Jon Harbour

Well, I'm delighted to say when I got home from dropping my daughter at school on Friday a fairly substantial package was waiting for me. The word 'comprehensive' doesn't do the instructions justice! Really looking forward to starting on this once I've got my baseboards finalised for my shunting puzzle layout.

My planned OO shunting puzzle layout definitely doesn't need one of these... but how can anyone modelling the GWR resist? Shut up and take my money!

So true! - Definitely looking forward to it.

Looking forward to receiving my canal side warehouse kit soon!

G'day Everyone, Just wanted to check what were the likely sizes of the signs used in the steam era that said "Whistle" or "SW". Would the letters on the sign be about two foot tall, or would they be smaller?

I've been getting my packages shipped from Hattons to Australia by DHL. Cost differential is not a lot. It also helps that I work for DHL and I get them sent to my office not home!

Fascinating read. An absolute treasure trove. Thanks!

I've just worked my way through this entire thread over the past few days and all I can say is... WOW! What exquisite modelling Chris! Incredible stuff. I came across the thread rather randomly and I am so glad I did. Inspirational.

I actually contacted Hatton's yesterday about this. They indicated that they had not heard anything of this nature and that the previous delays in the sound-fitted models was due to Dapol not having the decoders in country and that this issue had now been sorted. They did promise to check on the validity of the rumour concerning Dapol abandoning the sound-fitted models and get back to me.

My favourite pub name is "The Last Drop" in Edinburgh, directly beside the spot where public executions by hanging used to trake place. Traditionally the condemned was permitted to stop in the pub for a final drop before the final drop, as it were!

Haven't heard anything to this effect.... I would expect Hattons and Rails to be al over this updating customers once verified... Hopefully it isn't the case.

When it comes to DCC ready, perhaps they might take a leaf out of the N Gauge Society's approach to the Hunslet industrial and rather than build a socket for a chip build the PCB with DCC on board from the get-go.

I'll tidy it up a little - needs more comments and then I will upload it. It's not the most elegant code though - I'm struggling with getting pointers to arrays working as I like. My monolithic code works fine, but when I tried to compartmentalise it with functions, it basically stopped working!

Yes - makes a lot of sense... I work in Supply Chain and that's is how I would have expected to see it in a warehouse.

I've just found this thread. I recently produced my own Arduino sketch to do this for a strip of addressable LEDs. It include multiple on/off times for each light. It's designed for a bank of ten low relief terraced houses. Each terraced house kit is two houses and each house has an upstairs light, a downstairs light and a downstairs fireplace. With the right interval and a judicious change of colours, I've managed to get a flickering effect for the fireplaces. It's far from elegant code but it works and is robust and expandable, so there is potential for multiple strips of LEDs working independently. I've also got a sketch that displays the time on an oLED 128 x 32 display and runs a clock approximately 8 times faster (one 'scale' day = three 'real' hours) and will be looking to combine the two. The Arduino on its own doesn't have enough oomph to power both LEDs and the display, so I will be using a 5V power supply to provide the juice and just run the control cables from the Arduino and have some sort of bus arrangement to fan the 5V out to various destinations.

I also pre-ordered a sound version from Hattons. Wasn't expecting it quite so soon... but that's okay! WIll probably need to order even more now so that it is worthwhile shipping the contents of my Hatton's trunk!

@Hatton's Dave - can you show us what the 'trunks' actually look like? Interested to see...

Got my first delivery through from my Hatton's trunk this week. I'm delighted with this facility! It is a superb way of being able to control my shipping costs for purchases being send to Australia. I have a mental picture of the Hatton's warehouse full of things like this: All of them having dodgy looking labels on with people's names!

Got to love your optimism!

Yesterday a small package from the UK arrived with a couple of LCut Creative kits inside. I ordered the the B-00-05 OO Gauge Medium Signal Box for myself and the J-00-00 Weighbridge for my eight year old daughter to have a go at given she said she wanted to me with my trains. I thought I'd make a start on the signal box whilst she was out playing at a friends. The kits come very nicely packed up in a sturdy cardboard box for posting and made it from Telford to Sydney Australia without any issues. Thumbs up to the Royal Mail and Australia Post for that! The kits themselves come individually packed in neat plastic bags with the instructions enclosed. The kit is made from Laser Cut Fibre Board and offers both left and and right hand options. It's great that the kit lists out the parts provided. It gives the option to retain the pieces not used as part of your build and order the components to make a second signal box separately if you want. My layout plan needs three signal boxes, so I may well order a second one when this is finished. I decided the build the left hand option and removed the identification tags from the parts before gluing opposite ends to opposite sides. The interlocking design makes it very easy to align the parts and I used a couple of right angle magnets to ensure that (hopefully!) my building comes out square! The construction guide says to fit the interlocking pieces together and then run wood glue or PVA down the inside of the joint to let it seep between the pieces of wood but avoid any spoiling marks on the outside. Although the kit is straightforward, there is a brilliant manual full of hints and tips available for download from the LCut Creative web site. Most of the parts are provided on frets and area clearly marked to make it as idiot-proof as possible. I shall leave it for the glue on the first stage to dry before continuing and reporting on my further progress. It looks a nice kit that should go together quite nicely and was very reasonably priced. These are great value kits and great for a relative novice like myself to get into.

