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Rails Announce OO 18000 Gas Turbine Locomotive


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18 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

We had an election leaflet come through a few years ago and under the picture of the candidate it said “insert name hear” ……you just can’t get the staff :lol:

Continuing the thread creep, I always laughed at the election posters for our local MP of the time, Geoffrey Pattie, which proclaimed "Meet Pattie!" It reminded me of McDonalds and I thought they should do a similar one for Ed Balls! (CJL)

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3 hours ago, 7013 said:

Mine has been running faultlessly, I do have big curves on my layout though, nothing is loose or fallen off. Installing the sound chip myself was easy, especially with the Roads and Rails speaker modification, everything just plugged in no soldering and plenty of room for the speakers which sit just above the bogies. Lights all work as advertised. Any disappointment I have is with the gas turbine sound (F3) which is quite quiet almost unobtrusive. My childhood memories were of a much louder gas turbine whine. I would turn that volume up if I knew how? I have a lokprogrammer but am a bit nervous on that at the moment, so any hints would be appreciated. My overall impression of this loco is excellent, and I can live with the quiet gas turbine sound. A beautiful model evoking my memories of seeing the prototype when working and me as a youngster thinking it looked like something from space, speaking of which, has anyone else noticed that the front of the black/silver version looks like Darth Vader?

Something is not as it should be there, I fancy. Mine came with sound installed and the turbine gives out a very loud whine –almost a scream. As it accelerates, the scream rises in pitch but I can’t decide if it fades out at higher pitch or if the pitch is so high that my ears can’t hear it. I haven’t the Roads and Rails speaker modification to compare but I’m perfectly happy with the speaker installed. The sound reminds me somewhat of a Vickers Viscount.

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Interestingly the legomanbiffo sound chip came with a variety of speakers, including two the same as Roads and Rails except not pre wired with a plug. I have the tiny speaker and plug supplied with the loco so I may plug that in and see if it makes a difference

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1 hour ago, dibber25 said:

Continuing the thread creep, I always laughed at the election posters for our local MP of the time, Geoffrey Pattie, which proclaimed "Meet Pattie!" It reminded me of McDonalds and I thought they should do a similar one for Ed Balls! (CJL)

 

:offtopic:

 

This is genuine and was sent out for delivery. The people delivered them as they were getting paid to do so. :laugh:

 

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On 12/10/2021 at 01:55, peteskitchen said:

Couple of observations of this model.

2nd is the lighting. The single red light works as it should, however only the outer two lower white lights work. The roof light appears to work when the cab lights are on but I think its just the cab light filtering through the hole. The middle centre white light doesn't work at all. 

I have found the same with the lights. I’m not too bothered about the two centre headcode lights not functioning as the loco would have been used on express passenger services and the two outer lights which do work would be the code for an express. What I do find curious is that the engine compartment lights can be controlled independently but the cablights (quite rightly, one lights up only in the direction of travel) do not come on until the headcode lights are switched on. I wonder how the driver was supposed to find the switch! The other curiosity is that the cablight extinguishes when the model starts to move. I have seen this done on some recent models. I would have thought that the driver would be a little too busy to switch the cablight off exactly at the moment he releases the brake and revs up. I have seen videos of cablights on 37s being switched off just after the loco has started moving but it isn’t a major problem as the cablights can always be switched off at varying times before the model starts to move.

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10 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

I haven’t…..money went a couple of weeks ago though :(

 

I am keeping an optimistic view that the model will be perfect out of the box and run around my third radius curves without issue……although I do wish they had mentioned this in the initial announcement of the model details.

 

I'm still waiting for mine too, black/silver with sound. As only my small test oval has R2 curves, mine will be tested on a simple straight length of flexitrack for now as my main 'layout' is still nowhere near track being laid.

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Mine has arrived (whistles intact), phew.

Lovely looking model though will see only very limited use given it's curve restrictions.

