rembrow

What, not the 'kool' Captain Tobias Wilcock, chief pilot for Coconut Airways.

Anthony566, from my order for the APTe and the previous Atlantic, the deposit and final payments seem to be married up by a combination your e-mail address and billing name and address details and delivery details which you give when you pay on-line. For the APTe the only payment option available 'on-line' now is the final payment balance, so there is no risk, unless some of those name address and e-mail details have changed since you paid the deposit. I've just received my DCC ready version, No 41, from UPS. It was originally going to be a present to me from my wife, for our ruby anniversary, but due to the manufacturing delay, she bought me a Silver Fox class 120 Swindon dmu, which I've just finished detailing. The APTe became my 63rd birthday present from her in 3 weeks time, so thanks to Sandra and all at Locomotion that my birthday present has arrived early. I have really enjoyed the build up to getting this model and the prototype information and remembrances from Kit, and the design and production updates from Bill and Jason at Rapido. This has been a model (excuse the pun) of how to deliver a new model prototype. Many thanks to all involved and yes I'm v interested in the proposed prototype HST.

If I could ask a question for Sandra at Locomotion concerning the delivery schedule, as Brian Greenwoods update doesn't show what models are in the 1st batch by sea, and the 2nd batch by air. Are these only the dcc sound sets and additional cars, as he describes the dcc ready versions as being in the third batch. I thought originally the dcc ready versions would be coming in two shipments, with the first being in one of the early shipments. I've tried to find the original schedule posted here but with 71 pages I had no luck.

I queried with Hattons the recent notification that pre order prices couldn't be maintained on the HIAs due to an rrp increase by Dapol, as this had not occurred previously with Dapol products. I wasn't concerned about the increase for this item, as it is still very good value, but I have several other Dapol pre-orders that this decision might affect. Hattons have advised that Dapol have recently introduced a similar policy to Bachmann, whereby a newly released product cannot be discounted by more than 15% of the rrp at release. As Dapol invariably increase the rrp of new products at the initial release, this will affect current pre orders.

If you paid on line, you should have received an e-mail receipt from Locomotion, I have two, one for the £50 deposit and the second for the balance payment of £175. If you paid the full amount in one go then the overall payment receipt should reflect that. When I paid the balance payment, the only option available on the Locomotion site for this model was 'balance payment' as the order book was closed, so there was no 'new order' option. My balance receipt is described as 'BALANCE PAYMENT APT-E DCC READY - PAY 175.00. Hope this helps

Update for arrival dates on the Hornby website, now showing all of the crimson and cream apart from brake left hand as arriving in stock tomorrow (23/02) with the brake l/h being still 9th March. The remaining 3 GWR liveried versions are also brought forward to 23 February. Looks like a boat came in early. Edit: Scanned back before posting but missed similar update by CoY at 588, the only difference is that one of the crimson/cream coaches is showing as not expected until 9th March.

Dapol had kept the '00' gauge 121/122 project under wraps for the last six months, since Bachmann announced their intention to produce the 121 and 117. It's good to see that they are prepared to go 'head to head' and in the intervening period, they have progressed to tooling. I've just added to my single 121 and single 122 order with a second 121 in BR green. My 121 trailer car conversion will at last be pulled by something. I'm waiting to see if they do develop the underfloor twin bogie drive that was part of the original spec

Hattons haven't got it right yet, they are still showing the first 4 releases in 'n' and 'oo' as being 3 green and 1 white liveried. The problem is they seem to have confused themselves with the running numbers and liveries. Release 003 is now showing as white liveried but the wrong running number (number is for a green livery wagon) and 004 is showing as green liveried with a white liveried running number. Never mind as long as everyone follows the amended Dapol release info you should get the livery you want (crosses fingers and toes)

Happy Birthday Dave. Can't get you the Downton Abbey set as it's not been made yet.

No caught out, you were secretly hoping someone would buy you the Hornby Downton Abbey set - you rang m'lud. You only have to ask.

The issues you raise about the Hornby website are valid, but is it the full picture. Last week I was looking for a Class 43 in Midland Mainline livery, sold out by my locals and sold out on the Hornby website, which is one of those models on page 1 of the D&E that you mention. Browsing through e-bay there were several retailers selling, but surprise surprise Hornby Hobbies has an e-bay store and there were 2 in stock, yet the main website had none. I didn't know that Hornby traded on e-bay, so how many other 'out of stock' items are available on their e-bay store. I have to ask, doesn't this dilute their own website and I personally find it surprising that a large player in this market would be scrabbling around on e-bay, when it wants to promote its own on-line sales site. Surely a mixed and blurred corporate message.