Saw this in my e-mails today... Probably cheaper to buy it from the UK and ship it to Australia than order it locally!

As an overseas customer, I think this innovation from Hattons is just brilliant. I love the fact I can take control of my shipping costs like this. I was always wary of pre-orders because they never arrive together and end up getting charged individual shipping. Thanks Hattons! It really makes a big difference.

I think our posts crossed 'in the night' (or 'in the afternoon' in your case). More details added. I've only test run it on a piece of flexi track with a 9V battery, but it seems to run okay. I look at the whole affair as an excuse to do some modelling and fix the poor wee thing up. Now my next question is how on earth to wire a decoder into it!

I've been in the market for an OO gauge 14xx and since there are none to be had brand new from anywhere, I thought I'd try my luck with the sharks.... I found one on offer from a seller with what looked like reasonable feedback. The price was not too bad, condition was advertised as 4/5 and more importantly the postage quoted for the UK to Australia was acceptable. However, said locomotive advertised as unboxed, but I thought I'd take a punt and made what I thought was a rather lowball offer. I wasn't that serious about buying it, but I thought I'd see what happens. Overnight I got the surprise that my offer was rejected (that wasn't the surprise) but I'd received a counter-offer which met me halfway. Again, I wasn't really that serious about buying it, but what the hell - I counter-offered to meet his counter-offer half way. Much to my astonishment - the offer what accepted... oops! That didn't quite go to plan! Anyway, I was committed. So, I duly paid my money via PayPal and on September 3rd got confirmation that my order was posted and on it's way. With International Tracking no less! Didn't get any details of the international tracking (warning bell time!) but I thought I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Expected arrival date was 10-16 September. I thought that a tad optimistic, but the big box shifters from Liverpool and Yorkshire can do it, so I thought I'd wait it out. Towards the end of that time, nothing had shown, so I contacted the seller to ask about for the International Tracking details so that I could er track it! I got a prompt reply saying they would send the details the next day. Anyway, the next day arrived (September 17th) and I got home from the office to a quiz look from my beloved that said "not another bloody train" - no words needed. I picked up the rather sturdy cardboard box that was well sealed up and in excellent shape but could hear loose pieces rattling around inside and what was obviously the bulk of what I had bought shifting inside the box as I moved it. "This doesn't look promising", I thought to myself, so I steeled myself for the worst... I was astonished to see the packaging.... one lousy bit of packing paper. For a locomotive!!! The fun didn't end there.... I thought I'd ordered Airfix 14xx with #1420 shirt-button logo. That's what the advert said anyway... Definitely not 1420! Definitely not shirtbutton logo Few bits and bobs missing, like buffers, safety valve, coal, water inlet covers. Cab roof off and cab slightly damaged, the plate behind the whistles loose in the box, front coupler broken - half still in the chassis and the other half loose in the box. All in all, a rather sorry state of affairs... I contacted the seller that evening and got literally an immediate response (the Australia - UK time difference is a wonderful thing). To his credit, he was very apologetic. I'd said that frankly it wasn't worth my time and effort to return it - postage and proper packaging to avoid further damage would probably cost more than I paid for it and again to his credit he offered a partial refund. I agreed to this and again to his credit money was paid back to me via paypal within hours. So, overall, an outcome that could have been worse... I sincerely hope that the vendor concerned has taken on board my comments concerning adequate packaging but one thing about the whole experience did make me raise an eyebrow... I brought up the subject of feedback - he'd given me positive feedback (I had paid immediately upon my hearing my offer had been accepted) but in all honest this cannot be considered a positive experience. I was willing to go as far as neutral feedback. There were a number of things very wrong here, but he had come to the party with was what quite a reasonable partial refund. However, he specifically asked me rather than leave neutral feedback, don't leave any at all... My mother did always say "if you can't say anything nice - don't say anything at all" - but this makes me wonder whether I'm doing other potential victims customers a disservice here....

I received a small package from Dart Castings in July this year. Dropped them an e-mail asking about whether they were still shipping to Australia - as they indicated on their web site that shipping overseas had slowed down. Once they had confirmed all was good with shipping 'down under', my order was filled, shipped and delivered very quickly! The figures are beautifully detailed as well! Will definitely order more.