pheaton

Section 75 for the people who are unsure.... http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/section-75-of-the-consumer-credit-acti Is PayPal the only way you can pay djmodels?

my mistake

Aha....just spotted another issue... the nose doors are incorrect....peaks had either bolted grills or opening doors with catches, and in that EP sample Heljan have combined the two....they either need to lose the two door catches or the bolt heads.

Also missing the segmental bearing grease points on the body side (circular holes) below the radiator grills and below the boiler room grills 45/0s, 45/1s they were plated over. Vacuum pipe and strainer and the NON return valve are also quite prominent on the prototype at No2 end drivers side are these going to be moddelled?

31-659DS class 47 47001 BR Blue, can confirm this is fitted with a V4 sound chip 30-048 highlander trainset class 37 37418, can confirm this is fitted with a V4 LOKSOUND SELECT, worthy of mention because some retailers have split this loco from the set and sold it separately

Hmm, this is a worrying trend, if the loco does have a select chip then you wont be able to reblow it, you will be stuck with bachmanns default 37 sound, which isnt the best.... if it was a proper V4 then yes you could have reblown it....to date as far as I know Bachmann have only equipped trainset locos with selects, but it would appear a quick search confirms you may be right. if any of Bachmann read this.....the only thing you will achieve with selects in standalone locos Bachmann is upset customers!

Theres a british transport film which covers motorail very closely quite an eye opener.

I think you might be talking about loksound 3.0s tony which i believe were 8mb, and you are right in as far as i know none of the Bachmann sound locos have ever had anything different than a 3.5 or a 4 in, however even a lot of the newer locos both Bachmann and Hornby have been turfing out recently have 3.5s in still which is odd, obviously Hornby are dropping loksound soon and switching to TTS, which is an interesting decision.....Bachmann themselves have been known to equip trainset locos with loksound selects which is a little annoying as the Bachmann factory sound useually leaves a little to be desired.

Ive had 2 v4s and a 3.5 burn out randomly (although the v4s both involved Heljan models) the 3.5 was in a Hornby 56, look to see if the large yellow capacitor has become discoloured thats an indication of an immenent failure.

They will likely not fix the chassi block but send you a £100 voucher..... 50s are not thought to be widely affected but i have had 1 fail in similar circumstances to my own class 31

Nile, No need to apologise at all, and i apologise if it looked like i was dropping the shield and charging, thats not how it was meant to come across ​ This is in now way different to how the dc users felt when DCC came along, and putting my cards on table I do feel threatened by it, and coming from the IT profession I know all to well as I don't doubt you know that its out with the old and in with the new.

Nile agree with a lot of your post, however DCC never has been or has to my knowledge claimed to have any degree of loco detection loco detection has always been a separate action to dcc, however the more advanced DCC systems are able to incorporate a display of loco detection based on hardware which Is compliant with the system ECoS Detector and the ECoS being one of them. Your completely correct in that sound cannot scale, however any person that thinks that DCC sound is a case of shut your eyes and your there is misguided...and before anyone jumps on me I own over more that 60 dcc sound fitted locos because I can see its a representation...and you will never convince me that a decent sound fitted class 37 sounds worse than a non sound fitted class 37. In addition dcc sound can do a little more than you describe and there are varying degree's of intelligence on the sound routines available. The amount of memory is scalable to the power available to supply it, but since you can get over 4gb on an SDmicro there's no reason why a loksound or similar couldn't hold it. And this is where you hit the nail on the head in that commercial decisions commonly hold a technology at a set pace. However.....much has been said about using offboard sound and yes you are then almost without boundary in-terms of quality and capacity, however using the video above shows that in that case only 1 sound fitted loco could be heard at one time.....having two sound fitted trains on the same channel would be horrendous, if we take the average layout have up to 5 locos running at the same time, how do you achieve that with off board sound.....your loco's can move....but your off board speakers cannot! OK you could then go back to onboard sound...but then your constrained to the amplification and channel capabilities of the on board decoder which would be on par with a dcc sound chip.....as we all know amplifiers get hot, and draw lots of power. if I'm honest far too much faith is being put into Bluetooth, indeed the current Bluetooth specification. the Bluetooth v4 specification promises a circa 100m range but remember that's at the maximum allowed transmission power of 20db @100mw, and that's in a class 1 device, which is industrial strength....a iphone is a class 2 device which has a stated range of circa 10m so not all devices will have that capability...., anyone else with older hardware or tablets may not even be able to achieve that and the advantage dcc offers is that everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to control...my ECoS cannot control any of my trains any better than Bachmann ez command. Bluetooth v4 offers a maximum theoretical throughput of 24mbits per second....in the real world as I said before...that's 3mbs per second essentially curbing drastically your off board sound capability advantage, esp when you have potentially 10 locos fighting for bandwidth. finally Bluetooth has evolved far faster than DCC has we are now on the 4th revision of Bluetooth how will this technology keep up? will people have to upgrade as vendors transmitters keep pace with the ongoing security changes and standards changes......the figures stated are the maximum Bluetooth standards capabilities and unlikely to be what you get in the real world. DCC in contrast doesn't appear to be going anywhere, and when im invested in that im glad!