I wonder how it will perform over points - will try when I can.

TBH it was always likely to spend most of it's time in a line up at the layouts 'museum' - sure it will look content amongst other black and silver liveried beauties!

Might also do a Gas Turbine line up at some point.

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I expect the sound ones are taking time and were probably quite popular pre-orders.  I gather they fit their own sound modules at Rails, so they warned that they would take longer.  It would make sense for them to send out the non-sound ones first to make some space, so possibly fewer hands to help out (any spacing restrictions aside).

 

I'm looking forward to my black, sound one too.  I really like the black locos, though I've only ever seen 18000 in green at Didcot GWS.  Always wondered what the real thing sounded like but I guess having a sound model of one is the next best thing.

 

The down side is I'm also tempted to get sound for all my other early experimental locos too (where available)!

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The matter of head and tail lamps on the gas turbines is another area which probably needs some explanation.  First, like the diesel railcars, whenever 18000 and 18100 were required to have a red light at the rear (i.e. when running light engine) they had to carry an 'ordinary' oil tail lamp which needed to be alight at the usual times such lamps were required to be lit.  Under the 1949 Instruction during daylight the loco was required to carry white headcode discs indicating the class of train which it was working and the electric headcode lights were only used when the train would have been required to carry lit head lights.  In the event of a failure of the electric headlights ordinary oil head lamps were to be used instead.

 

There are pictures of 18000 carrying headcode discs, obviously on the lamp brackets, and some pictures of it carrying oil head lamps but noticeably there are pictures of it throughout its working life with headcode discs.  18100 on the other hand appears from photos to have carried oil head lamps for the latter part of its WR working life and there are very few pictures of it with headcode discs.  As CJL had access to numerous photos he might like to add to the impression given by the photos in Kevin Roberttson's book.

 

Both locos however, according to photos,  always appeared with an oil tail lamp when working light - exactly as they were required to do.

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OK my 18000 sound has just arrived.

 

Unpacking was a bit of a challenge as whoever had installed the chip hadn't put the outer plastic sleeve back on fully so it was jammed in.

 

Once out, one whistle was bent so I straightened it, so fine. Looks really good and only a bit tricky to get om the rails.

 

Started the running in sound off. It started very jerky & wobbly but soon got running smoothly, no issues on bends or points. It gradually began to run well but kept jerking or stopping on the slightest of dirt. No issues with my other locos even the poor pick up ones.

 

Tried out the sound, its more than load enough with that whining jet engine.

 

The problem has been on the slightest spec of dirt it stops completely and restarts the entire start up sequence. It also stops so hard that coaches derail! I have cleaned the rails to medically clean levels but still it fusses on joints, points and even on clean track. An utter pain to run!

 

Could this be a contacts issue? Does it need stay alive fitting?

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11 minutes ago, reddragon said:

OK my 18000 sound has just arrived.

 

Unpacking was a bit of a challenge as whoever had installed the chip hadn't put the outer plastic sleeve back on fully so it was jammed in.

 

Once out, one whistle was bent so I straightened it, so fine. Looks really good and only a bit tricky to get om the rails.

 

Started the running in sound off. It started very jerky & wobbly but soon got running smoothly, no issues on bends or points. It gradually began to run well but kept jerking or stopping on the slightest of dirt. No issues with my other locos even the poor pick up ones.

 

Tried out the sound, its more than load enough with that whining jet engine.

 

The problem has been on the slightest spec of dirt it stops completely and restarts the entire start up sequence. It also stops so hard that coaches derail! I have cleaned the rails to medically clean levels but still it fusses on joints, points and even on clean track. An utter pain to run!

 

Could this be a contacts issue? Does it need stay alive fitting?

Wasn’t there mention before about the pickups not making good contact with the wheels?

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With the wheel contacts sorted my 18000 is now running faultlessly, although I’m DC only.

