Stevelewis

I beleive some retialers quoting QTR 4 2014 Some good prices offered also lowest so far £146. See also my other post re PECO 00-9/H0e setrack.!! re info.

Heljan New releases: Hattons have added pre order prices for the Tango 04 ( £148) and for the 00-9 L&B 2-6-2T (£146)

Hattons announce their price £146.00 quite reasonable when you compare that a ROCO H0e 0-8-0 will set you back £250.00 ish 3 variants listed as well so that will set me back £438

I note that HATTONS have listed the price for the 04 at £148.00 which I think its quite reasonable

Disapointing but thinking back over the years, at some of the 'BIG NEW' releases, very few actually arrived on schedual. I am waiting for some Bachmann 0n30 Whitcombe Diesels, initially announced for Oct 2013 delivery, and since that date has been put back several times now due around July apparently, Coversley the 0n30 2-4-4-2 Mallet was released a couple of years back, was announced and on sale within 3 months!

The Sports Depot Wilbraham Road I remember them long before their move to wilbrham Road, when they were in Princess Road MOSS SIDE !!! I first saw Triang TT there!!

Many years ago I drove past a cycle shop in Ashton under Lyne, in those days many such shops also sold Model Railways, the timing was after the Hornby Closure and as such many shops were seling off thier stocks!! I noticed in the window a Hornby Dublo 2 car EMU set Priced about £5.00 so although £5.00 meant more then than it does now I went in and bought it I allso got 3 additional centre cars! It got sold off a few years later I made a small profit, but now wish I had kept it!! I remember the EMU being a very good performer despite it only having 1 powered axle it would pull a lot more than it neded to. I also note Hattons are now listing 3D printers!

I have used several HATTONS Decoders in quite a few loco types ( 0-6-0, 4-6-0, 2-8-0, 0-4-4) + diesels & EMU/DMU The performance is equal and in some aspects better than decoders costing twice as much+ more! Remember as with a lot of products which we purchase, (not just Model Railways) Expensive does not always mean better!

Having been in N gauge for longer than I care to remember ( even before Graham farish started to munufacture n gauge!) I can agree that one has to be careful with 2nd hand purchases, although Ii have bought a number of n items from Hattons, which were like new, I would add that should you ever receive a faulty or damaged item then Hattons will deal with it satisfactorily.

Another Model shop which sends personalized notes on his till/creditcard/ order detail sheets is Arcadia Models Shaw Nr Oldham, for a small business this shop always has a tremendous range of products available at keen prices UK and European outline.

Re HATTONS 2nd hand listings: Just to report, that although most of my purchases for model railways are new items, having learned the pitfalls of some (but not all) S/H items over many years! I have recently bought some items from HATTONS, with which i have been very pleased, When they quote 'LIKE NEW' it means just that one item I bought was £45 less than the equivalent price for the new item ( had the new item not sold out!!)

As a mostly 0n30 modeller I noted recently a whole bunch of American 7mm structures ( buildings) in kit form this seller was selling, at rather to say the least, inflated BIN prices, most of them could be imported for a lot less. I am not sure if his 10 watchers for the 150 are tempted, I reckon they are just curious! I have had items on eBay recently that attracted many watchers but NO sales and my prices were not inflated ones ( a sign of the times?)

Rails sent newsletter today The Sound version reduced in price ( £196) and a £10 ONP voucher! ( ONP off next purchase) l

I have some 0n30 Mallets, now I know the 2 sets of cylinders are closer to each other than the Garratts, AND the sound speakers are in the tenders! But the Tsunamni sound does sound OK,, I have never heard a Mallet so I cannot say if it is correct, but it does sound acceptable. As an aside the Tsunami sound decoders are very versatile, and can easily be altered sound wise, to improve the sound required regarding chuffs per wheel rev etc, I So in my opinion if I do decide to go ahead and buy a garratt and if I decide I want sound in it so long as it sound reasonable ..... that will do me!!

David 69 Take a look at my posts earlier ro the sound loco, mine runs perfectly now,, as i noted there was also an occasional sound break,, this has been corrected, be aware connection to the speaker is not hard wired but via 2 spring contacts from the roof mounted speaker / fan assembly to the PCB this method relies on GOOD contact and cleanliness, so ensre that there is no oil in that area it could occur if the loco has been stored upside down, also ensure the 8 body screws are tight to ensure good pressure on the contacts. WE had 2 of these locos, the first runs fine as mentioned in my posts, No2s sound decoder has been transferred to another loco and works perfectly I would not consider having the sound decoder re blown it shouldnt be nescessary.

