letterspider

Did that look lemon yellow and purple blue?? 

Sorry if this has been posted on here already. Has Dapol manufactured any extra blue shells to replace the livery error in the first batch? Apparently not? Another problem is I am seeing BR blue 73 on sale in many outlets but I forget which running numbers are new tooling...

Thanks -

Is the dogbone crankshaft a solid piece of plastic or is it a metal rod with plastic pinions?

At this price and with the option to change sound files freely, I'm not complaining.  Good luck to Hornby making a pile of cash with this product

and Germany - didn't doesn't Siemens (Germany) provide motive power for Chinese HS rail.

My point - which I explain below, if a business can't match the levels of quality and design of the competitors, then price yourself accordingly.

Because from my recent experiences the issues with Hornby are related to their design. A chassis block where you can't fit in a sound decoder and speaker is very short sighted imo. Still using 8 pin decoder standards. Plastic pantographs which fall to pieces before you even open the box is a bad consumer experience on Christmas day. Bogies with insufficient play to cope with gradients. My feeling is they haven't had enough iterations in testing.

On the other hand I don't see any compromises at all in the Class 92 from Accurascale, except the pantograph head is fixed unlike the Bachmann model. The model does everything - even works on dirty track. Unfortunately you have a lemon but that is due to assembly or component issues, not issues with design.

Also there seems to be unwillingness to go back and correct fixable errors. Heljan did that with the Class 86 and they are now about to announce a 3rd production run. However I don't see any suggestion future APT trailers will have smaller capacitors.

These are facts, it's not about bashing Hornby. I have a lot of Hornby models I am happy with but I would no longer put in a pre-order for any future releases until I saw them reviewed on here or elsewhere.

Perhaps Hornby needs to bow out gracefully from some areas of the model train market and focus on its other businesses.  If they manufacture these Bluetooth chips to very high volumes, and get them to market at the right price, I would buy 20 of them straight off. Its a great idea and would help break up the near monopoly of Zimo and ESU. 

Mind you, I am sure it would so be a challenge to fit into the APT

It may well be that you won't need to go to Hornby soon in any case, since a well detailed 31, 50, 56, 60 will no longer be exclusive to them.

Which is ironic as those were pretty much the only models I would still consider buying from Hornby...

More time to play with the Class 92, I have made a first pass of weathering with several light washes of matt black and it definitely makes an improvement

I also found the coupling to be strangely weak. I'd think a stiffer clip, or one with two prongs might be a good idea for future production runs

Other than that an incredible model

33 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

 

I'll take the bets; bookies always win.

...and the taxman

Great work, especially like the Cargowaggons.

I would pull that chip out and try another.

6 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Another run of Blue /Grey class 122 would be good in oo.

 

This basic livery has only been done once and had the “tear drop” of yellow paint on the end.

class 88 and class 73/9.

 

Dapols been good with smaller tanks… Hudswell Clarke Canal Tank from the MSC would be good.

 

As would an LMS kitson 0-4-0ST…

and to think BR Built some of these

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Kitson_0-4-0ST

managed a range between Swansea, Derby, Birkenhead and Preston.

 

The Class 122 / 121 is a nice model but they need to solve the driveshaft problem, because even the replacements that are available also fail🥴

Thanks for that, I think I will try and model the Conflat variant as it will be simpler. 

I am guessing that the livery of the Conflat would be Olive Green?

Thanks. However on Paul Bartlett's site we also have these conflat wagons..so I am assuming these were loaded up with cement and taken straight to the site for pouring, or the square tank lwould be containing water for mixing with the dry components on site?

I picked up a PIKO wagon like this a few years ago from a model shop in Milan

and I've decided to try and model something closer to this (picture taken from Paul Bartlett's website)

However I don't understand what the function is of the hopper. Is it for storing extra cement, so the mixer can be reloaded?

If so would it be covered at the top from the elements and also where would the engineering team have obtained their water from?

I am assuming the large cylindrical tank at the far end is a fuel tank to provide diesel for the power generator?

I've corrected my post,....you DO want solid drive shafts, you don't want metal shafts with the plastic end bits.

I think Dapol used them in the Class 122 DMU to keep them very thin so they could have a hidden mechanism.

Dapol Class 122 behaves like this if one of the drive shafts has failed. This is due to plastic teeth with a poor friction fit on a metal shaft. Can be fixed with super glue.

Does the Class 59 have plastic ends on metal drive shafts? Hopefully not...

Hi Jim

I found the most reliable fix was to roughen the end of the driveshaft with sandpaper before applying a dab of superglue and use only one driveshaft.

It is quicker to desolder the wires for the bogie you are working on, drop out the bogie to allow the shaft to be removed.

Hornby need a rethink if I am typical of their customers. In recent years I would resell  locos because the fitting of sound was too challenging or the quality was poor for the price. Last year I got fed up and just sent every loco I bought back to the retailer. For once I am not interested in any modern image locos Hornby is going to release in 2023.

At the same time most of their TTS sound chips have been tremendously successful, if the lack of availability is anything to go by. They should make more and also make them compatible with their TT range so they can sell more of both.

To my mind the brand reminds me of Rover cars and I suspect they are in danger of going the same way.

See 'em, buy 'em

You won't be disappointed

First running session with the Accurascale Class 92 - what a great model!

Great model, the stay alive is unbelievable and it's a big surprise when the loco is still making sounds for 4 seconds after removing from the track!

As well as excellent details, this is a model designed without compromise to having fun.