peteskitchen

On 06/04/2024 at 13:30, Siberian Snooper said:

I have waited upto 3 months for orders from PoWsides to materialise. Lots of these small suppliers do the model railway stuff as a hobby, so don't expect the same service as the big boys.

 

 

It might be helpful of them to say on their website that delays may happen rather than saying 28 days. As a new customer like I was it leaves you in the dark especially when it's become 3 months and no communication. 

Has anybody tried to buy any wagon kits of these guys recently? I ordered a wagon kit in January, after a couple of weeks asked for an update and was told 7 to 14 days, then nothing. I emailed in March for an update but heard nothing so grudgingly I had to request a refund from PayPal. I hate to do that but what choice did I have? 🤷

Years ago I did look at the Hornby 31 to replace my super detailed lima variants, however they never looked right to me so in the end I remotored my lima ones instead. I thought about replacing them all with accurascale ones, but apart from not doing the liveries I want it would cost me in the region of 800+ quid, and I've made the mistake of buying just one to replace an old model before, that doesn't work! I expect these will end up being heavily discounted like 37s and 47s to shift the stock left after the initial new model sales. I'll sit on the fence and watch this one 😁

Not that many years ago there were many gaps in the classes of diesels available, and the likes of kit manufacturers filled the gaps for the skilled. Now wind forwards to the present and the market is so flooded with manufacturers that what I'd call fringe models are now getting duplicated. I imagine these will end up in the bargain basement after a few years. It happens! 

Tickled me pink that they don't even know the difference between a 24/0 and 24/1. Saying that Bachmann made the same mistake in early literature when they announced the release of their headcode box fitted 24s. 

11 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Key word - incline!

 

Inclines are the source of more hassle than they are worth!

 

If you convert your incline gradient to full-size practice, I'm betting the real loco would stall, too.

 

CJI.

Actually it's a 1:100 so it should deal with 6 coaches no problem. My Bachmann Peaks pull 8 up effortlessly. 

On 17/06/2023 at 23:36, big jim said:

3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Well, I too have D11.

 

The cab looks fine to me - and I was brought up on 'Peaks' on the Midland Mainline.

 

The axleboxes do look oversized in yellow - a few dabs of black paint have resolved that.

 

Haulage? Eleven Mk1s and barely raising a sweat is fine for me!

 

Mine's staying!

 

John Isherwood.

Mine stalls pulling 6 Mk1s on my incline. No slipping, just stops dead. I think Heljan are having quality control issues with the motors they are using. I'd have probably kept it had it got peak like sloggability. 

On 17/06/2023 at 23:36, big jim said:

Been umming and ahhing about getting a model of tinsley celeb green 45106 since I first saw one a few months back, it’s been in and out of my basket on the kernow website as it was a very reasonable £139 but I never actually clicked on the buy it now, glad I didn’t in the end as I went to DEMU today and picked one up from the c-rail stand for £100 which I’m more than chuffed about 

 

first impressions are it’s a beautiful loco, seems to sit better than the Bachmann version, hopefully it will negotiate my curves nicely, a very imposing loco, got a 21 pin chip ready to go in, hopefully do that next week 

Glad you like yours. I've been after a split headcode peak in green with a small yellow for ages, and when TMC reduced the price of their specials I bought D11, but I really don't like it. The cab looks all wrong to me, and those dinner plate axle covers in bright yellow don't help. Add to it the thing is utterly gutless I've put it up for sale, but nobody seems to want to buy it! 

4 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

I've said it many times before - but will repeat it once again in the hope that SOMEONE at Hornby is listening : -

 

Every Hornby fixed trailing truck Pacific that I have has been converted to swinging truck - via a lot of needless, fiddly hacking, etc.

 

IF ONLY Hornby would mount the flangeless trailing wheels in a swinging inside-framed truck, locked with an additional screw.

 

For those of us without trains-set radii, all we would have to do is fit the flanged wheels and remove the locking screw - job done!

 

PLEASE, if anyone here has the ear of Hornby, could they point out this blindingly-obvious solution to a problem that didn't need to exist in the first place?!?