Reading the reprts so far on the Garratt, and I appreciate that it is very likely that there are far more perfectly acceptable locos which have been delivered, as it is a fact that we are much more likely to hear about the ones with issues. I am waiting the arrival of BR vesrsions, but must admit that I have considered, after reading of some of the issues whether I really need one! I appreciate that it is a woderful looking loco and definately at a Bargain price, if its price is compared , with other European manufacturers steam loco prices.

And Bachmann's Cl 37 ( and poss 10000 not tried it yet!) A friend got his Bachmann 4f pulling 60, but ran out of space & wagons apparently

LAST YEAR? The Garratt was only available a few weeks ago, or was it something else or perhaps a pre production model?

Apologies for going on a bit!!!!! But something else which may be of value/interest, I noticed another strange occurance whilst testing the Class 40 this evening, When selecting lights on ( not cab lights running lights) whilst the loco was stationery they did not always respond, but did so when the loco moved off, BUT above a ceratain speed step usually 7 or 8 the lights went off, only to come on again when the speed step was reduced to a lower setting. According to the list of CV settings i noted that CV 29 is listed as having Railcom enabled ( decimal value of 8 in CV 29's various value sum) I tried disabling Railcom and the lights immediately worked correctly, staying on constantly when selected, and the sound stutter mentioned in previous posts diasppeared. I have no idea why this should happen but it has, perhaps someone out there has a suggestion.

RE MY POST#803, I mentioned that the loco had a momentary sound 'stutter' on one part of the circuit it is being tested on, the incident occurs in exactly the same place on an approx 30" radius curve, the sound momentarily stops for a very short time perhaps 1/4 second then resumes also the lights including cab lights flicker at the same time, but the loco's running does not falter I have now tried the loco running both clock and anti clockwise, with no 1 or No 2 cab leading and the fault occurs regardless, if the loco moves slowly speed setting 1 to 7 the fault does not always occur, at higher speeds it occurs every time, The 0n30! layout which i am testing it on has a continuous run of around 36' and some sections are rather more tightly curved than the 30" rad curve where the above fault occurs. I have not noticed any discernable difference in speed with the loco's running in either direction

I dont think i will be setting up a 'gong-sound' speaker inside a tunnel on a friends 00 layout (well not yet anyway)

A further observation on the above mentioned 'sound stutter' I tried running the loco very slowly on speed step 1 which is VERY slow, to see what happened when it reached the point on the gentle-ish curve where the stutter occurs,, nothing happened loco continued without any stutter occuring, tried this a few times with the same results, BUT then increased speed to full and the stutter occured again, its a strange one, just thinking as i type this I will turn the loco round and run it with the other cab leading to see what happens! Edited later further to this post see my later post re the way the connections to the speaker is set up by springy contacts in the inside of the locos roof, this may have a bearing on intermittent sound loss.

Mauritania docked this morning........ courtesy of Tim at Arcadia Models ( superb service as always) Some observations: I placed the loco on the already powered up track, It blew its horn and gently accelerated to around 40mph the Fan working but no engine sounds, I then switched on the DCC handheld ( Gaugemaster Prodigy) selected '3' ran the speed setting up to max then back to zero, loco continued on its merry way. So placed the loco on programming track set address to 2 and tried it again, following the suggestions in the Bachmann instructions, the sound powered up from cold start, then settled down to idle rythm, I moved the speed control to around 50% max, nothing! Sound continued but no movement, tried this a couple of times, during which all sound functions were tested as working, but still no movement. Next stage use ones own digital experience to sort it out, turned off sound completely, selected 50% speed on the throttle loco moved of and ran no problem, then switched on sound (f1) loco continued OK, stopped loco, switched everything off, then tried again and the sound but no movement prob. happened again. So next action was to reset the decoder Value 8 in CV 8., tried the loco again everything worked correctly. A couple of other observations, Maximum speed is very fast guess around 200 scaleMPH, I like locos to have a much lower max speed, Bachmann state the MAX setting for CVs 5 & 6 ( Top & Medium speed) is 64. I think this is incorrect, because setting the value for these 2 CVs to a value of 40, resulted in a maximum speed of around 30 scale MPH, I eventually used a setting of 120 for CV5 and 100 for CV 6, which results in a top speed of estimated 75 Scale MPH which suits me. As far as actual running is concerned the loco seems to be nearly OK! I am running it on my 0n30 layout at the moment!! there is one curve quite gentle about 30" radius where the sound on the loco stutters, indicating perhaps a short break in power collection, but on another part of the layout with a 15" (possibly a bit less) radius it goues around perfectly, demonstrating rather a lot of overhang!! Hope this is infomative whilst writing all this the loco has been goin' round in circles on the 0n30 line!

How was the 'gong' actuated? was it some sort of treadle arrangement>? I imagine it must have been capable of making a loud sound given the noise of a steam loco in a tunnel!