Roy L S

Grahame I am glad you chose to "snip" that particular sentence. If you read it again you will notice that I said cheap LOOKING. I have no idea (and no particular wish to find out) the unit cost as versus the hex bolt and impact if any on production costs. It was, as you acknowledge a subjective observation, it is the impact of the screws on the overall look of the product that grates with me (and I note others). Go look at prototype steam locos and tell me how many you can find with a monsterous Phillips type screw holding the connecting rods on I also said I had looked at lots of pictures of prototypes and acknowledged that the different types of crankpins used would be a nightmare for model designers and that overall I felt the Hex bolt is the best GENERIC solution. I was not "shooting from the hip" I had done some research to check. The vagaries of the Riddles Standards is a case in point and the ideal solution would be to manufacture exactly to the spec of each prototype but that is not going to happen I suspect. Who would have thought there would be different crankpins on front and rear wheelsets of the same loco for example? I do not think I am being excessively or unnecessarily negative about Dapol, I am fully entitled to my opinion and I would have made the same observations whoever had produced the model, be it Farish, Fleischmann, Dapol or whoever, the manufacturer is irrelevant. Steam Loco wise, yes, I will not deny that at present my preference is Farish, I think they are better engineered, run better and are and better finished. Just in the same way I prefer Volkswagen cars to say Ford or Citroen. I am allowed to express this opinion and I express it as a consumer only (that is to say I have no other connection). Regards Roy

Hi Kris That would have the advantage of not having to remanufacture any of the existing loco components but how would it be held securely in position with what can be quite rapidly moving parts I wonder? I suspect it is far too late to do anything now about the initial production batches which are presumably still in a container on the "high seas" somewhere, but to be fair to Dapol they are not adverse to introducing improvements on future batches of models as they proved with the 9Fs so who knows. What appears universally recognised is that in spite of these "niggles" the Brit has a well designed mechanism and runs and pulls well. I am content to wait and see how the production batches compare to the test samples given to the likes of "Model Rail" hopefully not long now. Regards Roy

I thought I'd spend some time in the railway room doing some comparisons. I have a single Large Logo Dapol 73 from the original production (Cast chassis). Haven't had it out of the box in ages so thought I'd have a play just in the interests of science:-)It runs smoothly enough but is not exactly quiet, especially compared to Farish 24 (just for example)and a lot noisier than the 4MT Mogul I had running at the same time in the opposite direction. I also tried my GBRF 66 - when taken out of the box and put on the track it barely moved, it takes ages for the mechaninsm to free up at all with this one - I think this was a common issue at the time. Cracking looking loco though. Then I ran sme steamers - a pair of my new "Black Fives" in "Double Harness" on a long freight - well matched mechanisms, very smooth indeed - looked fabulous. I have a fair number of both and have no particular axe to grind, I model transition and like green diesels almost as much as steam locos. The latest Farish diesels run smoothly and quietly and have great haulage capacity (I have no Dapol Hymek to compare but am sure the story would be the same) are loaded with features and beautifully made and detailed. Steam - Ixion Manor and Dapol B17, both smooth but slightly noisy, both have amazing slow running capability and will pull a decent load. The Manor has finer detail than the B17 but arguably benefitted from a redesign and is more modern tooling. I am ignoring the 9Fs Ivatts, M7's etc as I feel even these have been left behind now. My Farish steam locos are smooth quiet runners, slow running maybe not quite as good as the above two - but they are exceptional. With my Jubs, Scots and Black Fives I made the concious decision to sacrifice haulage for pickup by swopping the rear tender wheelsets. In this form all can mangage 9 coaches no bother at all probably more. Detail and finish is exquisite. The 4MT for it's size is incredibly powerful - 12 coaches no bother at all. As for Dapol 9F etc I discounted the compariatively recent V2 as it falls down in too many areas by comparison. I'd love to see it retooled and tender-driven but I doubt it will happen. My conclusion from my little "play" is that for sure in every area quality has moved on immeasurably from where British N was 10 years ago. Both steam and diesel run beautifully smoothly and reliably. Arguably there may be, by nature of their complexity more QC issues with steam around their assembly leading to poor running with some - not my personal experience - maybe I'm just lucky? Roy