As far as I can see the £18 is guaranteed, if you pre order while at that price, as it doesn't have the caveat that the price is an estimate, as they are having to do with some Bachmann items. I recently had this price guarantee work on a Dapol product where I had pre ordered a Class 73 at £106, however just before the product arrived Dapol increased the price and it went up to £119.51 at Hattons, but my pre order was supplied at the original £106. With Hattons I've found its only Bachmann items that they can't maintain the pre order price promise as Bachmann either don't price the item until near to release or insist that the retailer can only discount a new release by no more than 15%

You can get 41/2 as the same Liverpool supplier is still pricing the first 4 HIAs at £18 and the extra 2 at £21.50. As I said in an earlier post, a bargain based on the samples being shown and we know that Dapol can produce a high quality modern outline wagon (apart from the MOA,MBA disaster).

It's a bit confusing at the moment as to which of the models are white liveried. The Dapol advert in the March Model Rail describes all 6 versions as in green, however from studying photos in the 'ukrailwaypics' site of HIAs in numerical order, the Dapol releases of 369027 and 369044 should be white liveried as the originals were in white. The model of 369027 is showing as in white livery on the Dapol Facebook entry. Can anyone confirm.

Coming from a tax audit background in my previous career, I was concerned to hear from my local Hornby retailer a couple of weeks ago, that he had received a large amount of stock from Hornby, that he hadn't ordered and which he had been invoiced for, so clearly not a delivery error. His attempts with Hornby accounts to find out why this had happened were met with 'reps error' as the main excuse. Due to the then warehouse closure, he could not arrange for the excess goods to be returned until the warehouse re-opened. I wondered at the time if this was a way of reducing stock and increasing sales at the end of an accounting period, as I'd seen this happen in other businesses in my audit career. The goods then come back into stock after the stocktake as returns and credit notes are issued for the accounting. This is only info from one retailer, so it would be unwise to treat this as a widespread issue, but other retailer members could indicate if similar issues occurred before the stocktake.

It may also be that there are more who think it is a good model as against those who have issues with it. There is a tendency for those who are content, to not report their satisfaction. I have a green liveried JA running on dc and like Gwiwer, am very pleased with it, I do not have any of the issues reported by others and the colour is a good rendition in my opinion. My only issue was the permanent cab lights, which I have isolated out, and painted the back of the route indicators on the cab interior side, to reduce light bleed. If I had been voting in order I would have put the 73 third, behind the Heljan Met Bo-Bo (which I voted for) and the Bachmann 43. One problem with any of these polls is that you tend to compare models from those you have direct hands on knowledge of. Some of the diesel/electrics, I had not bought or examined, so couldn't include in my own personal ranking, so to some extent these polls are not fully representative, as most voters won't have direct knowledge of all those models in the poll.

Hattons are pricing all 3 initial versions at £95 with no riders concerning price estimation. Looks like a bargain.

When my daughter was about 6 in 1984, she had a 'Pound Puppy' made by Hornby. I think they had the UK franchise at that time. It was a dog supposedly from the pound that you adopted, a rival toy to Cabbage Patch kids

Could be the subject of a 'super injunction' which means he can't say that he's had any response of any kind from anybody in the world on any subject - phew, didn't know they had that power.

I had purchased a second hand Mainline Dean Goods a couple of months ago, with the intention of building a new chassis. That project is now cancelled. The latest photos show that this could be a very good model with a significant amount of detail. Have contacted my supplier already, to put down a marker. Not sure what I'll do with the Mainline model, may convert to a free runner as I did with an old Airfix 4F.

Of course the use of the apostrophe would be correct if William Dean was a shareholder in the GWR and therefore had some possession of the locos, so could be Dean's Goods, as he had some possession of it. If there were many Messrs Deans involved, it could also be Deans' Goods, but that would be excessive. Pedant mode switched on, please don't take this post seriously - withdraws to corner and continues to read 'Rules of Apostrophes- or is it Apostrophe's'

That date is 4 months later than the current date on the Hornby website, of 9th March. If the later date is confirmed, they must have missed getting the production run completed before the effects of the Chinese New Year celebrations (which will start to impact by the end of this week), as they would need to be shipped before the end of this week to meet the earlier date.

Nice to see a BR version as well

The Crusader 1/43 model is readily available as it was used in both Atlas and Eaglemoss partworks in UK and Europe and wholesalers have been selling surplus models to dealers over the last year. There is quite a range covering British, American, French, German and Italian second world war AFVs in 1/43 scale. You can find many of these ex Atlas and Eaglemoss models for sale on e-bay. For British types there is also a beautiful Humber armoured car and I've just picked up from my local shop a Chevrolet C8a short wheelbase command truck in Guards Division nw Europe markings.They are detailed models as in addition to using diecast metal, detail parts are injection plastic moulded.

Trouble is they also had listings for the Hornby Adams Radial as reported in that thread, and I've just found listings for all versions of the forthcoming cattle wagons and coke wagons, and those last two are about 6-9 months away. All of these listings have been withdrawn but appear in the e-bay 'completed' listings.