Crumplezone

Thank you for that update. Noticed a email in my inbox noting completed order status late lastnight so I'll keep a listen out for the postie today onwards, RM has been abit tempermental up here in the north east past few weeks. Good to hear the pandemic didn't impact you as much as expected, my local model railway shop was closed until late June so I was abit starved for getting supplies as it seemed everyone had my idea and went online for items and they were mostly out of stock whereever ended up looking. Anyway I'm looking forward to the Peckett, always wanted one in a slightly bigger scale and the likes of Hornby/Bachmann hadn't done any until recent in 00, I had been looking at videos on youtube and your Peckett was a recommended in a video showing a sound fitting one moving some coal wagons up in a incline quite reminscient of a welsh looking area from the video and I thought "oh that looks nice, where can I get one" and ended up stumbling onto your website due to the very video. I have to say that its abit of a godsend in one way that yourselves provide RTR small locomotives which are honestly just ideal for a introduction into O gauge without breaking the bank, especially when you pack so much into them at that price point, so thank you in that regard. Crump.

Hello, I'm just starting my adventure into O gauge so I ordered one of the lovely lined-green Pecketts monday just gone as a starting loco to get me going, I am just wondering if there has been any further development since the update post back in April as were into the end of July and restrictions have been progressively eased in the past few weeks, like is the posting twice a week/weekly still in effect and what is stock situation currently like after the months since April for items sold on the store page. Also maybe I'm abit blind, but I couldn't see any posts by other users or information on your website pointing towards what service you use for delivery with the £9 flat rate charge, Hope everything is well either way at Minerva Models and also a thank you for having a easily access website with easing ordering facility.

Oh, that could be why I thought they were plastic at the local model shop. They looked plastic since they were all black like old plastic kits so I was put off from getting them. Shop assistant always thought they were plastic wheels to, will have to let them know when I'm next in. Thanks.

Hello folks, thanks for you insight on the coupling and weight. I will look into parkside nem sockets and the Bachmann coupling. I think my grandfather has a bunch of old nuts and bolts in his garage so might go dig through that for weights since people seem to be suggesting options like that seem to be ok to pop in the wagons. I should have also explained alittle that the wagons are not going to be running in long trains or any real long distance running. I'm currently in the process of building a Ingenook 5-3-3 setup and will be using a Peckett and J50 so far for locos, so as long as the wagons can move through peco streamline medium points and can withstand abit of back and forth then that should be fine. Again its abit of something new and I wanted to try out some wagon kit building, I'm not actually new to plastic model building as I do 1 in 350 ships and wargaming but not done model railway so just wanted to check with other folks who had put kits together. I could have gone with parkside dundas but the packs required me to get extra wheels since they only had plastic wheels in and I'm abit of sticklier for metal wheels for running quality and also feel eventually plastic wheels have the chance to be worn out over time while a metal one is going to require infinitely longer running before they show issue at all. I'll have a go at the wagon kits on the weekend and see how it goes. Thanks once again.

Hello folks, I bought the meat van and tanker from the 00 kitmaster range by Dapol from my local shop. It has the metal wheels and more modern looking coupling so its the updated kit bar the 50 year old moulds they use. My question is about the coupling, I read a few sources and watched a few folks put the kits together and they said the coupling was abit stiff, so what alternative coupling, specifically NEM socket types would I want to replace them with? Its my first outting into creating the kits, so I'm not really sure on what I need to purchase as a suitable replacement, i.e. not just the coupling part but also the part the coupling would connect to on the wagon. Ideally they will connect to other small sized NEM coupling from Bachmann/oxford models wagons. Alternatively, if there is any modelling tips for making the coupling which comes with the kits less stiff and more responsive that would be great to. Also another question which just came to mind, any suggestions on what to use or to purchase to add weight to the wagons? They don't seem to come with any in the kits. Thanks.

The Dyno carriages just went on sale recently if I recall, plus they had some flash sales recently on some of the 009 and 00 stuff, so wouldn't surprise me if they are snowed under. I noticed from the newsletter they also seem to have alot of new stock in recently in the past 3weeks, a sudden burst in orders I wouldn't think would be to unexpected. As you said, victim of their own success, but a positive in one respect, shows atleast there is a healthly demand still for the hobby which imo is always a added bonus, especially with the uncertainty with the UK economy at the moment, I was kinda expecting a tightening of pockets, epsecially with summer months and holidays involved, but doesn't seem to be the case in this instance.

