JSpencer

18 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Does that mean the Rapido model will include parts from, perhaps, Accurascale and Ellis Clark assembled at random ??!? 🙄

Only if they do a WD 2-10-0. Then it will include parts from Bachmann (WD 2-8-0), Ellis Clark and KR models....

5 hours ago, ChrisN said:

 

 

I do like your layout, and the way you run your trains right to the edge.  I have to do the same and will shortly be installing a protection barrier like yours, although mine will be a bit higher as it has to be grandchild proof.

Thank you, mine is actually quite high standing 4ft off the ground. But yep, kids can quickly write off something if you are not careful. And one reason why I keep much of the old robust stuff!

17 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A modeller of the SECR clamouring for Midland opens - music to my ears!

 

Although to be fair, balanced, and open minded, I think Great Northern ones would also be useful to you - there was a great deal of mineral traffic via both companies passing onto the SECR and LBSCR.

I do have a GN gunpowder van along with an NB one. These are quite bright compared to the drab SECR greys but plausible (I could of brought more Iron Minks but then it would look overpowering and non realistic).

An Earlier train today with the SE&CR RCH wagons, also the GC and GW RCH pair, a Rapido GWR 4 plank and some Rails 1424 vans and Rapido Gunpowder vans. I have too many 1424s (I only wanted the 5 SECR ones, but ended up with SR ones at the start that I repainted before later getting the SECR ones - you can see why I need more opens 😅).

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A modeller of the SECR clamouring for Midland opens - music to my ears!

 

Although to be fair, balanced, and open minded, I think Great Northern ones would also be useful to you - there was a great deal of mineral traffic via both companies passing onto the SECR and LBSCR.

I'll take a few of both 😉

Another pair RCH arrived today. The GW and GC ones.

One way to quickly add additional opens to a pre-grouping layout is to include a few from other railways. For the SECR, midland railway opens were a common sight, but I have also seen GC wagons too. And why not a GW version. The brakes on this pair are one-side only unlike the SECR versions which have brakes both sides. And the contrasting greys to boot....

Now in a train with mostly other Rapido wagons including the 3 RCH in late SECR, a pair of Bachmann ones and 3 Rails 1424 vans (of course the C class might see itself replaced at the head by an O1 at some point):

On an inner line, 3 early SE&CR RCH can be seen with 3 other early coloured SE&CR opens.

The free running of these wagons really allows us to capture the length of these mixed trains. No issues for the C pulling it all.

Comparisons.... I think it is safe to say that the Bachmann Collectors club of 3 SECR opens has now seen its day. The paintwork is generally too dark and obvious within a rake.  (the same can said of Hornby and Dapols standard wagons in SECR colours).

Rapido Maunsell 7 plank bottom (could do with a few more of these) vs Rapido RCH top:

Bachmann Collectors club right vs Rapido Left (that Bachmann is dark...)

Rapido top vs Bachmann bottom 

Bachmann left vs Rapido right

Bachmann top, rapido bottom

Rails SECR versions arrived this morning. Very welcome in helping to rebalance my SECR wagon rakes back towards being mostly opens.

The end doors were not glued in though and I now wonder if they could be made working so as to discharge 😅

36 minutes ago, ColinB said:

Bachmann seem to handle it reasonably well. Admittedly they did add power pantographs on the class 90, but at least that made sure it was a reasonable pantograph. Most of their other gimmicks generally are decent lighting on their diesels. I did read somewhere that on one of their mega expensive diesels they had DCC automatic decoupling option, which could be useful. 

Their new class 31 but only the deluxe models.

38 minutes ago, ColinB said:

 One of the other big issues with Hornby is when they make something good it is virtually always out of stock. Powerpacks for instance, it seems to get the HM7000 to work reliably you need one, but are they available at the moment, no. 

Most of my HM7000 fitted locos (I have about 10), do not have space for a powerpack. Most are older models made between 2005 and 2015 with 8 pin loco fitted plugs and certainly not designed with sound in mind. Worse, often only the 6 driving wheels actually picking  up (no tender pickups). But despite this I found I have run some of these models non stop for 30 minutes (including stops at stations etc and not simply just going round) without issue of cutting out. 

I only get issues when there is dirt, but then it is out with the track rubber, and cleaning the wheels then it is all fine again. 