This is something that crops up with Hornby models I have a couple of 56s that do the same there is a way of calibrating the motor to the decoder biffo knows how drop him a pm but its unlikely to be a fault.

Advantages...... ease and choice of control...its a lot simpler to create an app to control trains than traditional DCC hardware... its probably more reliable at packet distribution than DCC is currently as the signal is cleaner and less prone to dirty wheels and track and to a certain extent to interference and cross talk... disadvantages... its range is limited for 100% reliable operation bluetooth can be interefered with by other equipment on the 2.4ghz band, including older microwave ovens and some dect cordless phones bluetooths bandwidth is in my opinion limited for off board sound capability, and when using onboard sound capability at 00 and N guage you still face the same space inspired restrictions as to the amplifier and audio capability, so I see little or no advantage over DCC. Bluetooth is insecure...and before anyone says so what...you wont be saying that if at a show some little spotty teenager decides to do a spot of "bluejacking" $75 a board.....hope that's Australian dollars! your limited by your Bluetooth transmitters (as regularly touted a smartphone) battery life, you could use a laptop or a pc based Bluetooth connector from the mains but I though the advantage was ease of control! in my opinion Bachmann talking about offering Bluetooth as a new control principle is a little disturbing....only recently were we being spoon fed the DCC way and whilst it has not suffered the same fate as zero 1 none the less there will be a lot of people (myself included) with a considerable investment in DCC, I'm not sure if this is intended to replace and reading the post above it could indeed be intended to compliment it, nonetheless I believe (again my own opinion) that the model rail scene reacts poorly to drastic changes in technology particularly with the price increases seen in the mainstream rtr sectors, and announcing a new technology with the potential to make the existing technology obsolete alienates large portions of enthusiasts as they feel the need to keep up with modern times. Im suspect of the100+foot range as it depends on the capabilities of your Bluetooth transmitter! however lest we forget....this isn't really anything new....from what I can see its really dcc just using a different carrier...?

015 is an unrefurbished peak, it depends on how thorough they were during the overhaul as to what asbestos got removed and what remains, but generally around the boiler is white asbestos, you may find blue asbestos around the cable trunking and on the bulkheads and also in cab ceilings, and white again possibly around the steam pipe. Any asbestos can be removed in situ, but how easily determines how much it will cost, the likely scenario would be a full survey where samples are taken and holes are drilled where samples are suspected, those samples are analysed and then you decide weather or not to seal it up (which wouldnt be possible if the loco was to be fully restored) or you remove it, which means full PP gear and sealing the working area in a plastic membrane. Its worth noting that if its sealed and its not likely to be disturbed then its generally left in situ......remember the thumpers that porterbrook were selling for £1 there was a very good reason for that..... full of asbestos! and it was far easier to write them off rather than pay to have them disposed of properly! you also have to take into account that removing the asbestos on something that is in that sort of condition wont be a sympathetic process so its very likely that it will suffer a lot of damage during the removal..... if you want to be really pedantic you would have to in this day and age undertake a risk assessment for the removal of spares and the asbestos contamination would have to be taken into account which would potentially rule out any spares recovery in this day and age! The general consensus is shackerstone will have to pay to have it disposed of.....its far easier just to leave it to rot!