My only suggestion would be to contact rails about it, it could be a payment issue if you placed the order last year. If you paid by paypal for example they changed the way it interacts with orders, when I placed a order it setup the paypal system of registering the company with your paypal account so you can pay from then on, abit similar to how you pay for subscription systems, downside is it doesn't seem to use pay after delivery anymore which used to be how it originally was last year. If you paid by card then I'm not sure, probably have to ask rails what is going on via telephone. I noticed they were in stock on thursday so placed a order and paid for special delivery so so its why I got it Sat after it being dispatched friday and I only ordered the loco it self. As another poster mentioned above they had issue with paypal had not updated the rest of the system yet. I've found Rails to be helpful when sorting out a issue, so I would suggest giving them a ring on Monday and getting it resolved, could be down to computer error on the order system at the end of the day. @Trains4U: Most of the local retailers around here haven't had any allocation from Hornby so I had to either use Rails, Hattons or the like, its why I said Rails was one of the few which seems to have a stock of them, I use Rails as they still use royal mail as their primary delivery method and not couriers which have mixed results for where I live. I'm not affliated with Rails, if anyone would seem to think that, I've just had good experience with them and any issues have been resolved quickly without to much back and forward and they are generally quick on the mark if you give them a ring rather than trying to email them about issues to.

Had the Lilleshall peckett delivered today after ordering it off Rails on thursday since they are one of the few who actually has stock in. I missed out in the previous batch as I was still working in N gauge but since then I have been working slowly upon a very small shunting siding layout for 1-2 locos and couple of wagons. First impressions after getting out of the box, what a dinky little locomotive is is compared to other rolling stock size and wow, that weight to the loco which is a big thumbs up for such a small wheel base loco. For something so small to have a good heft of weight behind it is a excellent bit of model engineering for this loco and well done on Hornby's part for engineering it this way. Running wise mine runs extremely smooth along the track, was a minor bit jittery at first but that generally happens when you get them brand new and after abit of oil drops and some cleaning of the track was nessessary to which is kinda the norm it ran just fine. I can't stress how important it is for this loco to have clean track running, it may have all wheel pickup but its a very small amount of contact with the track and I used N gauge discipline in this regard for a spotless track and ensure fishplates are tight aswell on the track. This is another point I'd like to make, if your in the UK you know how hot it has been lately and I've noticed movement on my layouts track due to just how hot it has been even in a temperature controlled enivironment. The humidity and blistering high temperature will be having effect on track aswell as fishplates and maybe wiring to, so keep that in mind if the loco doesn't run as expected or you are having issues in general, it could simply be down to the weather. In regards to the looks and livery, I find this black liveried release to be perfect, I know the other liveries are prototypical for where they worked, but I like darker colours (I would have got the blue liveried one in previous release) so having a all over black with red buffers and red connection rods is really nice to have. The detailing on the locomotive is also incredible considering its probably one of Hornby's smaller sized locomotives aswell. Cab detailing is on par with the high standard of bigger locos and I would compare it detail wise to some of the graham farish detailed cabs in N gauge which have been seen recently to. I'm quite happy with this lovely little locomotive and it brings back fond memories of a BBC steam VHS set which documented the end of steam and had a section based upon a small industrial locomotive working still in the 80s at a powerstation shunting coal wagons into place and how the driver told about his affection for the locomotive he was driving even though he knew eventually it would be retired.

The higher price ones are the weathered ones, they had the non-weathered 16ton ones at 34.50, ther on order now or been removed from the sales list (probably due to no more stock)

Rails newsletter saying the getting the sound fitted castle shortly (normally within the next week when they send them) so suspect other retails are due them very shortly to.