 

John Isherwood.

That's such a good idea. The rear wheel of my Duchess of Sutherland is so bad I have to run it as a 4-6-0. I think I'll attack that Loco next. Have you modified an LMS pacific? 

They are cast from mazak, part of the locos chassis. I had to be careful where they join the main chassis because I've cut so much away. You can't see any changes at all when it's on the track. The loco will comfortably take peco code 100 streamline small radius points which are about 24 inch radius. 

I completely removed the underside of the trailing bogie area, and fitted a front bogie originally from a Margate black 5 with the flanged wheels fitted as supplied with the W1. It just happens to be exactly the correct axles spacing. I was suprised how hard the mazak was to cut etc. 

I bought Holly Bank in the Rails sale, and it's great except the back to back of the rear axle is just a tad too wide so when reversing over points it jumps on the frog. Anybody know the best way to reduce it? I've tried pushing with my fingers but it's solid. Runs a little noisy too, but I expect that will quieten down with running in. 

12 hours ago, johndon said:

Iron ore definitely came from Sweden to Tyne Dock in the mid/late 60's.

 

The very dark ore is, I understand, called Taconite and thousands of lumps of it still litter the track bed to Consett if you know where to look.  This lot was lying at the site of Beamish station:

 

 Thank you for that, I'll perhaps use blackened 1mm gravel and see how it looks.. Maybe spray it with a bit of varnish to give it a sheen?

I'm not a new seller, I've been prolific on ebay for nearly 30 years..yeah I joined in 1996! I must have sold way over 1000 items and managed to maintain 100% feedback. I have been scammed a couple of times when I sold an item and then the buyer says its not as described and sent a broken one back. Ebay weren't in the slightest bit interested in helping.

 As I seem to have a bit of a problem buying far too many models, I thought I'd do the right thing and sell what I'm realistically never going to use....HOWEVER!😆 I haven't sold on ebay for quite some time, when you used to get paid into your PayPal account. The first three items I sold went fine, money into my bank within 24 hours, but then everything that has sold since the funds are being withheld by ebay for weeks. It also seems that you are totally unprotected from anybody who's out to scam you unless I've missed something. My advice is sell elsewhere, it's much better for your blood pressure!

 During the early BR diesel era (mid 60s ish) where would the iron ore carried in these wagons originated from? In the early 80s I visited Kiruna in Sweden which has a huge Iron Ore mine and the mineral being transported to Narvik was very nearly black. I'm thinking here what colour load to put in my wagons..... 

On 23/02/2023 at 10:21, Helmdon said:

I think we've been over this - and I can't remember if this is an occasion where Yeadons made an oversight, or if it was so 'unofficial' that it wouldn't/didn't count but... Gorton did double white on an A5 just because it could - it's basically a GC livery - as a bit of a, er, 'do one' to the LNER.

 

It's a paint shop peculiarity, basically, but it is right (as in it happened, rather than that it was necessarily authorised...). From memory, the last time I dug right down into it it really was a two fingered salute as by the time they did it they'd painted a lot of other locomotives properly.... so they don't have the excuse of 'using up paint' or 'misreading the instructions' that they might have had right on the dot of the grouping.

 Thank you for that, an interesting insight.

I ordered a GCR mixed traffic with LNER letters livery version (according to Yeadons this should be red and white lined black, not double white, but it looks lovey so no matter!) and a GCR liveried one. My only annoyance was Rails sent them separately and charged me twice for postage, but whatever, its only 4 quid. Both run beautifully and look the part too. The livery on the GCR liveries one is particularly good. Next to my D11s it looks just as good and is a good colour match for them too. All round very happy.

6 hours ago, Bucoops said:

I'm holding out for Virgin West Coast.

Avanti Pride livery 🤪

10 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

I'll stick with the DJH version of Big Emma as the MR railwaymen called it.

 

I'd love to know when Big Bertha became more popular as the nickname, but looking through old books and magazines it was definitely Emma.

 

 

 

Jason

I must admit I've never heard it called Big Emma before today. Everyday's a school day!

