JSpencer

Maybe compare photos of the tender online. Mind you at least you know which loco it might be off (I received a spare drive shaft with a new Bachmann EMU once, clearly if it had been one that fallen off, then the model would not move). FWIW I have a collection of spare bits found on the layout over the years with absolutely no idea where they came from.

Brake tender maybe????

That should make a great April fools advert. "We are proud to present our all new class 31, complete with ring field motor, traction tyres and tender drive..."

I think they referred to World War One wartime liveries in this case. Mind you I cannot think of many Rapido RTR locos in WWI colours. And they would have hanged around until grouping I guess (or at least can go with those SECR wagons...). In anycase I have a trainload of WWI wagons so...

Perfect news - I just stuck my order in for a sound fitted one and I'm not a member of Brighton Circle. This was a no brainer for me as I can use in pre-grouping days - or with a little stretch - in preserved days (I know she has not carried this livery yet, but never say never).

I have some Bananas vans on pre-order via your IRM website. Will they still be going from the UK to Ireland and then to me?

Mine arrived yesterday and is the sound fitted version. I tested it under DCC yesterday evening and there were no issues. She is quite fast even on 1/4 speed settings. I never cranked her up to full speed. The manual shows this to be a very impressive set up. Some sounds have random settings leaving you to concentrate on the main ones. Other sounds have several choices to choose from which can be changed by the CVs. For example two types of station announcements (Liskeard and Looe) are set by default but there are about a dozen to choose from by changing the CVs. The lights were fine (interior & exterior), about the right brightness under DCC. In fact I was surprised to find interior lighting so passengers and crew will be a nice addition eventually. The first thing to strike me taking her out of the box is her length. Nearly as long as a Mk 3 shown below. The box is the same length as Accurascale's Detlic, though half the width and height. I've been giving some thought recently to a shunting plank micro layout (to be mixed with OO-9) and this model has me thinking about maybe a small terminal.

I always use Roco style couplings whenever I get this issue. It locks the mechanism and forces it to operate. (Equally graphene can help).

Forgive me for asking the question, but I am curious as to why someone would want to put a new 47 body on the previous 47 chassis. Is someone selling the bodies alone?

Seeing the model like this in actual daylight makes it feel more real to me. Well done.

When it was with Howe's you brought the entire sprew! Which was very handy and something I was very happy with.

When these vans were first announced, most were sold out on pre-order in about 24 hours, leaving me only able to order the SR pair. I really wanted the 5 SECR versions. This was at the start of Covid and they appeared about a year later still during Covid. Prior to this, I had the later 1424 from their first run with later break gear. This was repainted in SECR though clearly with the wrong roof and brakes - but better than nothing. I scanned Rails website relentlessly looking for spare ones of the new batches to buy. At first there were only special door ones available. I brought 2 of them figuring I could renumber one or convert it. Then - as others were not appearing - about a month later I got another 2 figuring I could try to convert the doors. So 4 special door versions + 1 from the original batch repainted. Then the SR ones appeared, I had 2 on order and they arrived. About a month later, additional ones were released on sale, so I brought another pair figuring I could repaint them. The second pair really showed how tough the models are as they had been crushed between the rollers of the letter handling machines. The parcel arrived well and truly squashed! So much so that the vans had imprinted themselves onto the plastic and card of the boxes! Remarkably the vans themselves were fine. Tough beasts! So I now had 4 SR ones, 4 special box ones and 1 from the original batch repainted. 9 or 4 more than the initial batch of 5 I wanted. A few months later the remaining SECR did appear (though not all at once) and I managed to get the remainder. Now I had 13. What to do? The original run repainted one, swapped chassis and roof with an SR one and I left another in SR. Even if I my SR collection is small, these would be wellcome. And finally recently, I managed to get round to repainting 2 SR versions into the earlier wainwright liveries when 1 special door version was repainted into the later SECR livery. The roofs on most had degraded over time (deforming and paint cracking), so this was addressed as well. I still have three 9944 special door versions in Wainwright, Obviously one will remain as is, but not sure about the other two and being in France, it's not easy for me to sell off excess stock. I mixed up my own paint colours, matching Rapido for the latter SECR colour and doing something lighter (but not as light as Rails) for the Wainwright livery. Transfers are Fox. Below pictures of most of the fleet: nine 1424s together Left 2 repainted SR vans into SECR, vs Rails originals Left the van from an original batch (SR), repainted in SECR and given proper roof and brake gear Right a special door van repainted into later SECR and renumbered Two differents sets of repaints. Obviously 9934 (from the original batch) has too dark paint but it will serve) The 3 vans in Later SECR livery. The two on the left being rails original, and the right a 9944 special door repainted to later livery

There used to be a wondeful toy fair in that market hall many years ago. Great choice.

Ah ok. Maybe a future generation of chips by the time the class 12 appears.

I don't think I saw any argument against one yet.

That was my first impression but actually it was the gear towers. All my Hornby twin drive Diesels suffer from it, like as if they go dry every several months or so. Never had that with Bachmann and other makes.

That model is so old, there is tons of real estate. I don't think it even has a proper cab.

When I worked at The Signal Box (a long time ago), the first batches of Dapol 14XXs came in Airfix boxes. I remember one customer ordering one, we sent it out, it came back with a letter complaining that he wanted the Dapol one and not the airfix one. We sent it back with a letter saying it was the Dapol one and Dapol were using up Airfix boxes until they were exhausted. He sent it back again, saying it was a lie, so we refunded. Another used to send his orders in on the tiniest pieces of scrap paper, not much bigger than a stamp. We would send back a few sheets of A4, but still the next order was on a tiny scrap.... Fun times....

A wonderful win. I would love Rails/Dapol to do Fenchurch in A1 condition with DCC sound. I think a sprung centre axle would be a quick win on this design. Alter all the connecting rods are split and drive is on the last axle. The paradox is always the small locos most likely to suffer stalling yet being small also means little space unless you place it in a cab or something. The old Dapol/Hornby one was a cow to fit DCC in general.

Dapol's solution with their tilting axle on their B4 tank is very effective under these conditions. I never had one stall on points once. The down side is that you have to be very careful when taking the model apart. And once I had a kid suddenly speeding one up causing all the motion to lock up!

Subject line is "thanks for shopping with us" The bank details are of little use to me as I'm abroad and I need an IBAN number (and then 2 weeks to set up a foreign transfer with the bank). That would work quickly in my case. What is weird is that the first £30 was paid by card/paypal.

Rails are showing some - but not all - 33/2s as being "Sound ready". I know about the LED and 21 pin upgrades, but did the most recent batch also include a pre-fitted speaker?

Keep in mind that they only picked up the models from Hattons 5 minutes ago. I'm pretty impressed that they managed to digest all of Hattons research material (plus add some of their own no doubt), look at the samples, spot errors and send back feedback to get this prior planned batch underway in good order. So who knows what the future will bring with these models. But it's off to bright start.

The first thing I do with any new Dapol 73 is to spend time gluing all the loose bits on the bogies first.

Ah ok so maybe not the same loco. I am after 1876 so I guess Rapido's is 1982 which was scapped in 1971.