Matabiau

I take it orders are still being dispatched from REALTRACK? Has anyone else received a DCC fitted model yet?

Mine have just arrived, pity the couplings are so long, not that that detracts from a superb model.

All of my past orders have as their status "order received". All but the latest have been long since delivered. I ordered the Standard 4MT loco on 4th June and have still not received it, but being in France delivery can be erratic, although rarely more than 10 days.

R4815 (TF) All advertised on Hornby' website.

Thank you for the info. I enjoyed last year's day out despite the weather, I had to put up with a cold for the following few days!

Does anyone know the date of the Collectors' Club day out to the Mid Hants Railway? I haven't received my club magazine yet and the website fails to mention this detail. Thanks

I had to look twice, I thought I saw "design clever" for one moment!

What is the difference between this model and the main range 32-983 announced a couple of weeks ago? Will it be in gloss finish?

Perhaps Bachmann don't want to compete with Kernow limited edition 47s in the south and west already.

The £300 price tag includes the "limited edition" markup that is not uncommon in all retail industries. It is up to the consumer to decide if the limited edition is woth the mark-up or not. You can not blame Hornby for exploring alternative means of adding value to their products given the poor performance over the previous couple of years. The real test will be to see how much the box-shifters charge for it as I suspect they are far more commercially aware when it comes to pricing. You may find it available for around £250 in the shops which is comparable to other limited edition HST packs. The Brexit effect is no joke, however the I don't believe £300 price tag can not be blamed on it.

I believe the skipper livery (and MPTE orange, and provincial blue) had disappeared by the time the 142s were fitted with single leaf doors. EDIT: I stand corrected, I have just found a photo from1995 of a skipper in chocolate and cream with bright yellow single leaf doors. I don't believe they stayed like that for very long.

By Provincial do you mean the original multi-tone blue livery?

Available to buy on the Collectors' Club website now along with a pack of three N gauge SECR plank wagons.

Dave, I seem to have received two different invoices, how do I go about cancelling the second? I can't find any reference to cancelling it on the email or on the internet page linked to it.

I have only just picked up my email after a weekend away and I see that the invoice from Dave requires payment by 4th September. Is this really the case?

Apart from the lack of a big announcement today, not that it was ever on the amendable, a pleasant if wet day. Thanks to Bachmann for organizing the day for us and a big thank you to our hosts the East Lancashire Railway. The guided tour of the artiste and engine sheds was informative and entertaining, almost made me forget the rain running down the back of my neck. The Collectors Club brake an will go well with the newly released Austerities from Dave Jones so good timing. A last thanks to the two guys who let me loose on the steam shutter, my first ever train driving experience , in full scale.

Quality control for all of the main model railway companies seems to be in the hands of a third party manufacturer on the other side of the world. As mentioned before, if you are prepared to pay for a fully checked, fully tested model every time the price will rise accordingly, not to mention the time to delivery. Some of the smaller, cottage industry, manufacturers take it upon themselves to check every model which drastically reduces the number of faulty units, but the likes of Hornby, Bachmann and others with thousands of units handled every month can not afford to do that. They probably have a similar failure rate between them but what makes the difference to the customer is how this faults are dealt with. Individual units are the responsability of the retailer, there again some test every model before it leaves the shop for which the customer tends to pay a premium, others rely on cheap prices to sell as many as possible in order to cover the cost of replacing a handfull of faulty units (return postage, handling etc: The unit itself is refunded by the manufacturer). Frustration for the consumer comes when the manufacturer suffers multiple failures or faults on the same item, batch faults or design faults. Some manufacturers are very transparent about this while others say nothing and keep on distributing units despite a known fault and leaving it to the retailer to pick up the pieces. Does it really do that much damage to a company's image to hold their hands up and say "we have problem"?

09026 was painted in all over NSE blue and based at Eastleigh. Lima used to make a model of it.

Does anyone know what the mysterious black panel accompanying Robert is for? According to the literature included in the box each model comes with accessories corresponding to the prototype it was modelled on. Some come with detail to add above the buffer beam where relevant, it doesn't say which ones though!

I have just chipped my two examples, NCB black and NCB green. The black one works a treatalthough it doesn't like some of my tighter points (front wheels lift off the track) but I suspect it wasn't intended to work on tight radius curves. The green one won't budge. I can hear the motor trying to turn the wheels, they just wont budge. They have a small amount of play in them when pushed by hand so I doubt it's the coupling rods fouling, there must be a blocked cog somewhere. I just hope Hattons have a replacement left by the time it gets back to them!

I have just received my red and green pairs direct from Hornby. I would advise checking the roof vents as some of mine were loose on two out of the four coaches. Remedied with a dab of glue, but easy to loose them if not dealt with quickly. Does anyone know where I could get hold of destination boards for Lyme Regis as per the Hornby train pack due for release later this year? I have had a quick search of the net without any joy.

I have ordered direct from Hornby two red and two green. The red ones will make up the Lyme Regis train with my Oxford Rail Adams Radial. I think I will cancel my order for the Hornby train pack as the LSWR Radial I received from Hornby was a complete lemon with only three pick-ups touching the wheels out of the eight fitted and the brake rods bent in two and snapped. I still have heard nothing from Hornby regarding a replacement.

Hornby have only announced Southern green and BR(S) red coaches so far. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but being non-corridor stock they would never have been painted carmine and cream.

Does anyone have any advice on fitting DCC decoders to the Hornby Adams? I have tried to install a Hattons direct 8-pin decoder but the body won't go back on properly, the chip seems to foul the roof of the decoder cavity. I can't see how there is enough room to fit a Hornby wired chip either.

It looks as though the DCC decoder is going to be unique to this model. It is a pity they didn't go for the 6-pin N gauge decoder so that people could chose their own, or the Plux18 as per Bachmann/Farish.