Dapol announce O Gauge Class 66

[F-UnitMad]

Adam, if it's gone through all that extra work, is there time and/or chance to have a re-think on the EWS livery too? As I understand it, 66 001 which Dapol are planning had some livery or detail variations to the rest of the common or garden EWS fleet? I'd like a rather more anonymous/generic EWS model if that were possible. Maybe an un-numbered version with a seperate decal set enclosed would be viable, especially for such a large fleet?

Rotating axle bearing caps certainly is a 'stunner' of a detail. My American O freight cars have that feature, but not my locomotives. That, as far as I know, would be a first in R-T-R O Scale.

[Adam1701D]

I'm afraid it is too late to change the model choices, as these are locked in and pre-orders have been taken.

 

There will be a retailer's special in EWS and another in EWS International, which will be announced in due course.

[J. S. Bach]

11 hours ago, Adam1701D said:

The model is back in tooling and we hope to have EPs in the New Year (which side of CNY, I am not sure yet).

 

I understand the frustration of the extra delay; we decided to do the retool at considerable expense, rather than release a model with numerous errors on the bodywork. Please keep the faith, as it is going to be a stunner.

So, how will that affect the prior pre-order pricing?

[Hilux5972]

So now that we are well past CNY, do we have an estimate as to when we will see samples of the 66? 

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, Hilux5972 said:

So now that we are well past CNY, do we have an estimate as to when we will see samples of the 66? 

I will try & remember to ask them at the Kettering Guild O show next weekend. 👍

[Hilux5972]

18 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I will try & remember to ask them at the Kettering Guild O show next weekend. 👍

Thank you ☺️ 

[Hilux5972]

Was there anything in the 66 at Kettering?

[F-UnitMad]

4 minutes ago, Hilux5972 said:

Was there anything in the 66 at Kettering?

I did ask about it. There wasn't one on display. I was told they pretty much started the design from scratch all over again. They are expecting a new EP next month, then decorated samples in the summer. No prediction on when the model would be in the shops was given - I'm not surprised, & I didn't ask that question.

 

So don't hold your breath....

 

[Hal Nail]

In fairness I think Dapol deserve credit for taking on the cost of retooling. We are frequently told it is prohibitive to do this but this isn't the first time they've done it.

 

[djparkins]

2 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I did ask about it. There wasn't one on display. I was told they pretty much started the design from scratch all over again. They are expecting a new EP next month, then decorated samples in the summer. No prediction on when the model would be in the shops was given - I'm not surprised, & I didn't ask that question.

 

So don't hold your breath....

 

I agree. 
 

I fully applaud Dapol for releasing this locomotive, which in my opinion will be extremely important in terms of the longer term future of UK O Gauge. 
 

However, l still fail completely to see how they will be able to bring such a complex subject to market at anywhere near the prices they are quoting. I do hope I’m wrong though!

 

Also the two main GBRf schemes really need adding to the livery options

 

DJP

 

 

Edited March 3 by djparkins

[Ressaldar]

12 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I did ask about it. There wasn't one on display. I was told they pretty much started the design from scratch all over again. They are expecting a new EP next month, then decorated samples in the summer. No prediction on when the model would be in the shops was given - I'm not surprised, & I didn't ask that question.

 

So don't hold your breath....

 

I also asked the same question and received the same answer but I was also told that they were going to announce TWO new locomotives this summer!

 

regards

 

Mike

[njee20]

On 03/12/2023 at 20:30, Adam1701D said:

I'm afraid it is too late to change the model choices, as these are locked in and pre-orders have been taken.

 

There will be a retailer's special in EWS and another in EWS International, which will be announced in due course.

That’s a shame, as it had the lifting eyes at a different angle to the other 249 EWS ones! Given you’ve gone to effort of retooling surely telling retailers the running number has changed on a model which is still probably a year away isn’t impossible? 001 and 002 also had maroon body side grills on delivery, although they didn’t last that way. May be a bit like the FGW mk3 roofs, where doing them wrong will look better!

[F-UnitMad]

9 hours ago, Ressaldar said:

I also asked the same question and received the same answer but I was also told that they were going to announce TWO new locomotives this summer!

 

regards

 

Mike

Hmmm. "Announcing" is the easy bit. We could have a decade or so to save up before we can actually buy them..... 😁

[Steadfast]

On 03/12/2023 at 13:44, F-UnitMad said:

Adam, if it's gone through all that extra work, is there time and/or chance to have a re-think on the EWS livery too? As I understand it, 66 001 which Dapol are planning had some livery or detail variations to the rest of the common or garden EWS fleet? I'd like a rather more anonymous/generic EWS model if that were possible. Maybe an un-numbered version with a seperate decal set enclosed would be viable, especially for such a large fleet?

Rotating axle bearing caps certainly is a 'stunner' of a detail. My American O freight cars have that feature, but not my locomotives. That, as far as I know, would be a first in R-T-R O Scale.

 

18 hours ago, njee20 said:

That’s a shame, as it had the lifting eyes at a different angle to the other 249 EWS ones! Given you’ve gone to effort of retooling surely telling retailers the running number has changed on a model which is still probably a year away isn’t impossible? 001 and 002 also had maroon body side grills on delivery, although they didn’t last that way. May be a bit like the FGW mk3 roofs, where doing them wrong will look better!

66001 and 66002 both have screw couplings and class 59 style buffer beams, including the different position of the front tie downs.

Both were delivered with maroon grills. 001 lost then when it went red. 002 retains them to date. The reflective stripe on this pair is also different to the other EWS locos.

