New Class 156 Units

[charliepetty]

On 27/06/2023 at 10:08, black and decker boy said:

Orange order placed, now to save up for the second one I need

Thank you.   Charlie

[nickb4141]

On 18/06/2023 at 23:44, charliepetty said:

We have over 300 Pre -Paid orders from our own customers, these are going out in Date Order, thats only fair.

 

I would not be that impressed if I ordered a model 18 months ago, just to find out that a mate ordered one last week and its now arrived with him.

 

We are doing our best.   Charlie

I ordered four class 156’s (and paid in full,) 2 years ago, but still haven’t received anything, yet I can now buy them from Rails! So yes, not that impressed!

[charliepetty]

We totally agree, we have been shipping in this way:

 

First:   All non Sound Fitted Units   (All shipped out)

2nd:   All DCC Units (Non Sound)  As all decoders have arrived from ESU 3 months ago.

3rd:   All Sound fitted Units  (The ESU Decoders arrived 10 days ago)

 

Rails have only DC Annalogue units available, these were delivered by me on Friday afternoon.

 

As you know, all Pre-Ordered units are at the original 'Pre-Order Prices' thus rewarding all our loyal customers with the lower prices as compared to ordering them today and fitting your own decoders.

 

ALL Orders from Realtrack will have been shipped by Tuesday, excluding the overseas orders, these will be by the end of the week.

 

So we are sorry for any delays but its impossible to ship every order immediatly, we hope everyone out there understands this.

 

Arran & Charlie

[Iskra]

Any chance of a Regional Railways North Western livery 156 in the future please, as seen on the Furness Line?

[black and decker boy]

On 28/06/2023 at 16:10, charliepetty said:

Thank you.   Charlie

Arrived this morning. Terrific model.

 

 

[charliepetty]

Thank you.

 

Before anyone ask's, the NL Car sticker in the LH Route Indicator box is still in the unit today, it celebrates the  units visit the the Netherlands Railways 150 celebrations in 1989, this made history as being the only BR built train that travelled under its own power from Derby to Utrecht under its own power. 

It was decided British Railways should be represented at the 150th anniversary of Dutch Railways, it had been intended to send a new class 158 DMU, however a Super Sprinter 156502 in Strathclyde livery was selected for the trip. Certainly, unusually and possibly uniquely it was decided the unit should travel to the exhibition site in Utrecht under its own power.

 

The route selected was via the Dover Dunkirk train ferry.  

 

The transit was not entirely smooth, bureaucracy intervened and at one point the unit was refused access to the Dutch network although attending the anniversary at the invitation of NS Dutch railways!

Again, the exhibit was popular with visitors. The same event was supported by other British rolling stock including two EM2 locos, but that would be another story.

[atherton]

The two blue/white Northern units arrived yesterday...absolutely stunning models, they run perfectly and such good value when compared to the Bachmann class 150....happy days!

 

[charliepetty]

Thank you, the Northern White livery is proving 'Very popular' .  Charlie

[XChris]

Hi Charlie, 

 

does the contact you section on the website work or is there a better place to contact you?

[charliepetty]

Try pacercharlie2@gmail.com

[newbryford]

If anyone is interested, there's a third (and fourth) variation on the white Northern livery.

 

The original one  (as per the Realtrack model) carries "northern" branding, which have been since replaced by an upper case NORTHERN.

 

Variation three is being applied to the recent tranche of 156s transferred in from EMT where the NORTHERN is of a  smaller size.

 

 

Before they were painted white, they have been running around on Northern services in debranded EMT

 

 

 And variation 4 is 156411 with no NORTHERN branding at all. It has been like this for at least a month.

 

[158722]

Received my shiny new SPT orange 156 last week and what a superb model to go with the Provincial one.

 

Two questions or observations though...

 

I know it seems not to be possible without re-wiring them, but the option to have the intermediate cab head/tail lights off when running in multiple with a pair of units seems a bit of a miss. The comment applies to pretty much all DMUs though - have any of the new releases got this, such as the Bachmann 158? Seems a rather obvious option to have, but someone clever is going to say, ah but, its not that easy to do!

 

Secondly, despite having better speakers in both of my units (one with Rail Exclusive, the other DC super ones), both units have quite an odd resonance or feedback, especially when starting, idling or trundling along on low power. Is this just the way the track is programmed or is it more to do with the speakers (which must be set-up to run in unision)?

 

Whilst I'm on a roll, anyone had issues with changing the chip IDs?  

[Kaput]

2 hours ago, 158722 said:

I know it seems not to be possible without re-wiring them, but the option to have the intermediate cab head/tail lights off when running in multiple with a pair of units seems a bit of a miss. The comment applies to pretty much all DMUs though - have any of the new releases got this, such as the Bachmann 158? Seems a rather obvious option to have, but someone clever is going to say, ah but, its not that easy to do!

 

Fairly sure the 156's could be programmed for this, I imagine its left out of the default settings because the sound ones already use so many functions.

[Matt]

2 hours ago, 158722 said:

 

Whilst I'm on a roll, anyone had issues with changing the chip IDs?  

 No was fine for me - did you remember to program each car separately?

[158722]

2 hours ago, Kaput said:

 

Fairly sure the 156's could be programmed for this, I imagine its left out of the default settings because the sound ones already use so many functions.

 

It was Charlie, in a post here, who said they would need a re-wire to do this.

[158722]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

 No was fine for me - did you remember to program each car separately?

Yeap, done this before with my Provincial unit, no issue and followed the right procedure. Since taken it up with DC and LMB - followed advice given, same result.

[G-BOAF]

Are the latest 156 models still made by Rapido? There logo is absent from the box images online. Just curious.

[TomScrut]

21 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Are the latest 156 models still made by Rapido? There logo is absent from the box images online. Just curious.

 

It's all over the manual so I presume so!

 

1 hour ago, 158722 said:

Yeap, done this before with my Provincial unit, no issue and followed the right procedure. Since taken it up with DC and LMB - followed advice given, same result.

 

Surely you can program the car in question to only have the lights on if a function is not active, so you set like F10 to disable the lighting but only do it on the one car?

[charliepetty]

On 22/08/2023 at 22:03, G-BOAF said:

Are the latest 156 models still made by Rapido? There logo is absent from the box images online. Just curious.

Yes these are made at the Rapido Factory to our specifications, the new batch has two different bodyshells to cater for the current specification and the original specifications.