DRS Crewe On A Mission

Welcome my mate! You can pick up 70004/70005 from just about anywhere at the moment. 70003/70006 you will have to look online as quite a lot of shops don't stock the original standard pair anymore. Go careful if you buy a 70001 as this should come with a Limited Edition certificate. I like the 70005 weathered model and I haven't got this one yet. I was going to buy this one until Bachmann have decided to produce a 70015 with the new air intakes on the sides. I will probably wait for the new one with the air intakes fitted now.

Sounds good! Their are a few 70s available at the moment in Freightliner livery... 70004 is DCC Fitted 70005 is weathered You can also still pick up the original standard pair which were produced right at the start. These are 70003 and 70006. You also might pick up a Limited Edition 70001 on Ebay for around £140/£150 so really you have the option of five running numbers.

I have four of them and I have to say that they are fantastic locos! They look superb and run really well too. I'm going to be investing in some more when 70015 is released. I am also going to buy some Colas Rail 70s they look just as good

Yes I am hoping that R3Sprays will make some ScotRail transfers to and repaint some MK2s in this livery. After looking at the ScotRail livery carefully which has been applied to 68006, 68007 and the MK2s it looks very smart and impressive. At first I didn't think I would be that keen but I really like it. Its also good that DRS liveried 68004 has appeared on the ScotRail trains too as these could be used to haul 00 Gauge MK2s as well! Looking forward to seeing what numbers, names and liveries are produced in both scales.

I'm hoping for two or three in DRS livery for freight workings and possibly one in ScotRail livery if I can buy some suitable coaching stock to run with it of course. In 00 Gauge for me.

Hi all, Just noticed this on the Class 68 page on the Dapol website. The information has changed... "In Tooling Now. Awaiting permissions before confirming models." It now sounds very promising that we will see these locos arriving at the back end of this year! Hopefully just in time for Christmas. I assume that as soon as the tooling has been finally checked over etc that we will then hear what liveries and running numbers are going to be produced in each scale.

That's the one! I didn't like all of the grey on the cab ends. I just think that the grey was over-used on the cab ends and looked too much. At least the black looks smarter especially with a lot less grey on the cab ends. It looked shocking with 3/4 grey below the lights and then a small 1/4 black.

I am talking about the old Powerhaul livery which was applied to 66504. This is a different variant to the Powerhaul livery displayed by 66528. If you look at the cab their is a small rectangular patch of grey. One rectangle is where the loco number is and the other side is just plain grey. On 66504 the grey went all the way down to below where the lights are. It went to where the buffers and coupling is. This is now painted black on 66528 which I think looks a lot better as the grey on 504 just looked out of place. I know what you mean about the liveries. I think the Powerhaul livery suits the 70s more but the livery doesn't look too bad in my opinion now on the 66 that the grey area (mentioned above) has been painted black.

Yes it did need a freshen up. I remember seeing 66528 at Midland Road a few years ago now and even then both cab ends had a severe amount of rust resulting in them missing quite a lot of paint. When I first saw 66504 in Powerhaul livery I thought that it didn't suit a 66 but now that the livery has been revised it looks a lot better. Originally 504 had been painted grey below the cab ends and now 528 is painted black below the cab ends. The grey at either side of the cab end came right down to below the front of the cabs In my opinion this small difference makes a big difference to the overall look of the livery on the 66. I think the black looks a lot better and smarter and the grey just looked out of place.

Thought it was! You can tell by how smart and clean the yellow cab ends look. I do think that the cab end repaints on the Freightliner 66s smarten them up a lot. I'm not surprised Freightliner haven't repainted all of their 66s into Powerhaul livery as this would be very costly and it must be far more cost effective to just fully repaint the few 66s that actually need it and just repaint the cab ends on the remainder as this smartens them up for the foreseeable future.

Looks like 66532 has had a cab repaint with new running numbers applied too

It would be nice if I could get 2 or 3 DRS liveried models in 00 Gauge If I remember rightly they scanned 68005 at Carlisle Kingmoor.

Time soon does add up. I mean I never used to realise how such a long time the whole process takes. The website was updated nearly 7 weeks ago saying awaiting tooling slot. It still stays the same thing today. It just shows that very little if anything at all has been done with the model in the last 7 weeks. That's nearly two months of the model just sat their.