The only difference between 001 and 002 as delivered was the position of the lamp bracket, which on 001 was in the class 59 position, but moved to match the others.

66001 shows class 59 style dragbox with vertical holes either side of the coupler aperture. This is the same as 002. 001 lost the top two tie downs when it had the tripcock pipework for the Met lines fitted.

 

 

66002, still got all its tie downs and maroon grills. Not a particularly recent photo, but they were still maroon a week or two back.

 

The front tie downs on the rest are in two styles, 66003 - 66200 are wide spaced, 66201 - 250 are narrow spaced. The narrow spaced locos had buckeyes fitted at the factory, the wide spaced were modded in the UK.

 

Wide spacing on 154. Left pair cut off to fit the buckeye, and area patch painted.

 

Once the spacing changed to narrow, all other 66s also had the narrow spacing. From memory it's only the early Freightliner locos (501 - 505) that have the narrow spacing. Everyone ordered their locos later so got the narrow spacing.

 

66533 illustrates the narrow spacing.

 

Hope that's of interest 

 

Jo

[njee20]

I was going to say all of that but I had no clue didn’t have time to type it all 🤪

 

Insightful as ever, Jo!

[Steadfast]

2 hours ago, njee20 said:

I was going to say all of that but I had no clue didn’t have time to type it all 🤪

 

Insightful as ever, Jo!

Well, it gave me something to do while travelling on the 165 getting back from today's job.

 

Jo

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hi there,

 

Just add to Jo's post, my understanding is that the first Freightliner order came in during a short pause in EWS deliveries, to allow time for the design variation of incorporating the buckeye coupler to be completed.

 

To avoid shutting down the production line five locomotives under construction that had been intended for EWS were quickly reassigned to Freightliner, and became 66501-5.  These had the 'wide' lug positions.

 

The 'narrow' spacing came about as it did not occlude the buckeye coupler equipment; but once settled on it was retained as the standard for EWS 66201-250 and then all subsequent locos, whether buckeye fitted or not.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

Edited March 4 by Revolution Ben

[J. S. Bach]

One serious question: how many total 66s were actually produced? TIA

[pylonman]

Hi.

 

Just cancelled my pre-order for this model.

 

I am getting extremely tired of the big manufacturers, very apparent, lack of respect for customers.

 

This thread started in 2019, and Dapol have just added another year to the wait.

 

(I agree with what other contributors to this thread have said ; if they are re-tooling the whole model. it's probably going to be more than one year before we get any model, based on it being 4 to 5 years to get this far)

(Heljan have just done the same thing with the two BSO's I had pre-ordered, I have cancelled those as well, adding another six months to the delivery date, with no explanation !!!)

 

I suppose there is a positive to be taken from this ; I saved myself a lot of money.

 

Regards

Edited March 20 by pylonman

[J. S. Bach]

I think that my pre-order (for the BIFFA) has been cancelled. If the pre-orders at Hatton's were not transferred to Rails of Sheffield, then mine is cancelled as I have seen nothing to state that they were transferred. I was planning on cancelling anyway as I am tired of waiting. And I am almost sure that when it finally gets released (2038?), it will cost far more than the pre-order pricing! I will settle for my 00 scale ones.

[Hal Nail]

5 hours ago, pylonman said:

I suppose there is a positive to be taken from this ; I saved myself a lot of money.

I'd have thought the more obvious positive from this is you haven't just bought something even they weren't happy with.

Edited March 20 by Hal Nail

[Adam1701D]

I am really sorry about the delay to the O Gauge 66, which is partially my fault, taking over the project half way through. The first EP unfortunately contained a number of errors, which has meant a complete retool.

 

We are making a number of improvements, including backing to the engine room grilles with lighting, smoke  and DCC sound provision. The new EPs should be ready in a couple of months and the artworks are all done and ready to go.

 

The 66 is the biggest loco we have ever tackled and will be well worth the wait. Please keep the faith!

[Hal Nail]

34 minutes ago, Adam1701D said:

I am really sorry about the delay to the O Gauge 66, which is partially my fault, taking over the project half way through. The first EP unfortunately contained a number of errors, which has meant a complete retool.

 

We are making a number of improvements, including backing to the engine room grilles with lighting, smoke  and DCC sound provision. The new EPs should be ready in a couple of months and the artworks are all done and ready to go.

 

The 66 is the biggest loco we have ever tackled and will be well worth the wait. Please keep the faith!

 

I'm always happy to wait if that means a better model.

If I was desperate for something that wasn't right then I wait for Heljan to do it.

 

 

 

 

[PaulRhB]

40 minutes ago, Adam1701D said:

The 66 is the biggest loco we have ever tackled and will be well worth the wait. Please keep the faith!

Very glad the decision was taken to do it again rather than release a model we’d have been asking for a retool of and probably waited 3-5 years! 
No doubt those who’ve cancelled either didn’t really want one or built one from the old RJH kit? As there’s no othe rtr option if you want one for a layout then it’s really the only option apart from some serious reworking of the metal kit. 

[pylonman]

30 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Very glad the decision was taken to do it again rather than release a model we’d have been asking for a retool of and probably waited 3-5 years! 
No doubt those who’ve cancelled either didn’t really want one or built one from the old RJH kit? As there’s no othe rtr option if you want one for a layout then it’s really the only option apart from some serious reworking of the metal kit. 

 

I did really want one, but not at any lack of what could be called customer service.

 

Why have we got 4 years "down the line" and there's suddenly a major re-design required ?

 

Where does the comment "built one from the old RJH kit" come from ?  I never mentioned it.