Hi Grahame I do agree that neither is perfect, but of the two I think the hex bolt method Farish use (also used on some 00 models made by both Hornby and Bachmann) is neater and less obtrusive than the cheap looking screws Dapol have employed on the Brit, and I have yet to find a pic of a real loco with provision for a crosshead screwdriver on their crankpins:-) I have just checked a few of my Dapol locos, and interestingly (Perhaps ironically) the B17 has hex bolts on front and read driving wheels while others employ a variety of other types of crank pin. It is then an interesting exercise to checkout prototype losos, so I have scoped a number of pics of different locos from various regions (With different designers). Here there is variety too, and in a generic sense the hex bolt still appears the best solution overall but it is not that straightforward. If we take the example of the Brit or indeed the majority of BR Standard locos, the arrangement tends to vary even between axles on the same loco. For example the Brit uses aome kind of hollow crankpin on the front axle and rear too UNLESS there is a speedo drive fitted to the rear LHS wheel when a stud is used to hold the crank. The centre axle is a stud too to acommodate the various elements of valve-gear that meet at that point. This appears to repeat on the majority of Riddles designs, and when you look at the shape of the hollow pin, you kind of get what Dapol were trying to achieve with the round topped screws I think (Albeit not very successfully). Now if we discount the hex bolt, the next best solution would appear to be a tiny allen (Torx?) type bolt, so that the shape of the rounded pin could be retained then with a representation of the hollow centre. Not sure how feasible that would be. To be honest though the thought running through my head as I checked out the various pics was that the designers are on a hiding to nothing - we are just so hard to please! Finally on the topic of the Brit I was reminded that the first air-freighted production samples were lost in the crash at Dubai and the ones reviewed may not represent the finished item. A very fair point indeed and given the loss of life that ensued there one has to get things into perspective - it is only a hobby albeit an enjoyable one after all. Regards Roy

It has occured to me that I have unwittingly contributed to diverting this thread somewhat away from the original topic - the Brit - apologies. As to the 3MT Grahame - yes, it cannot be denied there are a number of reports or assembly problems on some leading to poor pickup which materially affects performance - something to be fed back to Colin Allbright. Having taken the body off mine though, it is very pleasingly engineered and such problems are certainly not in the design itself (It is made to be dismantled - no glue joins etc to break). The general point on D&E running better than steam may also be true overall - there are far fewer technical challenges putting a drivetrain in a "box". That said the latest incarnations of steam from all manufacturers are now very good too and the performance "gap" is closer (Thinking latest Farish models, Dapol B17 and Ixion Manor). Regards Roy

Hi Grahame That is a shame, reviews have been overwhelmingly positive and I cannot praise the running of mine highly enough. I think you must have a "lemon" why not send it back and get a replacement? Cheers Roy

I have to agree with you entirely. But for Dapol entering the Marketplace I very much doubt we would have seen the advances that have taken place. I've got an Ixion Manor too - the plain BR black "Hook Norton Manor" it is another example of just how good things have got in British N these days - it is just superb.. Cheers Roy

Hi Mark In terms of innovations around the mechanism it cannot be denied that the loco breaks new ground in a number of ways for a British model and fair play to Dapol for that. However although the straight tender-drive is maybe less ground-breaking, in terms of overall finesse I think the latest Farish steam releases are in a different league entirely at the moment. And in that lovely 3MT Tank at last we have a larger tank loco mechanism where running qualities match the looks. Mine runs so quietly and smoothly all you can hear is the "singing" of wheels on rails(With due deference to the excellent running and haulage qualities of the Dapol Terrier in the small tank loco arena). It is great though that there are these two manufacturers in the market, each forcing the other to "raise the bar" and who is to say that the next Dapol release wont force me to eat my above words! Regards Roy

At TINGS Dapol said they were a month away, so that would make it sometime around mid-October. Just read the Model Rail review of it, it seems good marks for performance and innovation but let down by too many small "niggles" to usurp the Farish "Black Five" as best British RTR steam to date. Hopefully some of the said niggles can be corrected - to me the horribly thick driving wheel treads need turning down not just blackening (apparently the castings on the test model were rough so maybe that is the intention) and this would improve it in two ways, firstly finer looking wheels more akin to Farish (and less to prewar tinplate!) and second reducing diameter slightly to bring that cab-tender-roof alignment a little closer (Accepting Dapol's reasons as to why they cannot line up completely). Model-Rail's observation about the cross-headed screws holding the rods on is also a fair point - it does look very toylike and to me could so easily be resolved by replacing them with tiny hexagonal bolts and including a little box-spanner with the loco (That would be so cool!). I guess we have to just wait and see how many they can (have?) sort(ed?) out pre-delivery. Seems such a shame to spoil it for a hapenneth of tar so to speak, and as it stands in my humble opinion next to Farish's most recent offerings (BR2 Tendered 4MT Mogul is exquisite) it just isn't a £120 loco. Hopefully enough people disagree with me to make it a big success, but sort out those small points and I would be in - as it is there are just too many to ignore. Roy