11 hours ago, MikeParkin65 said:

Pose-able firebox doors; AS Manor - has it ? Only found the Bachmann V2 had them as thought the flicker wasn’t working until I read the manual 😂

Also Bachmann's OO-9 mainline Hunslets have them too.

11 hours ago, MikeParkin65 said:

Smoke and steam don’t scale down - all I see is ‘Michael Bentines Potty Time’. Also wonder what the long term effects of water based emissions will have on electrical components around the layout and card structures.  

That's fine, they can do with and without. Some people want these, some don't and the two views are not incompatible. Look at Bachmann's all new diesels. You have a plain DC version, DCC sound version and then a deluxe version which seems to outsell DCC sound version.

As for the effects, I doubt most will run them as such very often anyway and probably adds hardly anything to humidity in the air.

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The point about glowing fireboxes is that if you leave the firebox doors wide open as the loco moves off you will very rapidly find it causes massive problems with the fire and thus the steam raising capability with the loco probably grinding to a halt not long after.

 

When working the doors covering the fire are closed (or nearly closed) thus regulating the airflow and ensuring the fire burns in a way to produce the optimum amount of steam.

 

Yes when stationary at a station (the place most folk will get to see the inside of the cab) then having the doors open is quite common but do NOT assume this is the situation when you are watching the loco move along.

Glowing fireboxes is one thing, but what people notice the most is all that steam coming out chimney. Here Hornby have made inroads (no other competitor has this feature yet but they are working on it). It's going to be a while before that retrofits across key locos in the range but that is an opportunity.

HM7000 must be something that is doing well too. These chips allowing synchronized smoke as the price being asked is going to be a winner as development progresses.

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

and only finding 

Every £1 of stock reduction has increased debt by c£3, i’d be expecting stock reductions to be improving the financial health unless theres some very big investments going on… but if it is, its a secret, and brave in this climate.

 

I noticed this reduction of stock in the previous report did not do much to reduce debt.

My gut feeling would be fewer all new toolings but in many liveries to recover costs in year one instead of year 4. (Even Bachmann is on fewer toolings with more liveries even if hardly any are steam except OO-9).

Another thing is stock levels of high ticket items. When they do hit a winner, there is not enough to go around and far too many when they don't. Although I think they are better here now than 5 years ago. 

Direct sales are up, but I do wonder if the cost of the operation outweighs the gains. Admittedly one player fell to the side in January which might mean Hornby are becoming or have become the big box shifter themselves. 

Are model shops regaining confidence to place decent orders with Hornby ? Or are there still issues of many wanting say 10 of an item and getting only 1?  

A problem with Hornby on their all-new tooling is that they still look at recovering costs within the later run rather than the initial one.

New Players like Accurascale and Rapido give us umpteen choices. We buy the one (or more) that we really want and we have little need to wait for a rerun. IF a rerun does happen, we'll probably add another to our range.

Hornby are, the common liveries in run 1, the pretty liveries in run 2 which only appears 4+ years later by which time their market has moved on.

Likewise you cannot build up a rake of wagons with Hornby on run 1, nor even with run 2, 3 or 4... they are drip fed.

They have a tonne of stuff well within their tooling waiting to be done which should have been done by now. But helas, it is like the French army in 1940. They are replying to the huge break throughs by new competitors with an army attacking in penny packets along the front line. Some little parts do show brilliance but overall no where near enough to stop the huge breakthroughs.....

There are online bits 'n' pieces of an Albert Usher Coal Merchant at London Bridge. So this and the above would lead me to think it would be ok to consider a visit by this wagon on the SECR. In anycase I consider it good to have a ratio of say 75% known SECR region types 10% from the LBSCR, 5% from the LSWR and 10% further afield (TBH there is probably more evidence of further afield than the neighbouring lines, but I do have a few LBSCR locos so not too bad to have suitable rolling stock).

Some proper Midland Railway opens would complete the illusion though....

Well done Rapido. Very nice but - @RapidoCorbs - we are missing the Bluebell one 😀😉

3 hours ago, fulton said:

My other five Rapido wagons now completed for service, being pushed, from the Invicta Engineering Works, to the SECR exchange siding. In reality the board joint does not look as bad as this!

Very nicely done. And you just made me order another 3... 😅

45 minutes ago, RAF96 said:

TXS was slammed for being larger than NMRA spec, so unlikely to be smaller than TTS.