 

The cab detail is a loverly bit of moulding, unlike many model diesel cab interiors which are often a rather poor approximation of the real thing and is obviously inspired by the photo of the cab interior of the real thing which has appeared in print many times.

 

I like to add a bit of life to the cab interiors with a crew and picking out the cab controls, I have tried to make a representation of the door through to the engine compartment, painted the floor from the rather stark white and created a waste band on the back bulkhead below which is painted engine green, not sure if this is the correct colour but it looks about right inspired by colour pictures of the real thing.


Cab steps (1 of which I seem to have lost) and under buffer beam tanks still to attach.

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2 hours ago, reddragon said:

Could this be a contacts issue? Does it need stay alive fitting?

I must say mine has no problems on points, most of my points are weathered and dirty. It would probably sort out your problem to have a stay alive if you did not want to take the loco apart to mess around with contacts. 

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Mine arrived Tuesday and as a result of it not being able to go around 2nd radius curves I had to buy a rolling road.

(probably not the best set up but, it does the job).

 

Still a lovely model and have to say I’m impressed with it so far.

Very heavy probably not as heavy as Kestrel but certainly a contender.

 

Has anyone mentioned about about the cab lights only working at one end?

 

which end is the front? (End one)?

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Edited by Steam here!
Missed out a word
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So what do we get in the box?

 

• A user manual

 

• An accessory pack including: 2X narrow tension lock couplings, 4X cab steps, 4X brake rods (I think there brake rods), 2X screw link couplings and 4 pipes (2X steam heating & 2X vacuum?).

 

• A second accessory bag with metal numbers and letters.

 

• A leaflet promoting the Gas Turbine 18100.

 

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10 hours ago, reddragon said:

The problem has been on the slightest spec of dirt it stops completely and restarts the entire start up sequence. It also stops so hard that coaches derail! I have cleaned the rails to medically clean levels but still it fusses on joints, points and even on clean track. An utter pain to run!

 

Could this be a contacts issue? Does it need stay alive fitting?

I find that most new locos nowadays need their wheels cleaning before use.

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I'm still waiting for action on mine.  They haven't even taken the money yet.  I was concerned that when I had to block my card recently, I also blocked Rails. I wrote to them but heard nothing back.  I have several pre-orders locked in the old system.

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I have had mine running for extended periods but unfortunately any video file more than a few seconds long will not upload, so you will have to take my word for it. The running qualities of my loco as stated before are very good. I tried to put the buffer beam detail on today and found the holes were too small to locate the pipes etc which snapped with minimal pressure. The front buffer beam now needs cosmetic repair. I managed to get the steps and bars in place but inevitably a whistle broke off (why did they not make brass ones?) I love this model but I would not vote for it if it was it was up for model of the year because IMHO much of the above could have been done in manufacture at no extra cost. It is a great model but not as great as say the Kernow Warship. My opinion only of course but overall I am well satisfied. 

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Had mine running this morning on the down Royal Duchy. I too found the holes tight, probably paint, but when cleared with a small drill in a pin chuck they fitted ok. Will fit the steps after more running in.

 

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15 minutes ago, gwrrob said:

Had mine running this morning on the down Royal Duchy. I too found the holes tight, probably paint, but when cleared with a small drill in a pin chuck they fitted ok. Will fit the steps after more running in.

 

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Ohhh, bit worried about that central overhang, looks for sure it’s low enough to bash my dummy point motors on some points.

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9 minutes ago, gwrrob said:

One for @Ian Hargrave who currently has health problems but I know he likes a sepia photo.;)

 

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He does indeed Robin and thanks for this. Currently temporarily at home with operation scheduled at the end of the month and feeling better with medication. The break from a hospital ward is sheer bliss. After with sympathetic cooperation from Rails having to put a hold on my black& silver 18000 while I was “unavoidably detained “it’s now on its way to me to brighten my days in during the waiting time.  Best to all with appreciation for all your good wishes.

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