45015 has a number of useful parts particularly the heads...... the brake cylinders are likely seized but as long as there hasn't been excessive pitting in the chamber then they could in theory be reused and restored as they are remarkably crude pieces of engineering, wheel-sets you would have to use as a whole to avoid upsetting the wheelslip system, and the tyres are quite low on them so not much scope for turning any flaws out. The frames could be of use provided there is not too much cracking, peak bogies tended to crack between the pony truck and the first wheelset. The traction motors themselves may be ok......as storing it outside without a cover means it wont get wet because they are covered by the loco but being uncovered means the airflow can dry them out quicker if any condensation formed....but obviously until they are meggared you wouldnt know what condition they are in.....but you would be amazed at the amount of fittings and pipework that are very useful even on a rusting hulk like that...

I can pretty much confirm 45149 will not be returning to the mainline any time soon although its had quite an extensive restoration, it's not thorough enough to allow a return to the mainline, which would involve new bearings for the engine, and an overhaul of all of the electrical machines, and repairs to a few "non serious" cracks in the bogie frames..... And that's before we look at TPWS OTMR and GSM Radio....

Hi Robin, regards the rads... i dont know, in theory being the same builder and bodyshell they should fit.....i know 08 radiators fit and at the same time i know class 31 radiators do not fit..... Thanks Simon

Thats a peak thats been carefully stripped, by a lot of preservationists prior to its purchase, i know the boiler room roof is running around on another peak.... but you can see from both photos of the electrical cubical that both the reverser and traction motor contactor assemblies are missing, along with the associated air pistons, the engine itself is devoid of pistons and both cranks will be too badly pitted to use, the engine also has a yellow stripe accross it indicating its on oversize bearings so the crank cannot be reground.... Intercoolers are still present but these only fit 45 engine as they are smaller than a 47s.... more importantly the reason the loco hasnt been scrapped is clear on the boiler....on the large ratangular outlet is white asbestos! for those interested ill be starting a blog on 26043, which is currently under repair for leaking radiators, and this is an operational locomotive but it has a lot of gremlins..but hopefully it will give people an insite in to not only restoring a locomotive but keeping it running....

Steam locomotives compared to a diesel are very primitive forms of engineering.....there's nothing on a steam locomotive that cannot be re-cast and then machined..... However if i want 45149s load regulator rebuilt or the impeller of the exhauster rebuilt, or even the AVR repaired there are very few places that can do that....the person i have had repair 45149s avr is in his late 60s (and he is the only person i would trust to do the job) and after him its the original manufacturer (brush).....now im lucky on 45149 as its solid state avr.....on 26043 its brown bovari rotary AVR and when that fails its not repairable! so its a new one....how much is a new one.....circa 3k do i have 3k no so while 26043 isnt running its not earning money and then starts to deteriorate..... thats before we look at tyres....and the tyres on 45015 are not far from scrap size......to replace the tyres on 26043 the quote was 24k thats excluding VAT by the way! how much on a peak......well it has 16 wheels instead of 8......so im sure you can do the maths there!!! expect to see more diesel locomotives go the way of 45015 as parts become more scarce or parts become more expensive to replace...everyone is against the destruction of mainline diesels but where do you draw the line...... Finally diesels earn far less than a steam locomotive in terms of running so more fund raising is required and that's a lot slower to gather when your not operational! A diesel loco becomes expired when there are no parts or no money......which ever comes first! Finally chris.......building houses you know how much its going to cost.....i have to take 4 radiators for 26043 to be repaired.....that's either going to cost £400 or £800! Most other parts you hand over to the engineering firm and they give you a quote.....after they have taken it apart! Nothing has a price list on a preserved diesel!

Generally locomotives are stored rent free under a restoration agreement, they then run for a period of time for free to make up for the resources used during the restoration, its not quite as simple as it sounds when it comes to a costed repair plan, as things inevitably occur during restoration or the first few days of running which can skew any plan wildly. Plus things happen during the owners life that might influence it......... its never as simple as buying a loco and thinking you can go straight into restoration and operation.... what parts are urgently needed for the other peaks that are still on 45015.... bogies traction motors brake cylinders springs grills pipework and fittings power controllers window frames engine room roof section crankcase doors from the engine engine block is probably salvageable crankcase is probably salvageable generator could in theory be overhauled once the asbestos is removed i do believe the exhauster is still present (something unique to 45s) radiator fan (again unique to 45s) radiator fan frame radiator frame some of the brake valves may still be present in the nose so its a carcass yes but plenty of pickings for the vultures!!!!

