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REALTRACK models announce Class 143 and Class 144


Andy Y
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I'm not disputing the name of the colour, its just that the seats in real life are purple and the samples above are clearly not the colour of the real seats.

 

If you mould the seats in purple plastic they will be the correct colour, if you mould them in any shade of blue they will not match the real thing

 

perhaps someone could compare the sample with an actual seat before finalising the production run

 

I agree with this - the moquette is a dark purple colour with black flecks and white lines, apart from the priority seats which omit the white lines

See here: http://www.gbrailwayworld.co.uk/keyword/interior/1412382137_P4vw2xf#!i=1412382137&k=P4vw2xf&lb=1&s=A

Northern have used this moquette for all interior refurbishments with the sole exception of the 321s, which have new red moquette.

 

The blue plastic pictured in the sample above is nowhere near the right colour. These promise to be excellent models, and it would be a shame if the Northern ones were let down by an easily-avoidable mistake such as this.

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Midnight Blue I was told.

 

Quite a few "purples" are officially a "blue". "Cadbury Blue" is the dark blue with a purple sheen used on the original Midland Metro livery and by Blackpool on it's Route 4 branded buses. And to add to the confusion, Strathclyde orange was Strathclyde Red, and Stroudley's mustard was called a green. Unofficially National Bus red was known as "nipple pink".

 

I suppose so long as the final moulding is in a reasonably accurate rendition, it doesn't really matter what the official colour reference is!

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Had to have a look at a 144 yesterday, and although from the outside the seats look purple, closer inspection shows they are actually a pattern, which is predominantly dark blue, and the lilac pin-stripes. When worn they do fade to purple, which I suspect is why we've all been saying purple.

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Had to have a look at a 144 yesterday, and although from the outside the seats look purple, closer inspection shows they are actually a pattern, which is predominantly dark blue, and the lilac pin-stripes. When worn they do fade to purple, which I suspect is why we've all been saying purple.

At lease we are getting coloured seats, all I have noticed from others is Grey & Black. Got a 170 with brown.  And thats in a Scotrail one. Probably not brown on the real ones.

 

Happy Christmas and a Good New Year from REALTRACK.  All the best Arran & Charlie

 

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Never mind the seats... if it doesnt have chewing gum thats been stood on and turned black on the floor this model really isnt up to it and until Ive added some blobs of paint on mine Im just not going to sleep at night!

Do you have the Pantone colours of the Chewing Gum!

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At lease we are getting coloured seats, all I have noticed from others is Grey & Black. Got a 170 with brown.  And thats in a Scotrail one. Probably not brown on the real ones.

 

Happy Christmas and a Good New Year from REALTRACK.  All the best Arran & Charlie

 

 

Absolutely, and Realtrack should be commended for adding so much detail into the model, which you wouldn't find on any other RTR manufacturer!

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Absolutely, and Realtrack should be commended for adding so much detail into the model, which you wouldn't find on any other RTR manufacturer!

Our aim was to try to get a model that we would like! What we thought should be available was a DMU which had the following features:

 

No motor or weights visible.

Fully Detailed Internal Layout.

Fully detailed Underfloor Layout.

Close Coupling between cars.

Fully decorated chassis.

Realistic front couplings.

 

This caused some problems:

 

Hiding the motor: Meant we had to split the circuit board away from the motor car, thus we need an 8Pin coupling between cars.

Fully detailed Internal Layout: Small motor & drive system, has caused delays getting it right, the long wheelbase dos'nt help in the design of the model.

Fully detailed Underfloor: Lots of fiddly bits, but we have included the only UK model with a track circuit actuation loop.

Close Coupling between cars: This restricts the radius the model will go round but the sprung corridor conections make it look the part.

You can walk through our 144 without having to jump over a 4' gap!

Dummy Front Coupling: This is a plug in to replace the tension lock that is provided.

 

We have as an add on, added internal lighting (Non DCC switchable). Also included are front and rear lights set to 'Day Time Mode', thus we have the only UK model with a Bright White to the left and a Dull White to the right, we never liked the yellowish head light used by others.

 

We have had to accept after this years 20% price increase, some cost saving measures, which include 'Easy of access' for DCC convertability, simplification in the tooling which allow less variants to be correctly produced (these are mainly minor body differences between 144 & 143 units). Saying that the 143 has the heavier dampers fitted along with a different bufferbeam, underfloor, seating layout & drivers footsteps. Unlike others we will not do one bodyshell for both cars on this project.

 

We do accept the out there in 'customer land', that it won't go round every sharp corner, we can here it now:-'But my 142 does!!', it won't alway run over poorly laid track, as we are not putting on the silly Hornby 142 Steam Roller flanges and oversized wheels. We accept the flat out top speed is not to 'Eurostar' standards, it does what it does, in the compromises we have adopted it will not lose time between Leeds & Pontefract, or on the Harrogate loop.

 

Pre Production samples are with DHL now, there will be small errors, paint issues etc. But we are getting it as good as we think we can, that's why its 9 months late. We have been very picky, hope you are impressed, we probably will be!

 

Roll on the next DMU, we are getting sick of 144s & 143s.

Edited by charliepetty
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2nd Radius avoiding S bends, 3rd radius prefered. To be honest I took it down to the Leeds club and gave it a good thrash over peco medium radius LH & RH Points, a three way a double slip all without problems, but one bad baseboard joint and a dodgy curve wasn't too it liking, otherwise fine.

 

At Spalding it raced around two layouts and it ran for a full day on Blackburn's Black Mills DCC layout with sound.

 

Its hard being a pacer!

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