Ollie K

The pre-yellow warning panel locos don't appear to have that extra nose door - is there another way to ID which end is which?

With Rapido about to launch a second batch of dynamometer cars (this time with the lining Mike added so painstakingly) it’s interesting to read this thread again and see what scope there is for improving the model, particularly the interior details. Such a pity all the images were lost in the server crash - I hope we can see them again one day.

+1 for 55008 in blue. One of only three Deltics to carry a domino headcode to withdrawal and it was in this condition that The Green Howards is alleged to have achieved 125mph down Stoke Bank as a last hurrah for a retiring driver. Would be great to have a model of the fastest Deltic to run alongside other ECML speed record holders.

Sorry to raise a topic that has likely been touched on many pages ago, but since we're back on sound and DCC ready etc: when all of the above is fitted, how much control over the sounds and volume does an old-fashioned analogue user on a standard Gaugemaster controller have? ISTR you get constant engine noise and occasional random sounds (horn / flange squeal?) but I can't find the right posts detailing this, despite having just spent most of my lunch hour skimreading back through... Thanks. Very much looking forward to my Rails D9008, and future reissues...

Quite a costly loco to get wrong, really. Multiple bright, varied liveries and 'celebrity' one-off locos like 91111 and 91110 make the 91 itself very collectable, and if someone were to want say, an Intercity, GNER and LNER loco, that would potentially necessitate purchases of plenty of matching Mk4s and DVTs to form appropriate trains. Unlike having one set of maroon Mk1s to run behind almost anything. But with the loco clearly having running issues - very odd given Hornby's usual policy of having all their stock compatible with trainset track - it'll certainly put people off making such an investment. I can't help but wonder how the cancelled Cavalex model would've fared on price, performance and decoration. Also notable that none of the (largely positive) mag reviews of the 91s mentioned much in the way of running problems, which is why I'd doubt there's much appetite at Hornby HQ to re-engineer their newly tooled model.

Thanks for the alert! Duly ordered for my incoming D9008.

This will be a happy thread over the next few days and weeks I'm sure. Worth noting as Deltics start to land that the review in this month's issue of Model Rail is possibly the single most positive piece I think I've ever read in a railway modelling publication. One for the Accurascale folks to print and frame on their walls after such a tumultuous couple of years perhaps. Very much looking forward to mine once the Rails editions land!

Noticed the review sample(s?) of Knight of the Thistle sent out to the magazines didn't have red lining on the cylinder casing - was this omitted on North British-built locos or is it an error by Hornby? The in-stock images for the likes of Hattons and Kernow also show no lining on Knight of the Thistle, but lined cylinders for Hornby's revised tooling Doncaster A1.

If I might be permitted a small correction... SR Schools class no. 923 (built December 1933) was originally named 'Uppingham', but the name was quickly changed after the headmaster objected. Apparently he felt it improper of the Southern Railway to effectively presume his school was happy to 'advertise' on the SR. No. 923 was hastily renamed 'Bradfield' in August 1934, but there are a few rare photos of the locomotive running with its original name. In 1934 Uppingham School underwent a change of headmaster - one wonders if the objection to the railway association was at the whim of the new regime... In a twist of irony the 'Uppingham' nameplates are apparently on display somewhere in Uppingham School, but on the couple of occasions I had a poke around there after a cross-country fixture, I never spotted them.

I find this astounding. All that finely moulded detail, deliberately (correctly) concealed. I suppose if they're going to have to tool for it on the post-war versions, it's a 'might as well' situation. Maybe they're damned if they do, damned if they don't - if the valenced cars didn't have the real-life underframe detail, someone would be fuming. Especially with prices being what they are. That story about Roy Jackson oft-retold on here not even fitting trailing wheels to his Pacifics on the basis they couldn't be seen when the locomotive was operating springs to mind.

Well that was all jolly exciting. Good job I didn't post my photo of the non-white cab version...

Another happy few hours whiled away watching Grantham do its thing yesterday. Pleased I spotted two out of the three main updates… As a bonus, a front-row seat to watch the layout in its latest state being immortalised through the Wright lens. Really looking forward to seeing the results in print. Thanks to Graham and Ian for the brief chats, hopefully not too distracting from the job in hand.

Ask the nice gent on the DPS stand and you might be allowed to handle their sample for a closer look. I did, commented on the hefty weight, and was amazed to be told it was merely an rolling sample with no motor, flywheels or drive mech! Pics are of the RoS samples.

Must remember to paint my uniformed driver figure's shoes a prototypical red when model lands, as per the classic Pathe film. Wonder how best to fashion a scratchbuilt tea flask to sit alongside...

Every now and again you come across a photograph which absolutely captures something you particularly love about railways and modelling. For me, this is one of them. It's something that's also been discussed re. Little Bytham and Grantham, and it's the juxtaposition of the glamour, power and 'long-distanceness' of the A3-hauled express against the stillness of the yard to the left as we look at it, with the humble, elderly C12 patiently awaiting someone to come along and give it a job to busy itself with. Even though this is a still photo, and trains don't pass through Peterborough at speed like they do on said layouts 'further north' on the ECML, there's a fabulous sense of the working railway's contrasts in atmosphere here, IMHO. Thanks.