Yes I certainly want them to get the 68 right first time and to create a fantastic, realistic loco. Hopefully they will bring out two or three different running numbers of the DRS liveried ones in 00 Gauge. I am certainly counting on these Class 68s to replace some very old Class 66s.

I can see what your saying. As I mentioned on the previous page it seems that Bachmann did a fantastic job producing the Class 70 in 16 months whereas it will have took Dapol an additional 7 months to produce the Class 70 if its released in December this year. I am looking forward to seeing the Dapol's efforts at producing the Class 68 in 00 Gauge though just because I haven't bought a Dapol model ever before. It must be more complicated though for Dapol because they are making the models in two scales at once whereas when Bachmann were producing the Class 70 it was released in 00 first and then in N quite a while later. I suppose they are just taking their time because they probably want to get the model right first time with no faults. Besides if they have any problems with the models they will not just have problems in one scale but two. Don't forget though they will have to mass produce the models in both scales in at least two liveries (DRS & Chiltern) if not three now that the ScotRail livery has appeared. So that's two scales in at least two liveries possibly three at the same time. I also remember that some of the Class 68s have different sized fuel tanks to others. I am not sure if this will be incorporated into the Dapol models in both scales but that would take time if is by ensuring that each model has the correct sized fuel tanks. This will be specific to the running number which means that their are differences that we might not see or notice that could influence how the long the production of the model takes.

Yes I completely agree after all it cannot be easy trying to create a model of a brand new class of loco in both scales at the same time. Although I haven't got the appropriate coaching stock I would be tempted to buy a ScotRail and Chiltern Class 68 as I do quite like the liveries. The ScotRail livery looks very impressive from the pictures I have seen and the Chiltern ones do look smart in the silver. In theory though I could buy a Chiltern 68 to run on freight trains as a number of them have debuted on stone trains including 010, 011, 013,015. Not sure about 012 and 014. Hope you manage to get one from work! As the ScotRail livery has only been apparent for a few days I wonder if they will appear on the model 68s at the same time as the DRS and Chiltern livery does?

Possibly not out by the end of this year but its just the rumoured release date with nothing official having been announced by Dapol. But when you consider that 68002 has already been in the UK more than a year and by the time this year comes to an end it will have been here nearly two years, surely in that context the models won't be far off arrival at Christmas 2015 or if not maybe early next year. Comparing to the Freightliner Class 70 numbers 70001 & 70002 arrived in the UK on 8th November 2009 and I bought the 00 Gauge model of 70006 in February 2011. This means that it only took Bachmann 16 months from the arrival of the first two locos in the UK to the item been available in 00 Gauge. I would like to think that with Dapol having 23 months from February 2014 when 68002 arrived until December this 2015 when the rumoured release date it that this is ample time to have the 00 Gauge model produced and available. They will have had an extra 7 months compared to Bachmann with the Freightliner 70.

Thank you for letting us know that its now in tolling. That's quite far on from what I thought as well considering that we have just started the second quarter and their is still another eight/nine months before the rumoured release date. I do wonder what liveries will be released in 00 Gauge and the running names and numbers. It stands to reason that their must be one DRS liveried one because the photo on the Ehattons pre-order page is 68002. Other than that I am not sure if the Silver Chiltern livery or the new Scotrail livery which has been applied to 68006 and 68007 will appear as will Dapol have the Licence and appropriate permission etc from Chiltern and Scotrail to have their livery and logos applied to these models? I am hoping although nothing is confirmed that their are at least two DRS liveried running numbers and names produced in 00 Gauge because I will definitely buy more than one if they are available.

Fantastic work on all of the resprays! Look superb!

Fantastic photo! I haven't been to Midland Road in ages nice to see a recent photo!

Yes that sounds really good thanks for the information! That update wasn't on the page 3/4 weeks ago so it must be have been added recently.

Thanks for the update on 92033 Swifty wasn't aware of that movement

Thanks for the info Swifty Fantastic photos! 709 looking very smart!

I really like the Yellow, DRS Revised and the NB on the 57/3s. All three liveries suit this class of loco. Sounds very interesting will they be three DRS Revised 57/3s?

Loving the NR Yellow! Will any of the three receive DRS Revised Livery or will they all stay yellow?