The Nth Degree

I'm still here, ducking in and out. I'm actually building something at the moment – or I should say digging something out of the back of the cupboard which I left last year, and continuing to build. There's no confirmed news at the moment, but there will be shortly. Some disappointing news on a delay unfortunately, but I'm waiting on a new schedule to be confirmed. Nobody is immune to these delays it seems, regardless of contracted dates and constant reassurances. I shall have to change the 'all change' motto on my logo to 'all the same'. I'm very very disappointed about this but it's out of my hands. Another annoyance is that I've heard nothing from two specific suppliers, which will definitely rule out any sort of NBL loco as the next model, as I have to submit a brief during next week for the next model's schedule to be on time. Even if the information I needed turned up tomorrow it would still be too late to put it into action. The next model will be something I've always wanted to own, so I'm quite excited.

That's lovely

Congratulations Richard and gang, best of luck to you and look forward to developments.

That is a very clever and logical thought process. I'm not saying you're correct, but I like your thinking!

I'm in no position to comment on anyone else's business methods, but I will say that Dave has been an enormous help to Little Loco Company. I have plagued him with many questions over the last few months and, without fail, he has taken time out of his day to answer every one of them. You can see from this section here he is a very busy man indeed, but that hasn't stopped him from giving some very technical and detailed responses to my questions without bias or asking for anything in return. For that, he has my eternal gratitude.

Dave Jones of DJM has bagsied this one and he's quite keen on getting it produced (I know because I asked if I could nab it off him!). I hope he does because I want one too!

Haha! No, I'm afraid I've got to concentrate on this one first, although the second is now underway, but only in coming to the end of research. Next week it starts the long road into design and engineering. This is at least two months work, possibly three. But don't let me stop you from having fun – fire away!

The group who have bought this are very talented modellers and designers. I'm certain it has a great future.

I know! I know! Can I play?

It's finney7.co.uk - recently registered to someone called Stephen

Just wait until I start on my trade stand layout – I'll have kits, RTR and a layout in one thread. Prepare to blow a fuse!

I can't agree more; I like building things too, but with two jobs and a six-year old to look after I'm finding having the time to build is really difficult. Even with just one job and my son was difficult – I still have three van kits unfinished from about 3 years ago, plus the three tank locos I started last year. Throw in an extra job and time becomes the most rarest and valuable commodity in the world.

Thanks Steve, I've been planning this for a long time so I've had quite a while to really think things through. I've also sought the advice of people who know more than I do about certain things and I've taken their advice. The price was chosen to reflect the cost to produce it while also donating most of the surplus to the C15PS, no other factor was involved. More will definitely follow. I hope to roll out the next one by Christmas/new year. It's a bit bigger than this so will be slightly more expensive, but will have the same or better spec.

It's been quite a week at Little Loco HQ, mostly spent at the web developers. The website can now take reservations from both consumers and stockists to my satisfaction. The model was rolled into the tooling shop this week, so until I get a sample back there is not much to report on the Class 15, so I'm back onto the kits next week, but not before I design the box packaging and user manual. Enjoy your weekends!

I think if it was JLTRT it would be incorporated into their brand, like Malcom Mitchell.

Thank you. In effect, I haven't given the purchaser anything 'extra' than any other model, I've simply organised them differently to create a lot of extra 'value'. I could have used an ordinary DCC socket, but the difference in price of a Plux22 socket is minuscule, and it gives extra functionality and future-proofing. The lighting circuit boards have a couple extra components adding up to pennies, but you can program the lights to display in any train formation you like, instead of covering up the ones you don't want illuminated. The working headcode discs use up no more material than a non-working type, but with my design engineer we worked for two months to make them work. Perhaps the biggest difference is that I chose to donate additional the profits to a preservation group, which allowed me to price it to sell. I'll tell you what I 'wanted' to do. In the end it became too expensive and time consuming to complete the prototyping, so the idea was dropped late in the development. One of the dominating features on this loco are the cooling group grills. These could open and close, depending on temperature and other factors, but I REALLY wanted mine to work like that also. The problem was with actuation – servo, solenoid, linear actuator, and so on, plus the actuating mechanism was interfering with the speaker unit space. I had to make a choice, and unfortunately the plan was dropped. If I had more time and more money it definitely would have happened. Maybe on the next one...

Due to a misunderstanding of my (very clear) brief to the web developers, the website has been undergoing some revisions while also being live. This has been a pain to people wanting to reserve a model, and to me. I'm sure my hair will grow back eventually, and I've never found a use for fingernails anyway. I've now tested the new reservation button and all works fine from a technical point of view, but there is no link between the model descriptions and the reservation coding. I will get this fixed tomorrow, but I have pasted in what the reservation codes refer to below: BTH15-GDB Green with duck egg blue cab panels £375 BTH15-GDS As above with small warning panels £375 BTH15-GDF As BTH15-GDB with full yellow ends £375 BTH15-GSY All green with small warning panels £375 BTH15-GFY All green with full yellow ends £375 BTH15-LSP Liverpool Street pilot Limited Edition, fully decorated £395 BTH15-CPS D8233 Limited Edition, fully decorated £395 One again, I sincerely apologise for the delay and inconvenience on the website. The web developers have been very apologetic, but that doesn't really help very much. Thankfully it will be fixed by the time the mags carry the news, reaching about 70,000+ unique readers – I've only had to suffer embarrassment from the odd 20,000 members here... Steve

Hello David, the kits will be the completely redesigned versions as I was working on before, but any RTR models will be produced in the same way as the Class 15. It is possible that the 03 kit may not be developed and will move straight to the RTR route, as this is a much simpler loco to produce – there was only one real variation, and that was with air braking. The 04, on the other hand, was very complex with several variations on the underframe, running plate, bonnets, cabs, and a myriad of smaller detail differences, making it a very expensive item to produce for what is a very small loco.

From the recently released pictures it looks like Dapol's release is imminent.

No problem JB, although you will have to order it through the website please. I assume you mean with duck egg blue cab panels?

Exactly like that, as it happens!

Thank you. I do indeed, starting with the 04s. There is a lull in activities whilst tooling is taking place, so I can pick up where I left off. As you can imagine, I've been occupied elsewhere during the last few months.

No problems at all Mike, there's no 'fault' to be found. I was worried it was going to be difficult to be noticed down here in this quiet corner, but those fears were not really warranted. The response has been incredible so far. Steve

Andy, you'll have to tell me how that works. As far as I figured, it would leave several Little Loco Company topics within the Smaller Suppliers thread, which is what I didn't want. I was hoping all LLC topics would be collated together under one LLC directory. Our next model is about to be briefed to the design engineers in as soon as this one is in tooling next week. Cheers, Steve

Thanks mate. Yes, conversion is not a problem. Simply unscrew the bottom of the bogies to drop out the axles, reprofile the wheels and space out accordingly, drop them back in and away you go. Little Loco Company is heavily influenced by S7 modellers...