Coppercap

Seems odd, as Yesterday Channel has been publicising it since Christmas as least...

I wonder if an ice aircraft carrier is going to be a new Airfix announcement? 1:600 or 1:400 scale ?🤔🤔

Yes tbere is - I don't know if there was an announcement just before it started...I turned it on just moments after 8pm...

I spent the Christmas period with my sister - they always had Radio Times all year, and my BiL always seemed to spend half his time with his nose in it and setting the recorder etc - and he's not exactly great company regarding conversation - same as his brother and their dad... This year, I bought a Daily Wail on Christmas Eve as it has a good TV supplement for the week ahead (I was going home on the Tuesday, so wanted it at home, to use it to catch up on what I missed over Christmas). I could hardly not notice the obvious absence of their Radio Times, either pride of place on the coffee table, or my BiL with his nose in it. Unfortunately, my BiL found my TV supplement and then spent half his time with his nose in it and setting the recorder etc... I made sure I didn't forget to bring it home with me...

Valerie Singleton, Lesley Judd et al telling us to use "sticky-backed plastic" wasn't referring to sticky tape ("Sellotape"), rather it was sheets of sticky-backed vinyl sheets, which were (still are?) available in a multitude of colours and patterns, and used for covering Squezy washing up bottles and the like. My mum always said it was too expensive, so we never got to make any Blue Peter items that involved the use of sticky-backed plastic. We did always have (genuine!) Sellotape in the house though!

I really don't know how it happened, but while perusing the Kernow website I somehow managed to accidentally-on-purpose order a No.97... 😄

"as restored on Sam's Trains, Salvage or Scrap" Tri-ang Hornby GWR 57xx sold for......... £130.99 and it wasn't even boxed! 😂 (hardly "restored" either, just got working again...but you did get a signed thank you card!)

Seems these were still in use in the London area in 1957 (Sloughborough, aka Uxbridge Vine Street) and used in the film "The Smallest Show on Earth"):

Did you not read any of the reviews on here or watch any them on YouTube (of both samples and production models)? 🤔 It was pretty clear that they had tension-lock couplings, and non-sprung buffers. I knew exactly what I was going to get when I pre-ordered mine...

In the course of my job I controlled (well, tried to..) telecomms engineers in South West England. One day we had a Scottish sales operative asking if we had an engineer free to do a job at Tones. Tony Who? When he eventually spelled it out we told him it was pronounced Tot-ness. But he was adamant the second T was silent (why?), and as there wasn't a double S at the end it couldn't be pronounced "Tot-neSS". We still did the job, and forever after we all jokingly referred to the Devon town as "Tones"! (Other places acquired 'jokey' names, but "Tones" was our favourite!).

It has the 400/4 clutch cover (350/4 is different). Has a 400/4 rear brake pedal and wheels too. The Dragonfly was 350cc anyway, which also suggests that DVLA weren't informed. Edit: just found it on here: https://thewindmillclub.org/2022/01/20/pedal-bikes-e-bikes-motorbikes-and-classic-cars/

Strange how it's still registered as 350cc, when it's a Honda 400/4 engine, which is 408cc (except Japanese home market).

How was it running straight out of the box, and what did you have to do to it to get it running satisfactorily? I had one on pre-order, but cancelled when Hattons advised of a price increase which they were going to pass on. Still wondering if I made the right decision or not...

Just remove two screws underneath, then the body pulls off the chassis fairly easy, overcoming the hold of some small clips.

Your 6-wheel brake 3rd at the other end is incorrect, in that the four lamps are equally spaced, and not directly over the compartments, as per all the other production 6-wheel Brake 3rds that have been seen. Seems that all the other versions produced are unaffected, and the 4-wheel brake 3rd lamps are correctly positioned over the compartments.

The GWR ones were the only ones that I had seen that were wrong (as actually I have them) - I looked at most of the images I could find of the other liveried-versions but hadn't noticed this one with all five lamps: Yet this one has four of them, in the correct position, but with different ventilators:

I haven't yet - they may or may not be aware, but I doubt there's much they will (or can) do about it, apart from correct it on a further batch.

You can see here how the lamps were in the correct position above the compartments on a 'decorated sample' back a year ago...

Those images aren't mine, they are from the Hattons website, which suggests they are photos of production models, not the pre-production samples. I have two 6-wheel brake 3rds - one of which is from the 4-coach pack. Both have the same, wrongly-spaced-lamps roofs.

There is an error I have only just noticed - and it's only on the GWR 6-wheel brake 3rd - the oil lamps don't align with the compartments, though the illustration on the box is correct, in that they do align. Interestingly, Hattons own videos of the GWR coaches show them in the correct position, as does Sam's Trains review of pre-production samples. This appears to be a production error - the other liveries, as far as I can see, have the lamps correctly aligned. Or maybe the 5-compartment roof has deliberately been used, minus one lamp - factory saving on costs, perhaps? Seems a bit odd to get this wrong when everything else looks so good... I wonder if Hattons are aware of this? The 4-wheel brake 3rd has them correctly aligned, as do all the other GWR variants. (Hattons website images)

Have you since managed to identify why that coach has flickering lights? I have one GWR coach (out of fifteen) that does that, randomly and on plain track just like yours. Cleaned wheels an contacts - still the same. I think I'll try swapping the roof with a 'good' one next, to see if the fault moves with it.

Apparently it did have smoke.

That was a pretty expensive set back in its day though! You couldn't ask for a lot more in a set, apart from a station. Be interesting to work out how much it would cost in today's money. Was it RS8 or RS28?

Having had their mistake of putting their range of Hornby Dublo 2-rail in blue-striped boxes pointed out to them, they are going to make them even more accurate, so they are bringing back Hornby Dublo 3-rail...

If anyone hasn't tried them already, the Hornby Roco-style couplings work a treat. Still negotiate 2nd radius reverse curves without buffers locking, closer-coupled under tension, and coupling slack cut to a bare minimum.