1 minute ago, MyRule1 said:

I take it that you are using the Royal we as I did a quick search of the term on RMweb and the internet in general and can find only one use on another forum.

Sorry, should have put at our club ;)

Just looked on ebay. There's two DC versions and two DCC sound. Oddly with the DC ones , one is BIN £145 and the other bid from £145. Somebody has bid on the bidding on, and will have to wait 9 plus days to get it if they win, and the BIN is still for sale! Never understood ebay mentality when it comes to buying things.

It's about the right money for buying a christmas present for some older kid who has not had any experiance of model railways other than perhaps tommy tank to get them into model railways without blowing your bank account. However we often refer to Hornby's Peppercorn A1 as turdnado which gives you some idea of what we think of the model!

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

In the 1980's Lima did some very good tooling. It was basic and lacked details, was all moulded etc but models like the Class 47 captured the overall look of the prototype very well and within the limits of the day for British OO were accurate models. Even today, if you want an interesting super detail project for a bit of fun the Lima/Hornby Railroad 47 is still an excellent starting point. Bachmann were making fundamentally accurate OO models decades ago. Hornby has produced some new generation Railroad tooling which while basic, lacking details and with obvious compromises to keep costs down are still pretty accurate. In all three cases the models didn't replicate all the individual locomotive specific details but you could point to an example and say that the model was a pretty accurate representation. Inferring people are being unreasonable about a model as egregiously inaccurate as this one is rationalizing poor research and shoddy attention to getting it right. I don't think this is a cost issue at all. The real costs are in producing the tooling and manufacture, and the Chinese factory appears to have done that very well. The failings are all down to just not paying attention to basic research and details. Given they could easily have engaged with the enthusiast community for pointers for zero cost there is no excuse for it. I'm guessing they could have came to an agreement with one of the kit builders to access some of the research done by them for a reasonable consideration.

To those claiming others don't do difficult prototypes, Heljan have done a whole series of one off prototype locomotives with no surviving examples to scan or measure. Kernow did a fantastic job of the D6xx which was a very difficult subject to research. Bachmann and others did the LMS 10000/10001 twins vey well. So other manufacturers (including a small outfit like Kernow) have demonstrated they can do oddball prototypes which are difficult to research extremely well.

 Sorry I didn't mean people were being unreasonable, I was trying to point out that manufacturers would not want to receive criticism of a model, but at the same time not make them too expensive to build, ie finding a compromise that would satisfy both of those criteria. I did go on to point out that this model has errors that wouldn't have made the model any more costly to produce by doing them correctly. 

1 hour ago, WisTramwayMan said:

I'm pretty sure that the likes of Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol etc wouldn't even entertain manufacturing a Fell.

 

A one-off - subject to more than average modifications throughout its life - scrapped long ago - hardly the easiest subject to model.

 

The larger, and more recent, a class of loco is, the more chance you have of getting pretty much all the minute details correct. Helped immensely if examples of that class are still extant, plus the quantity of digital images you have available at the push of a few buttons on your keyboard. 

 

My comments are this:

 

Does it look like most buyers' perceptions of what the Fell should look like ?

Is it well made and does it perform well ?

Is it good value ?

 

Re the price, they cost £150. A small shunter such as a Heljan 07 will cost you a discounted £170 new. New Bachmann class 47's over £200, discounted. So, given you only have the one loco to cover the tooling costs, I think that's pretty good.

 

It may not be perfect. But given that having a kit built up and decorated would cost you multiples of £150 then for many people this will be perfectly good enough.

 

And me ? I've got a black one and a green one....

I absolutely agree with you. The problem is this very vocal condemnation of anything that isn't 125% accurate is something that a manufacture would want to avoid, but the downside to that is it's driving up the costs of models to the point where sale quantities are becoming questionable. I think there's a fine line to be followed between keeping costs down and striving for accuracy. In the case of this model there are various boo boos which could have been avoided without any significant costs which is a shame, but unlike a certain big manufacture  keeps doing, at least the shape is right.