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Phil—I used that method in the tender of a brass N&W J Class 4-8-4 and it does put out great sound. One tip, paint the wire screen black before applying the coal. That way any thin spots won’t be as noticeable, and you do need thin spots to let the sound out. I wonder whether that larger version of the Dumbo was pressing against the top or sides of the tender and creating the distortion. In my Mogul I used the smaller Dumbo which was a much easier fit and it still puts out a lot of sound—Larry (AKA The DCC Guy)

Phil—did you order the Rails sound upgrade or use a decoder from another source? What type speaker did you install in the tender? Sound should be better with the tender shell in place as it helps amplify it.

Al—Looks good but you’d better hurry and order a Southern version to go with all those Maunsell coaches you have stashed away!

OK, the cab detail makes it look like a £200 model. Since I am awaiting my Southern version I am a little disappointed to see these questions about the lining but who else here in the US will notice, much less know! Gotta get my Dumbo speaker and decoder ordered for this one.

I was just waiting for that one and didn’t have to wait long!

Well I too await the Southern olive green version and hope it is better than the SE&CR model. I must agree with Sam that this really is no better than the Dapol GWR Mogul which sells for much less and pulls about as well. I cannot fathom why they put metallic domes, etc. on the thing but painted the top of the stack a d a number of other fittings with a poor representation of copper/brass—totally ruins the effect. For those who have not seen Sam’s review here is a link:

Just watched the review on Sam’s Trains and his results varied! After removing the traction tyres it struggled with 4 cars although the pulling power should translate to 12 cars on a flat and 31 with the traction tyres—somewhat disappointing if that holds up with other reviews. Good thing my modules are dead flat!

Excellent I’ll get one ordered ASAP—thanks

That looks a lot better and closer to the prototype photo above. Is there a large open space in the tender as in the GWR Mogul for placing a speaker? I used a Zimo Dumbo in mine and it sounds great and hope to do the same with the Wainwright. If I knew there would be room I would go ahead and order the speaker right now—it will be 2-3 weeks before the big green box appears in my mailbox over here.

Looks to be a good runner, with 6 coaches on the flat. Have you had a chance to challenge it on a grade? Oh, I just noted your comment about the traction tyres. Does the loco come with another set of drivers without the traction tyres?

Based on my experiences with the coupling on the GWR Mogul I doubt these will last very long unless you never separate them. After only a few iterations mine has loosened and gotten sloppy.

Interesting then that Hatton’s are producing the SR 4 and 6 wheel stock in the post 1923 Maunsell olive green livery. I guess they would have done Malacite if they thought folks would buy them. In their defense the formation they show is for an IOW 1930s train which seems accurate enough.

Did a searh and couldn’t find an answer and no time to slog through 127 pages of posts in this topic so here goes. Was there a general time period when 4 and 6 wheel coaches were retired? I am mostly interested in the SR ones to possibly run with my Wainwright 4-4-0 when it arrives. From what I could find on the internet it appears many 4 wheel coaches were moved to the Isle of Wight around 1930 and retired over the coming decade. However what about 6 wheelers? Were they like on the GWR, retired to maintenance use over the 1930s, or did some have the middle wheel removed and boggies added on each end? Or did they just have a big bonfire? Unfortunately not much on the internet about the SR. Thanks

Mine has a SoundTraxx Next18 steam decoder right now and it has a tendency to catch a touch once every rotation of the drivers. Mostly noticeable at slow speed when starting up. It also can’t pull much better than my Oxford Dean’s Goods, probably because the boiler is so light. I am thinking of gutting the electronics and wiring in an ECO-100 UK steam decoder and replacing all the extra electronics with moldable lead. I also am wondering how long that klutzy little connector between the tender and loco will last. I expect that little clip to pop off every time I disconnect it. Hopefully the Waingwright 4-4-0 will not repeat all these mistakes. I now have a collection of 11 UK steam locos and the Bachmann 0-6-0PT’s are the best runners and cheapest among them.

Well, I got one of the DCC Concepts rolling road gadgets and have given the loco a couple of more break-in runs (30 min each direction) and still noisy. I am resigned to the fact that you get what you pay for and since I got it for about half the original MSRP they threw in the noisy gears for free! If I turn up the chuffs they for the most part drown out most of the gear noise, especially if I keep it down to a crawl, leave the cylinder cocks open, and blow the whistle a lot. Easy to see why DJM is no more.

Coreless motors generally give decoders trouble with BEMF so you might try adjusting those parameters or if possible turn BEMF off entirely and see if that improves it any. I had the same issues with my Oxford Rail Dean’s Goods 0-6-0 with the factory installed LokSound decoder. I tried adjusting it to no avail. I then tried a selection of decoders until I installed the SoundTraxx Eco-100 UK steam version. It runs great now and I use that decoder in all my UK locos. Their motor control parameters seem perfect for these coreless motors which UK model makers seem to be using more often.