The overall package with the speaker is smaller than TTS. It means that older 8 pin locos with chip holders in the loco body instead of the tender can now often have the chip and speaker placed into the smokebox. Even the smallest sugar cube is quite loud and clear.

Under TTS, the supplied bigger round speaker had to be located in the tender, while the chip went into the smokebox (some sources saying TTS were suitable for sugar cubes). 

Next 18 seems to be the main one oversize as most RTR locos using that are designed to the NMRA size spec. I have not used those yet (too few locos with them and none are Hornby so...).

TBH, given the price point, I am not surprised that the Dongle probably won't work as well on other systems. Though I get that the initial marketing seems to have been a bit over enthusiastic.

The fact that it ties in well with Hornby's own systems (though not the eLite) seems normal enough to me.

In the DCC world, TXS is low end entry point. Like TTS, it is reasonably good at covering a lot of subjects for a lower cost than a full fat high end sound chip. But takes up less space than TTS.  Locos that I thought I would never add sound too, due to space and not really designed with sound in mind (about 80% of my locos were brought between 2003 and 2013) , can be made DCC sound. I can run them adhoc on the layout from my telephone or bring them under full DCC (only 1/3 of my collection will get DCC, the rest runs under DC).

Leaving the high end full fat DCC sound for "preferred" locos where high quality is a must. 

On 13/03/2024 at 01:27, Nova Scotian said:

Just preordered a Port of London Authority one from Rails.

I seem to have fallen down an industrial shunter hole. Wallet is hurt, but not as hurt as if I were on a Merchant Navy spending spree!

 

Looking forward to this.

 

Also couldn't resist the Cadburys vent van to go with it. (pre-order)

Me too and I thought I would be quickly satisfied on the industrial front. Helas no. The first small industrial tanks were not really easy to fit sound into them, but these are. And just when I thought Dapol had satisfied my thirst for a noisy small 0-4-0 industrial shunter, Rapido offer more of them... And thus we are condemned to make an industrial plank, what with all those wonderful Accurascale and Bachmann cement wagons... A cement works it will be....

13 minutes ago, RAF96 said:

2/ - Function list here - https://d63oxfkn1m8sf.cloudfront.net/8917/0868/1362/SD027_-_4VEP_Function_List.pdf

Excellent. Look forwards to this.

3 hours ago, Jenny Emily said:

I have recorded a video showing fitting of decoder and speaker into a class 401 as well as running through the sounds of the forthcoming class 423/4VEP sound profile:

 

 

Thanks Jenny. I have just a couple of questions if I may please.

1/ Is there a compresseur sound? (very distinctive on these EMUs coming on almost after every braking action)

2/ The sound seemed a little off (tinish) to my mind, could that be the recording? Or wires taped to the top of the speaker (not sure if this has an effect)? 

On 12/04/2024 at 11:06, Carver Bridge TMD said:

Forgive me if this has been covered in the previous 29 pages but does anyone have a problem with frequent derailing over pointwork? Is the detail fouling the bogey? Is there a well known workaround for this problem? Thanks

In general no. But sometimes when new, the screw link coupling can block a bogie from turning by fowling the NEM pocket. It can be folded up onto the hook or loosened up by moving it a bit so that it is no longer stiff.

Kernow's MOGER arrived. Lovely wagon, shown below next to a 15 year old Dapol MOGER wagon which is longer and uses a different running number (couplings replaced with modern slim tension locks).

It was the last RCH I ordered and yet the first to arrive....

I feel Bachmann's E4 looks a little big with this pair, so hopefully we'll get E1 110 to run instead 😉

Some quick snaps:

EDIT : EXTRA PICTURES:

After Rapido saw some other LBSCR loco with their RCH wagon today, they decided to go ahead with E1 110, so that I'll have their LBSCR loco with their wagon LOL

On 14/04/2024 at 14:53, Michael Hodgson said:

 

What does that mean - the fact that they're also doing a weathered version?

I can't see any obvious changes.

FWIW, Hattons original run included weathered versions.

19 hours ago, SRman said:

I have never been impressed with previously available sound files for the SR EMUs in general, so your comments regarding Bachmann's sounds are of great interest to me. Is there a chance you could post a video to demonstrate the sounds at all?
 

I posted a video on the The Monday Club Jenny Kirk Facebook page. I have not posted anything to Youtube for about a decade!