I dunno why there is so much doom and gloom over a set of sales going on. Farish stuff at multiple box shifters hasn't been on sale for quiet some time even x-mas didn't have much on sale, heck even Rails of Sheffields May Madness sale featured barely any Farish stuff and was only for one day, while there was hoards of 00 stuff trying to be shifted, I would question the health of the 00 market than the N guage when so many items were trying to be shifted. Anyway, since Rails was nice enough to put the 16ton steel mineral wagons on sale I grabbed 2x of their quad packs at just shy of 35 quid per 4 that isn't half bad price point per wagon, also added on a BR grey brakevan to complete the mini consist and have just grabbed the 37514 Railfreight Metal Sector class 37 as its Thornaby depot loco which is local to me. I used to see 37514 quite regularly to from the bottom of the road where I used to live when I was a youngen, you hear the growl 15mins away and then watch as they trundle by with either merry go round hoppers or scrap metal train, funny enough there was a scrap metal facility which had a rail link right in viewing distance from the tall slide at the playground at the end of the road so I'll see a class 08 busying itself about. Funny enough the 37 I bought has nothing to do with the era I'm modelling in...but hey its a local one and at £67.50 its a steal to be honest, its been out since 2014 according to release dates so by this point not surprising the costs dropped to this point in sales. If you didn't model thornaby or bought on impulse like myself, wouldn't be much point to buying 37514 when it was released tbh, plus its metal sector instead of coal sector so its even less popular on the class 37 totem if others are to be believed. Also in regards to the desiros, no wonder no one wanted them, there ugly fantastic plastic machines and most people's experience of them will be rushhour travel, hardly inspiring to keep on your layout

Well I had Tiverton Castle delivered today and its a very nice loco indeed, the detail is pretty amazing just how small this loco is and the livery application looks great, they seem to have got the green atleast right to my eyes. I won't comment on haulage, since I don't have access to the layout at the moment but I did pop it on a dcc concepts rolling road and ran it in for abit. I did note it seem to be abit louder than previous new releases, e.g. southern N class and the 64xx pannier, there seems to be more noise from the motor compared to those ones and the connection rods and slide bar seem to create slightly more noise than other locos I have, its actually more on the level of my duchess of hamilton which wasn't whisper quiet. I did note abit of a wobble in reverse but I suspect its down to the rolling road and the loco being supported on tender, 2 drive wheels and the front bogie, I did pull out abit of spare straight track and it seem to be quieter and not as noticable wobble to it, so I might chalk this down to the rolling road rather than the castle being the issue. I did oil the motor bearing and the bits is says for lubrication encase it had all turned googey and ran it a hour in each direction and it was kinda the same noise level and wobble on the rolling road, lifting the castle off its drivers and just power through the tender just created the connection rod and slide bar movement sound, so I think the loco is ok. Does anyone believe I should maybe return the loco to the retailer and have it replaced, encase its abit of a duff, or is the sound level you get from yours about the same? Edit Update: I popped down 2 metres of flexi-track on the kitchen work tops and gave Tiverton Castle afew back and forwards at slow and medium and high burst speeds, its noise level certainly doesn't reflect what I heard on the rolling road, its slightly noiser going forward than it is reverse ( e.g. you hear the motor groan but not accessive) and there is no side to side wobble present when on actual track so maybe that was related to the rolling road and being suspended up, I would say the noise going forward is no worse than a farish diesel and it certainly isn't Dapol level of motor grind/growl, so might give it a 2-3hour run in forward and add abit more lubrication oil to have it abit more happy in forward. I think it will be unoticable when it has 5 mk1s behind it and moving at about 45-50% on a guagemaster combi anyway. I did note the engine part of the loco feels abit light on the weight side to, so maybe the lack of weight is the reason its abit noiser, the duchess of hamilton I had felt the same, quite lightweight and that made a decent bit of noise in forward. Edit 2: I picked up a Sir Daniel Gooch which had just come in to my local model shop and have run it as per the Tiverton Castle. It doesn't have the wobble or tendency to push to its right side while on the rolling road or track and it certainly doesn't have what sound like a gear/motor grind when running between 30-50% on the combi controller in forward. When I popped the loco body off and ran the loco like that on the rolling road Tiverton's forward drive wheel is wobbly quite abit, what I mean by wobble is not the drive wheels moving horizontal through the chassis left to right as it would around curves and such but the actual wheel looking from a vertical point of view down at the wheel from above its got a left to right wobble like the wheel hasn't been put on the rod straight. I'm going to give the retailer a ring tomorrow and see if they will do a return and replace while checking the replacement to see if its got the same issues or not, certainly Sir Daniel Gooch doesn't have the issues and is whisper quiet compared to Tiverton castle. I'm hoping its not a batch issue and rather just my loco.