I finally installed a SoundTraxx Econami UK steam sound decoder, TCS KA1 Keep Alive, and sugar cube speaker in mine. I have been breaking it in for several months on a DC track and DCC Concepts Rolling Road but it is still noisy. I have a video of the process on my “Model Railroading” YouTube channel here Hope it will be of use to some. I can offer a couple tips, (1) do not over tighten the hold down screws in the coal bunker as this can increase noise, and (2) be careful with oil on the axles as it will interfere with electrical pickup resulting in erratic running—Larry

For those interested YouChoos has an excellent page on disassembly and installing a speaker in the tender. He also took the boiler off and provided photos of the DCC interface and offered a fix for the dim firebox light. Basically requires glueing a piece of foil behind the LED assembly to act as a reflector. I now plan to gut the circuit and install a SoundTraxx UK steam sound decoder once it arrives. That will make it compatible with all my other locos and allow installation of a keep alive and some extra weight in the boiler cavity.

I have installed a sound decoder from a manufacturer I cannot name as this is a prototype and the loco runs fine with it. As of now I have not reprogrammed any of the functions but I will test F1 and F0 to see if either control the flicker and if there are any associated issues. Mine runs great as of now without any oil or break in running. When I asked Dapol about disassembly instructions all they would say is it would violate my warranty and they ignored my followup questions. Right now I would rate them very low on customer service. If I do run into any problems I likely will remove the boiler, pull their board, and hardwire in a conventional decoder. I see no need for an 18 pin decoder when most UK steam locos only need 6-8 wires. However it was nice to be able to just pop a sugar cube in the little black box, insert the decoder, and slide the board back into the slot. Larry Puckett YouTube “The DCC Guy” Model Railroader Contributing Editor

I fear it will be easier to simply renumber the loco to match the configuration than trying to get Dapol to provide the steam pipes. All you need is a couple etched number plates and the decals for the rear buffer beam. For example 6386 didn’t get steam pipes until 1952. I would imagine that installing the steam pipes might require drilling a mounting hole or two and even taking the model apart. I’ll take the easier path.

What irks me is I specifically switched my order to 6385 just to get the outside steam pipes as shown in prerelease photos! Now I guess I need to renumber it to one that had the shirt button emblem and no pipes. At least they did use metallic gold for the emblem instead of yellow. To make it worse when I asked about a wiring diagram so I could remove their space hogging decoder interface I got a rude email back telling me it would void my warranty so no diagram!

Thanks Dave my preorder is in; one 4 coach GWR set plus a full brake. Hopefully my Dapol GWR Mogul will arrive before the coaches!

OK, let’s do that again now that I have refreshed my memory. After I built the Peco GWR 4 wheelers I ran into the problem with the coaches stopping during a free roll as they passed over an under track magnet. I tested my Hornby coaches and they didn’t do it. So I ordered a couple sets of Hornby R8218 14.1mm coach wheels and swapped them out. I just tested these with a magnet and it is the wheels themselves that are apparently non ferrous not the axles. On the Peco wheels both the axles and wheels are apparently ferrous as they are magnetic which is why they bring the vehicle to a halt over the under track magnet. I have no idea what Hornby uses for their wheels—turned aluminum?

Well these 3D renderings have sold me on a GWR set as well as an all brake single. One question I have concerns the axles—are they of a non-ferrous material? This is a concern for those who use under the rails magnets for uncoupling as ferrous axles are attracted by the magnets and tend to afrect rolling stock performance. I have had to replace all the Peco kit wheelsets with Horby ones due to this problem. Also non-metallic axles would make power pickups much easier since they would electrically isolate the wheels. Looking forward to running these with my GWR Mogul if they ever really arrive! EDIT—Sorry, but after testing the Hornby wheelsets I found that it is the wheels not the axles that are non ferrous and do not respond to a manget. Either way I’d hate to have to replace these nice wheels and it might interfere with the power pickups of lighted cars. I may have to order the unlit ones and do it myself with function only DCC decoders.

Well, I finally got mine quieted down quite a bit, however running it in wasn’t what did it. I disassembled the model, removing the cab, boiler, weight, and associated bits and pieces. After checking it all out and doing some lubing around where needed I reassembled it component by component. Then as I added back each section I gave it a test drive. It ran very smooth and quiet. However when I reattached the cab using the 2 small screws under the coal load it got noisy again. So I loosened those screws and it quieted down again. Also when I installed the cab roof it got a bit noisier but I think that was mainly because with it all enclosed it acted as a sound box. If yours is noisy try popping off the coal load and losening those two screws a touch and see if that helps. At any rate I am now satisfied that with more running in it will be almost as quiet as my Hatton’s/DJM 0-4-2 which I think is a lovely little runner. I also hope that once I add a sound decoder that will help with any remaining noise—by drowning it out! I’ll post a video on my DCC Guy YouTube channel of the installation once the decoder and sugar cube speaker arrive.