RFS

Hereford Models have all 3 variants in stock - http://herefordmodels.com/

Not railway-related, but someone is clearly having a problem with the 0 key on their keyboard! Delivery cost matches the asking price too. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-And-Fully-Working-Homebase-Air-Conditioning-Unit-A-Rated-253797-/231291292804?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item35da090c84

Kernow have published all the details in their weekly newsletter email, which I've just received. They also have it available for pre-order on their website. EDIT: My confusion - see Graham's post below!

I've found problems with one of mine where it's parked in a siding and occasionally needs a prompt to get started again. It seems not all the pickups are in full contact with the wheels and a bit of tweaking was required. With the engine-tender wiring already in place it should be easy enough to fit tender pickups using these - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87949-dcc-concepts-oo-gauge-wheel-pickups/

There are no tender pickups on any variant of this model. It's the Hornby models that have these ...

Item location is "Berlin, Germany" but the seller won't post to Europe, including Germany ....

No it isn't. With PayPal buyer protection, the seller is responsible for ensuring it gets delivered, otherwise PayPal give the buyer a full refund at the seller's expense. It's the seller's responsibility to ensure it's fully insured, which for this amount would mean Royal Mail special delivery, or an alternative carrier. Furthermore, £5.99 will almost certainly cover that.

And why leave the £31.95 sticker clearly visible when your buy-it-now price is £55?

The problem was that each time he made a bid, it was below the current bidder's maximum so he was being automatically outbid. After 11 attempts he will have eventually got to be the highest bidder. The other bidder then presumably came in with an even higher bid to win it.

Cheltenham Model Centre claim to have 35 of the BR version in stock at £93 - http://www.cheltenhammodelcentre.com/products/23808-Bachmann-31-465-C-Class-0-6-0-31579-BR-Black-Late-Crest/

Hatton's have just fulfilled my pre-order at £76.46, which was the guaranteed price if you did pre-order.

He's got 30 items all the same! Perhaps they're just placeholders, and when he's got something to sell he'll change the picture, and possibly the price.

This guy has 365,159 items for sale on Amazon, most of which seem to be £399. Another guy with a very strange business model. I suspect the £999 price is because he doesn't have it in stock, and it will be reduced to "normal" when it is.

And why does a single item qualify as a job lot?

Rather than buy this, and attempt to "correct" it, it would be easier to start again with an unmade kit. £6.19 from Hatton's - http://www.ehattons.com/34862/Dapol_C047_BR_Railbus_plastic_kit/StockDetail.aspx

Look at his feedback - 797 negatives in the last 12 months and 699 neutrals. Says it all.

This seller "ukpartsdeal" is playing a funny game. Everything he sells he says he's got 5 of. And all are at hugely inflated prices. From his delivery times, I suspect that if anyone is daft enough to buy, he goes and gets one himself to meet the order. I don't believe he actually has any of the items that he's advertising which I'm sure violates Ebay rules.

I treat my soldering iron in the same way as my DCC controller: I never leave either switched on when I'm not in the room. I once went on holiday for a week, and when I went into the railway room I found the iron had been on all the time I was away. The consequences could have been dire ....

Whatever the level of grime on a loco in real life, the driver's window would always be clean - otherwise he couldn't see. Yet so many people who weather locos seem to overlook this - especially on 35029.

Very optimistic! One sold on Ebay only a couple of days ago for £110.66. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hornby-R3001-Class-91110-Battle-of-Britain-Memorial-Flight-Limited-Edition-/191132373073

The purpose of Back EMF is to ensure the loco runs at a constant speed at a given speed step, regardless of load (assuming that's within the engine's capability in the first place!) and, more importantly, when encountering gradients. If you have partially disabled Back EMF, which is what you are doing by setting a value in CV 10, then trains may slow down when going uphill and accelerate downhill. That might be OK if you are driving the engine directly and can adjust the throttle, but not if you are leaving the train to run whilst doing something else. In addition, using any form of automation, such as RR&Co, will make this issue more obvious. You should only have to adjust CVs to match the performance of the loco in question, not to overcome a deficiency in the decoder itself. With TCS decoders, I found that with some engines, the maximum speed was achieved at speed step 26. For example a Hornby West Country was measured by RR&Co at 81 mph on step 28 but 87 mph on step 26, which of course resulted in erratic running even when being driven manually. The lurch is characteristic of both the TCS and DCC Concepts decoders I once used. As already mentioned, you get what you pay for and having spent £100+ on a fine loco it seems to me false economy to install a cheap decoder with a known shortcoming, when better decoders are available for not much more money. The Lenz Standard+ is an excellent decoder, and available from about £16 (DC Kits, Model Railways Direct) and £18 from Hatton's. Unlike DCC Concepts and TCS decoders, Lenz ones also have the benefit of short circuit protection which eliminates the risk of the decoder burning out if you short circuit it.

Seems to me this buyer has stumbled on a fool-proof method of getting negative feedback by this deception!

I think he means "untestable" rather than "untested". I wonder what the other side looks like ....

This seller does this repeatedly: I'm sure it's just to attract attention ...

Which is clearly visible in the picture! He does have 18 of them, but why anyone would want that many is a mystery. Even so, that only comes to just under £54 plus postage.