You'll have to forgive me, posting at the time I did didn't recognise it as a mk2

Hm, some reason pics linked weren't working. Pics are up on the farish site. The new train sets and collectors pack consist of what I can tell: Day at the races - 3mt in br green with 3 horse boxes it looks to be. Night mail - class 47 in green with yellow ends and two travelling post office coaches. The connections pack is a 47 again but in NSE and looks to be NSE mk1s and is dubbed with 30th anniversary. All 3 have new box arts and different from the style farish has been using past few years and looks quite snazzy tbh.

Hello gents, apologises for bringing up a older topic but I got a N gauge 22 today in the post and some minor issues with it which I'd like to ask about. Firstly when I ran it in after lubricating as per the Dapol instructions the motor sound has seemed to reduced abit but its really still kinda dentist drill whine sound still to is. I have read from google searches that people could get them running nearly silent and I've even watched a few videos on youtube of them running silent to. I have taken off the bogies and cleared out the sticky/hard lubricant and applied gaugemaster oil with the precision applicator, its made is ever so slightly less whiney but its still considerably loud. What I mean by that is, I can leave the room, go downstairs and into the kitchen and still hear the motor whining as it goes around on the loop after 2hours in each direction. Also when its going around on the test track loop on 2nd or 3rd radius curves, one specific cab end has on part of the curve a derailing sound but the wheels are not actually coming off the rails, it makes it for about 3-4secs then is fine untill it comes back around again and always does it with that cab end only. I have checked to see if anything is catching but I cannot see anything out of place and there is no visible friction marks. I am concerned it might be gears making the derailing/knocking sound. I am being unrealistic in regards to the whining on the motor expecting it to be quite silent, close to how the new graham farish coreless trains are? I have a few of those and they are deathly silently besides the clickyclack of the wheels, I have run it in both directions for atleast 2 and half hours each way and its just not really becoming any quieter and the oil hasn't dried up. I also noted it seems to run quite warm even on a low/medium speed. I have contacted the retailer I bought from and should hear tomorrow/or I'll ring them in the morning. I think this one might be a duff, does anyone else have any experience with this kind of issue?

I like to add my own experience to this thread for Kernow's. I noticed they had some of the class 37's limited editions without sleeves at a discounted price due to damp damage on the sleeve, the catch was the price was lowered but you didn't get the certification. Fine by me, £69.99 for a class 37 which is the same as the limited edition model sans sleeve and cert, not bothered at all about those so a instant purchase. Order was placed at around 1:40pm-ish yesterday, I had a email at 2:05pm saying my order was packed and would be going out shortly, I paid the standard £4 rate which is noted to be 1st class and it turned up with the regular postman after lunch. I have to say as a first time customer to Kernow's that is a outstanding spot of bussiness turnaround and equally a excellent service. I was also pleasently surprised to find a actual till receipt rather than your usual invoice sheet, also noted on was thanks from a staff member. This is the kind of personal service I like to see coming from a model railway shop, I may be some 400 odd miles away from Cornwall but I feel like I've actual been in and bought the loco in person. I may not buy regularly but I'm certainly considering using Kernow's from now on.

Well just a quick update, as noted I put Yodel down as a delivery option and ehattons has sent me a dispatch email saying it is now coming by citylink as two parcels tomorrow, I'm slightly confused as to why it was changed when both citylink and yodel offer to same service.

I must admit I've had a good track record with yodel so far on deliveries, but I assume that is down to the fact they deliver to my area then pass it off to a local courier for delivery to my door. I've had quite a few orders in the past 4months which ehattons has sent via yodel and not had them get lost, broke or left in odd locations. The yodel option is also supposed to require a signature so they really shouldn't be leaving the item anywhere unless you asked for it in special delivery notes. I live in the Teesside area so maybe Yodel is fine up here because they hand off to a local courier, it does mean my order may not turn up to 4-5pm because its given to a local courier but it does state that on their FAQs, I'm not sure of other people's areas but I have seen most complaints about Yodel originate either at the Capital or other cities which for some reason or another Yodel doesn't seem to be able to deliver well to. I will note however i had put in a order with citylink delivery and ehattons had changed it to yodel deliver for here which I found abit odd. I just placed a order today (8pm-ish) for some bits and it should come Friday by Yodel after being dispatched tomorrow, I'll let people know if I have any issues, but I shouldn't hopefully. It probably be the same delivery woman who I've had the previous times. Its abit ironic in one respect because I've heard equally bad experiences from citylink and even royal mail, but said experiences seem to always state major cities as delivery locations. Maybe these smaller delivery firms do not have the capacity to deal with city drop offs? Who knows, as long as they offer cheap next day delivery costs for bussiness they will keep using them, Amazon hasn't dropped them and quick look at their forums shows a thread as long as your arm about Yodel complaints but Amazon hasn't dropped them. Either way if you had issues with them I'd suggest trying the online chat option on hattons.com site or phone them, I've always had a good response when enquiring about when a delivery may go out or if there were any issues and they normally follow it up quite quickly to.

