Harlequin

No apology needed! The spare parts that are listed, including smokebox doors, are a very good thing. A step above most models, as you say. It's just a shame that outside Steampipes are not among them - seems like a natural addition for the class where they varied so much.

Sadly, steampipes are not on the list of Spare parts in the manual. (Not in mine at least.) I guess we're going to have to use 3rd party parts if we want to add them to models that don't have them as supplied.

Yes. In fact it almost drops out when you turn it upside down.

I have opened up the tender to investigate what sort of speaker can be fitted: The chassis is plastic, most of the weight comes from the casting. The casting includes the speaker well and two fixing screws - looks designed for a very particular speaker. As you can see the weight can be removed but then the close-coupling mount (the spring and Y shaped part) for the rear coupling is uncovered. So if you wanted to remove or replace the weight to fit a different speaker you'd have to arrange something to keep the coupling in place. Pickup wipers bearing on the wheel flanges.

I'm sure it will be possible to program the effect like that eventually but at the moment, if it's like all the other firebox glow effects I've seen, it will come on when the shovelling sound is playing and off when it stops. But that's not just a gimmick - it's a small step closer to modelling reality. How accurate does a feature have to be to escape gimmick status? After all the fireman doesn't move while he is notionally shovelling and when the loco chuffs there's no realistic blast of smoke and steam from the chimney but we put up with those discrepancies. The speaker in the firebox of the Mogul is a standard sugar cube that clips to the pullout PCB. It has no enclosure so won't be making deep bass sounds... A gasket between the clip-on cover and the speaker form a sealed enclosure to improve the sound. The speaker mounting in the tender is a generous well in the cast chassis cast weight (39 * 20 * 8.5 mm), which should be big enough for a reasonable sized enclosed speaker but may need some grinding down to fit a really bassy speaker. (Or the entire weight could be removed but then something would be needed to keep the rear coupling mechanism in place.) P.S. Any decent sound decoder will be able synchronise the firebox glow with the sounds. If it doesn't do it "out of the box" it's just a matter of CV twiddling to change which function output is turned on when the sound is triggered.

The manual says on Page 1, "Designed by G. J. Churchward..." It's a shame no mention was made of Holcroft, the man who had suggested the idea for a new 2-6-0 after a visit to Canada and who really put the design together from a broad outline spec by Churchward.

@Miss Prism Here's the smokebox door of 6336 under flash illumination. It shows up differences in materials/finishes that you don't normally see: Here's 6336 without flash: Here's 6116 for comparison: I measure the colour of the Mogul tender sides under a D50 illuminant as CIELAB = 22, -8, 4. (For comparison the Hornby Large Prairie 6116 is CIELAB = 25, -5, 7. So the Mogul is slightly darker, slightly greener, slightly less yellow than the Prairie.) P.S. Correction to earlier statements: The smokebox door is not held in place by magnets - it's a simple friction fit.

That's the agonising part for me - she won't move until Monday, probably, because I haven't got the right decoder! Someone else will have to oblige.

'Yer 'Tiz! She's a little beauty! The smokebox door looks OK to me but I'll try to get a better photo for Miss P. later this evening.

Remember that decoder fitting is via the smokebox door on these models and the door is held in place by magnets so, a. the door(s) in the photo(s) may not be seated properly, or b. the magnet mountings might push it out more than would be ideal, or c. the door moulding might be a compromise to allow it to function as the decoder access. We shall soon see... Correction: The smokebox door is a friction fit, not held in place by magnets.

I'm going to fit a sound decoder myself so that I have more control over exactly what I'm getting, in terms of make and sound project. I reckon that a Zimo MX659N18 (small Next18 sound decoder) will fit and YouChoos have a Mogul project based on recordings of 5322. Edit: Amazingly, it looks like Hattons got my Mogul out of the door yesterday because I can see it in the Royal Mail tracking system! I might get the loco before I have any decoder to make it go... Edit2: It transpires that the larger MX658N18 should also fit - because that's exactly what Dapol will supply in their sound-fitted versions according to the manual.

Only because there were hints in the froth that it might be a GWR model.

What a let down! STEAM should hook up with the model manufacturers in a similar way to drive the GWR agenda forward.

Good point. So what is in the NC that involves Collett (Mike's clue) that has never been available RTR? Never mind. We'll find out in 2 hours. (Note to self: Don't get pulled into the froth.)

Locomotion/Rails/Bachmann, in fact. "... New ready to run locomotive. This model has never previously been available in ready to run form in OO Scale." The Great Bear?

Why cast aspersions before anyone has had the chance to test one for real? We don't know what their pulling power is yet.

It would be very cruel of @AY Mod to blow air into the froth of a GWR thread if the announcement was for a lesser railway company... Wouldn't it...?

Well, Rails' optimistic prediction did not come to pass, despite their close working relationship with Dapol.

Thanks! Ahhhh, Closure...

Hi @AY Mod, Did you reveal what was in the mystery package from China at the weekend? If so I missed it and can't find any reference in RMWeb yet. Please put me out of my misery.

Thanks, that’s really interesting but the reviewer in this article has not understood that you can only compare colours numerically if you know what light source was used. She looks up the manufacturer’s stated RGB value of a paint colour then measures a painted sample. Apart from RGB not including illuminant info, there are too many uncontrolled variables in that process. Having carefully explained how DeltaE is used to describe colour differences she doesn’t state the DeltaE between the hoped for RGB values and the measured values - and of course she can’t because she’s not working in CIELAB space with known illuminants.

To assess which of my two devices is the more accurate I needed a well defined set of colours that I could measure so I bought a CIELAB colour fan: Here are a typical set of results for the colour in the middle of the screen CIELAB = 75 -20 50: You can see that the result from the Chinese device on the left is significantly further away (76.18, -13.08, 37.97) than the Canadian Nix device on the right (76, -21, 49). Similar results are seen when measuring random colours across the fan - the Chinese device is never as close as the Nix. So I will be trusting the Nix from hereon in. The Nix uses a D50 illuminant - this is important to know because it allows comparison of colours independently of light sources. Just as an initial indication, the first data point: The Hornby Prairie 6110 measures as CIELAB = 24 -6 8 (right tank), or CIELAB = 25 -5 7 (left tank). More data to follow...

The landlord has obviously installed that most modern of appliances, an indoors toilet, and upstairs to boot! (See the waste pipe.) Now, as we all know, the cistern has to be mounted as high on the wall as possible to produce a really powerful flush when you pull the chain. So the window was rather an inconvenience (sic) and had to be blocked up, erm, hopefully unlike the toilet... Aihthangyaw.

It's beautiful! Keep it, compare it with the Dapol version. Put it in a display case and admire it...