Oxford Flyer. Looked gorgeous. Sounded good. Ran..not so good.

[AndrueC]

Well that didn't last. Took delivery of an Oxford Flyer on Friday. Out of the box she looks gorgeous. My first sound fitted locomotive which was interesting. You can't expect too much in the way of audio from a speaker inside an N gauge loco but it wasn't bad.

 

Unfortunately she struggled to pull six coaches and half way round my layout she stalled out on a 2% incline. I uncoupled her from the coaches to try and give her a run-in and when I tried to get her moving she just buzzed at me. And that's all she wrote.

 

She can look pretty, sound her horn and make engine noises (sounding curiously like a steam engine actually). Oh and she can make a worrying buzzing noise. But if you're looking for a locomotive that can actually move she's not the best candidate

 

I took the body off to see if there was anything obviously wrong but couldn't see anything. However it was a new (for me) drive train. A single central motor with two drive shafts. At the end of each drive shaft was a worm gear. This is clipped into a bogie tower. The instructions say that the bogies aren't removable and curiously the only thing holding the bogies in appears to be that the drive shaft has limited vertical travel.

 

I'm going to be sending her back to Hattons but as they don't have any more stock I've agreed to let them send her out for a repair. I know I'm a newcomer to this hobby but that must be close to a record for a failure. It probably drove less than four metres before failing.

Edited March 6, 2021 by AndrueC

[Hilux5972]

What is an Oxford flyer?

[Darius43]

Presumably one of these

 

Dapol say that it is DCC sound ready, which I take to mean it already has a speaker fitted and the owner fits a sound decoder only.

 

The question is whether the OP’s loco is already dcc fitted as delivered or is it running on analogue/DC?  If it’s DCC fitted and you tried running it on DC it would just buzz and not move - unless the decoder was programmed with a DC mode.  Ditto if not DCC fitted and running on DCC.

 

Hopefully Hatton’s repairers can resolve things.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[AndrueC]

It was fully decoder fitted as bought. It also did briefly move and respond to my DCC controller. But then it stopped. It only buzzes when asked to move. Otherwise it just sits quietly making sounds and putting the lights on and off if you ask it to. It's a shame. It is a lovely model.

 

"This model reproduces all the detail and functionality of our OO gauge model (other than Halo-lights) and incorporates our new iron cored 5 pole motor offering excellent slow running and exceptional pulling power with reliability and robustness."

 

Lol.

Edited March 7, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Got it back today which is a pretty good turn around. She runs again but unfortunately suffers wheel slip at a couple of places on my track. I've investigated further and it seems only one of her bogies is actually being driven. Not a very impressive repair by DCC supplies.

 

Anyway I've emailed Hattons and requested a refund. Enough is enough.

Edited March 20, 2021 by AndrueC

[adb968008]

On 07/03/2021 at 04:07, Hilux5972 said:

What is an Oxford flyer?

The name of a 68, before newspapers get hold of it, then it will become “The Oxford Flyer”.