to repair the pickups on one sample in the process of investigation, but that's another story).

 

 

 

 

[gedlee]

Just back home after a week helping daughter prepare to move house and 2 locos waiting for me.

They are amazing! Very fine, exquisite detail and lots of it!! The painting and print finish is superb and the weathered version has just the right amount of grime. They both run like a dream, very smooth and almost silent. They put other manufacturers to shame and I am very impressed.

Thanks again to Ben, Mike and particularly Sam for such a fine model.

[Pmorgancym]

Just curious, a new manufacturer, a new loco release.  Yet very little froth has been generated, is this a good thing or a bad thing??  Did so few of us buy or have there just been relatively problem free.

 

[Kaput]

50 minutes ago, Pmorgancym said:

Just curious, a new manufacturer, a new loco release.  Yet very little froth has been generated, is this a good thing or a bad thing??  Did so few of us buy or have there just been relatively problem free.

 

 

Par for the course for N gauge sadly. Smaller market than OO and even smaller amount that bother to post on forums it seems.

[Roy L S]

According to Ben A on another over 1000 have been shipped already with plenty more to go and selling well via Rails too - one livery variant sold out and plenty of others where liveries are 70% or sold last I checked. So, far from few buying them as far as I can tell they have proved to be really popular.

 

It does seem that overall the locos have been relatively free of issues, inevitably some haven't been right, but that is only to be expected with a mass produced model. I am really impressed with my pair, one of which has probably had about 5 hours of running now and and the mechanism, already excellent from the box, has settled down to an incredibly sweet runner. 

 

It bodes well for the J50...

 

Roy

[RichardT]

1 hour ago, Kaput said:

 

Par for the course for N gauge sadly. Smaller market than OO and even smaller amount that bother to post on forums it seems.

Bear in mind that there is also an N Gauge Forum, often seen as a more hospitable place for N Gaugers than the 4mm-orientated RMWeb.  Plenty of enthusiasm for the 56xx there.

 

RT

[Steven B]

Mine is problem free. It initially needed a prod to get it moving but after running for a half-hour or so starts and stops were very smooth, even using a late Poole era train-set controller.

 

Running on a oval of Kato track (roughly 3x1.5' - R249/9.8" curves) it managed 12 Farish Mk1s or 50 16t minerals and a brake van.

 

Certainly odds on favourite for N Gauge "Loco of the year" to my eyes.

 

Steven B.

[ba14eagle]

Those who have purchased the version 5637, have you paid a small premium and is there any mention of a donation, from the sale of the loco, being made to the 5637 loco group?

[97403_Ixion]

12 hours ago, ba14eagle said:

Those who have purchased the version 5637, have you paid a small premium and is there any mention of a donation, from the sale of the loco, being made to the 5637 loco group?

I have just checked mine (S2101-01) and there are two pieces of paper with it - both regarding the model itself (DCC, parts, etc.).  I don't see a separate note as such (receipt or on the box), though I do put in good faith that a donation was made... checking back it looks like ~£8? from a Newsletter.

 

As far as the model itself, I'm generally a diesel person but was happy to support the venture and very glad I did.  The thing that stood out to me was the fine level of detail.  I don't have many steam locos but the work put into this comparatively small engine was very pleasing to see.  I'll be keeping eyes open on this company (I already have a number of the great little VEA vans).  So, well done to the team, especially Sam, on this first loco in N from Sonic Models.

[Revolution Mike]

17 hours ago, ba14eagle said:

Those who have purchased the version 5637, have you paid a small premium and is there any mention of a donation, from the sale of the loco, being made to the 5637 loco group?

If you purchased direct from us then you will have paid an £8 premium and that will be going to the 5637 group (we couldn’t do that until the models arrived). 
 

cheers Mine

[stivesnick]

I have 3 of these locos. All excellent runners straight out of the box and easy to fit the Dapol automatic uncouplers.

 

Great stuff.

 

Nick 

[Jon Harbour]

My two arrived this afternoon in Sydney. Both are superb and ran very smoothly on a piece of Flexi track using a 9V battery - don't have a layout at home. Sadly won't get a proper run-out for a while yet... six weeks into COVID lockdown in Sydney and no sign of when it might end.... 

[AGR Model Store]

I've got a customer who's having a spot of bother running his 56xx on DCC, Did I read somewhere ( or dream ) that some CV's where needed to be changed for ZIMO decoders ?

 

Thank you in advance

[Izzy]

4 hours ago, AGR Model Store said:

I've got a customer who's having a spot of bother running his 56xx on DCC, Did I read somewhere ( or dream ) that some CV's where needed to be changed for ZIMO decoders ?

 

Thank you in advance

Although Zimo’s with the latest firmware have auto motor control now set as default, if the motor is a coreless one, which I think it might be, then I have found it still best to set cv9 to 51 and cv56 to 133. This gives much better results with coreless to my mind. But this is fine tuning, it should run quite acceptably at default settings. If not then something else would seem amiss.

[AGR Model Store]

1 hour ago, Izzy said:

Although Zimo’s with the latest firmware have auto motor control now set as default, if the motor is a coreless one, which I think it might be, then I have found it still best to set cv9 to 51 and cv56 to 133. This gives much better results with coreless to my mind. But this is fine tuning, it should run quite acceptably at default settings. If not then something else would seem amiss.

 

Thank you, will give it a go