821g once the engine room is painted... Have very much enjoyed today's updates even though it wasn't the news the team had worked for, so thanks.

The chap on the Rails of Sheffield stand I spoke to about these some months back was not wrong about you guys ‘going to town’ on the packaging for these! Presumably the RoS editions come in the same box?

Enjoying the conversation over people's perceptions of railway modelling as a hobby, and their reactions to it. Among my thousands of days at school, one of my most vivid memories would've been about 2004, taking a Model Rail magazine supplement in to read in the morning 'form tutor period'. It featured all the new RTR releases for the year. I'd have been 13 years old. "Err, what are you reading?" It was snatched away and handed round the class, the usual 'aww, choo-choo' sound effects and laughter (and oddly, silence from the two chaps in my class who I knew had layouts and also enjoyed playing trains). Definitely the first time I learned the wider perception of modelling railways was something 'uncool', and likely to be ridiculed. But then, teenagers are very cruel at times! This was an all boys' school as well - no-one was doing it to impress the girls. A few months later my first girlfriend came over to the family home. At that time I had a layout on a 6x4 baseboard that folded down from my bedroom wall. She clapped eyes on it and immediately giggled "oh my God, you have a train set!" It was dismantled not long after (the layout, not the relationship). Since getting back into the hobby in the last couple of years I've met several of the fine people on this forum including Mr Wright himself, who in turn have introduced me to their mates. Made acquaintances at exhibitions too. Thanks to railways and modelling I have friends I otherwise wouldn't. So much for it being a reclusive or embarrassing guilty pleasure. It's also taught me a lesson - don't ridicule other people's interests, even when it's safer to follow 'the herd'. I've caught myself about to 'take the mickey' out of bands, football teams and suchlike before, but stopped myself on the basis that one person's harmless banter is another's dismay at their wholesome leisure pursuit being slandered. Basically, live and let live.

Just been having a look in the detail bag and, funnily enough, the flanged trailing wheels for the green LNER W1 are indeed fully lined out green, as opposed to the plain black unflanged wheels fitted as shipped.

Both trailing wheels on the green W1 as modelled by Hornby are black. Just checked a few other Hornby models and found black trailing wheels on LNER A3s and A2/3s.

Collected my rebuilt LNER blue W1 and the ‘promotional’ green unrebuilt example last weekend. The latter was a real indulgence pre-ordered during deep into lockdown, and I thought I might regret a fictional indulgence after the grey ones suffered damage... Both models were immaculate. Now this shouldn’t be a surprise or constitute an achievement – it should be the standard way of things when paying £200+ for a locomotive, but I’d be quick to complain if I had faulty models so only right to give credit where credit is due. I wish everyone else luck receiving equally intact models. Like my grey no. 10000, both were unusually noisy when running in but seemed to settle down after at least 30 mins on the rolling road. I still think it’s disappointing not to have a 3-link front coupling in the detail pack, or a footplate crew, and with lamps being standard-fit to the water-boiler models for me they’re a conspicuous omission from the conventional boiler loco. Suppose I am in the minority for wishing Hornby would spend its margin on giving us crew and lamps to fit, rather than fiddling with unconvincing smoke and sound effects. Interesting to compare this rendition of Doncaster apple green to the lighter, more pea-green shade applied to the A2/3s. But who’s going to nitpick over a livery the engine never really wore…

Seconded. I bought a second-hand Hornby A4 off eBay a couple of years ago with a similarly mis-fitted chimney. Carefully prised it off with a flathead screwdriver, slimmed down the locating lugs on the underside with a craft knife so they fitted more easily into the holes on the bodyshell itself, then pressed it home. Didn't even need any glue.

Just noticed while testing my W1 on my new layout’s fiddle yard that the steps are so out of gauge they slightly foul Hornby’s own R8206 power clip track. These are only in temporary use for siding testing until I get round to soldering in dropper wires. Given obvious compromises have been made to the model to make it trainset track-friendly (the floating flangeless trailing axles, tender coupling and so on) it’s most strange the model doesn’t appear compatible with the manufacturer’s own trainset power supply - until the steps have been bent 1mm or so inwards. ‘Who is this model aimed at?’ is an interesting question…

Well spotted, hadn’t seen that before. From what I can see in pre-war V2 photographs the bufferbeam was flat and didn’t feature that raised section as modelled. I’d be semi-tempted to carve it off with a scalpel and a steady hand but most likely with the three-link front coupling fitting and hanging over the bufferbeam that area would be well obscured and largely unnoticeable when the model is running.

Judging by other third-party images on a well-known online auction platform, the smokebox door as modelled by Bachmann is very light- and angle-sensitive. From dead ahead the door straps have the correct ‘face’ and seem convincingly proud of the door itself. From certain side views, the straps are much more subtle and almost invisible when not picked out in silver. FWIW here’s a couple of phone shots of 4791 I grabbed (through a glass display cabinet) in a model shop a few weeks ago. Looks alright to me.