Robert, 50s were a prime example of locos's run into the ground, they were also at the limits of there physical capability and had a number of design problems that were not fully rectified during the refurbishment process that plagued them in their final days, this coupled with the fact that a lot of the technology used in the 50s (early solid state traction control electronics) were not in use in other classes and this made spares difficult or expensive to obtain! Its true that on the engine side spares for a class 50 or any english electric SVT type engine were plentiful you could take spares in theory from 20s 31s 37s 40s 56s all sharing fundamentally the same engine. its widely known that the ETH generator on a 50 is one of its primary Achilles heals and some point a 5 figure sum is going to need to be spent on it, again a left over from BR days when alternator replacement was actively considered but abandoned on cost grounds. 50s were known for excessive scraping leading to engine seizure and catastrophic failure if not caught in time and this was the cause of a number of withdrawls. finally 50s were jam packed with 1960s solid state traction control namely something known as the KV10 which is a solid state generator excitation controller everything else from the same era used a simple glorified potentiometer! the KV10 is widely known to be a pain with some groups actively looking at having a modern replacement built. One of the only loco types at the time to include this. Its true that simpler designs such as the 37 and 47 and 31 lived longer due to the simplicity of the systems they used! None of this made the 50 a bad loco, it just makes life a little more interesting when it comes to preservation!

Robin, its not you im getting at ive seen a lot of phots recently of the interior and boiler compartment, from people thinking they are clever.......without realising blue asbestos is not be messed with.... and i dont hate you for buying a 6lda hats off to you.....youve secured what you need to keep your machine going! id buy 45015 to cut it for spares for 45149.....and not give it a second thought! Steve-e they are relatively cheap from the scrap man but what some people fail to remember is there is a reason they are not in use!..... most of the preservation success stories are through careful research into the actual condition of the loco before purchase. For example you could have had back in the day a 45 that was "switched off" and with light preservation use could go on for many years with just consumables....its only then when you work out that consumables means.... Batteries for a 45 that comes in a 10k inc vat Contactor tips on a 45 tips are £90 each and on the traction motors theres 16 of them! brushes.... filters...... oil......190 gallons of 15w40 anti-freeze..... Then go to the other end of the spectrum and take a loco thats been run into the ground withdrawn after several months of bare minimum maintanance.....and then you start looking at very expensive things....... As long as the loco is complete then things can be done....in 45015s case the brake frame and more importantly the electrical cubical is absent.....as well as the auxilliaries like the compressors exhauster and pump set, and they are unique to 45s.....i cant go to a 47 and obtain another....like any other class of sulzer loco..... for example 3 weeks into 45149s service an oil seal failed on No2 end compressor causing an interpole on the motor to flash over and burn a hole the size of 5 pence piece in it.....the repair the interpole would cost £1500 thats not a motor overhaul thats an interpole repair....something no bigger than a house brick! compressor motors for 45s are like rocking horse poo.........salvation came from a compressor that had been sat in someones garden for 30 years! one oil change a comm clean and brush box repair and it started up as if it was turned off the day before! but theres an example of how we were lucky........but im mindful there are a number of small components on 45149 that could put it out of traffic for very long periods.....and a loco out of traffic is a loco that doesent earn money!

45015 is safe from the scrappy owing to asbestos in the boiler compartment.....people tresspassing and takings phots in and around the loco should mindful of this especially as potentially some of it is blue asbestos! to be fair robin it might have been the wrong gen type for that 25 but a 6lda power unit is not to be sniffed at......id love a spare set of heads for 26043 and at current 6k each from electroputere im going to need a lottery win to buy them!!!# you can bring a generator back from oblivion......but you cant fix a cracked flame face

My Afflicted one was actually..... DCC sound Valiant....to confirm after the shell started cracking before it got too bad i switched the chassis to an NSE shell and the cracks re-appeared however i have also seen it, in large logo centurion, and on ebay i have seen tell tale cracks in the body shell on the REX version in railfreight livery, and also Edward Elgar in green. but bear in mind these might not have been on there original chassis.