Hello Barry, I stumbled across your thread after looking through a fair bit of the others and at first I did raise a eyebrow to using ink with weathering even though I've used ink washes in the past with warhammer 40000 figures, I was quite surprised to see the results you had achieved so I had a rummage around in the cupboard and found some old gamesworkshop ink wash tubs which were still quite usable. Honestly, I've just spent about maybe 2hours on my 2-6-0 4MT and got this result with your method: I've previously used humbrol weathering powders and then matt varnished to get horribly blotched effects so I was both surprised and pleased to see by using your ink method that the locos look better and the weathering powder doesn't really come off at all. I did require to add a drop of washing up liquid to have the ink adhere to the Bachmann factory finish but once it did and the powder went on the results really did start to show. I am quite happy to have read this method and been able to apply the method with practical results and happy with the results I got. A question I'd like to ask, I worked on a Ivatt 4mt, it went blotchy over a period of days using a different weathering method, I managed to get the weathering off via thinner but unfortunately the cab side, emblem on tender and smokebox numbers came off. I'm just wondering do you have any sources/shops/sites available which supply transfers for 00 scale br steam locos as I'm going to have to get some to redo the numbering and emblems before attempting your method of weathering again on the ivatt 4mt. I figured you may know a few places with doing weathering for so long Thanks in advance.

Thank you for the reply, its most helpful to get a idea from a more experienced weathering user who has used the humbrol range before and I'm also somewhat glad its not a mistaken on my part that the powders weren't applying but merely its down to the locomotive in questions finish. I know, probably throwing money, but I've got some humbrol stipple brushes coming in the post with some of there coloro ones to, both are packs giving a wide selection and I'm going to see if they are more helpful towards powder application on the models as they are both mostly noted as weathering powder usable and the coloro ones are featured in Humbrol's weathering videos which I find quite useful to. I have a Hornby Q1 to tackle next on the weathering workshop and I've been supplied with about 6 colour images of working but dirty Q1s and provided with the useful information that they primed quite frequently causing water mixed with soot to spill over the sides of the chimney and cause a dirty white effect. It also seems from the photos that the Q1s were more likely to be grey-ish dirt look rather than the atypical brownish grime so I'm going to have to see if I can achieve that with a mix of smoke powder + white powder. Anyway those are two lovely shots of the 70018 and really show what a incredible job can be achieved just from weathering powders and not requiring the usage of a airbrush to create a realistic finish. Hope to see more of your creations soon.

Hello SDJR7F88, I have looked through the entire thread and I have to say I'm quite impressed by what you have been able to achieve with just the weathering powders. I'd like to ask a question or few, I've just had a set of the humbrol weathering powders delivered today and I attempted some weathering on my Ivatt 4MT Flying Pig. What I noticed was a few issues, sometimes the powder wouldn't go onto the model and would just crumble and other times it would dust and smudge straight away and actually start to look dusty and weathered. Its as though it wasn't really sticking, but was fine on other parts of the loco like the boiler lower area but upper along the top went odd. So I guess my question is do you treat the rolling stocks beforehand to make the powders stick better i.e do you matt varnish it or do something with the locos/wagons in general. Also is there a specific brush type which works better with the powders? I've had 3 types of brush which were for basecoating, drybrushing and priming from games workshop (there old brushes from 8-9years ago) the drybrushing and priming brush didn't work well with the powders but the basecoating one did. So is a matter of having a softer brush or specific type for powders? Also have you done any super heavy weathering with layering e.g. apply powder -> varnish rinse and repeat to lining/emblems dissapear? This is the result I finally got with the Ivatt after about 2 and half hours, annoyingly the soot effect doesn't show to well on the upper parts and it kinda still looks plastic.