philiprporter

This is really helpful John and hopefully the repairs will hold up. Can I ask how you removed the body shell? I would like to do this but am anxious not to damage the servo assembly in doing so. Best wishes, Phil

For those interested, the July Model Rail, in which the layout features, is on the shelves as of yesterday - I just picked up my copy - Chris Nevard and the team at Model Rail have done an amazing job!

Yes this is correct as far as I can understand and the liquidators indicated that, irrespective of paying via PayPal, I should approach the credit card company which I have done (they are sending a claim form). Even though we are outside the 180 day PayPal period, there is still the possibility of a charge back via the card company - my understanding is that this does not form the same level of 'guarantee' as section 75, but there is plenty of information on this in the other DJ thread which deals with credit card repayments etc. Hope that helps.

I went to see the real APT on Saturday at Crewe Heritage Centre - my overwhelming feeling while walking round was a probably forlorn hope that someone will pick up the CADs and make this model a reality because it really is such an iconic train and to see it in the flesh was very special indeed - it is very, very impressive, especially with the front end lights ablaze - and the seats are so comfy!!

I'm not sure there are any Ts&Cs - certainly never seen any for the APT (more fool me) aside from the statement that has been posted here already regarding people who are paying the 25% deposit to carefully consider their investment before re-ordering (this applies to those who had an order number from the DToS website, hence use of the term 're-ordering' I presume). The Ts&Cs on the DJ Models website are still viewable, but only cover use of information and cookies and that has been the case for as long as I can remember

In case this is helpful, I spoke to the liquidators last week. The response I received is that they are obliged to notify all creditors of the liquidation within 28 days and relevant correspondence will sent out within that time period. How 'creditors' are being defined I don't know, but this email from them was in response to me emailing them to state that I had paid a deposit for the APT which I notified them of when the liquidation was confirmed. Hope this helps.

Despite the length of this thread and the diversions off topic, it's been an eye opener for me so thank you to those who have given more background than I would ever have been able to glean unless I had a month of Sunday's free to browse historical threads! I accept I was caught up in the hype and spin and was naive and guilable when I ordered my APT, but in some ways it's helpful to know that I'm far from alone in my enthusiasm overtaking my common sense and reading the whole thread has genuinely been an education in terms of not making the same mistakes again-so yes there has been hot air but also much that has been useful and helpful-and Im always slightly bemused why people don't hit the big red 'ignore this topic' button or the 'report this post button' rather than calling for threads to be locked? Dont threads die a natural death after a while anyway so nobody gets hurt except the mods who have the unenviable task of monitoring and then removing inappropriate content?

I consider my APT-P deposit long gone now and bear no ill will to DJ Models for that financial loss as I knew the risk. I hope that Dave himself is getting the care and support he will obviously need right now. What has made me angry however, has been the lack of transparency, the missed milestones, the bizarrely public washing of laundry over the website (amongst other things), the schoolboy like excuses for the numerous delays etc. I'm most angry with myself however for being far too trusting and naive-being brutally honest I was absolutely seduced by the thought of a OO gauge APT and that over-rode rational judgement even when it was very clear relatively early in, for example, the class 92 thread, that red flags were being waved. I read that thread and ignored my inner nagging voice! The absolute passion for our hobby has a lot to answer for here!

Thanks for sharing this Mick - I wonder if PayPal will also not entertain the credit card charge back route for PayPal payments made by credit card? I will ask when I get a chance to call and post the response here. Cheers, Phil.

As someone who paid for installment 1 of the APT using my credit card via PayPal, I found this website to be very useful in terms of the options available and hopefully it may be of use to others: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/visa-mastercard-chargeback/

Sadly PayPal came straight back - even though I paid with credit card on PayPal, the 180 cutoff clearly delivers an automated 'no'. The credit card chargeback route may still be available I guess, but that will take a direct call to PayPal I suspect - plus a letter to the card provider.

Ditto Mick - I've emailed PayPal to see what the score is - I suspect their '180 days to file a dispute' rule may be cited.

My understanding from the CAB website is that PayPal payments made by credit card (which is my situation) are not covered: "You can’t use section 75 if you paid through a third party - like PayPal, Amazon third-party sellers, a travel agent or a group buying company like Groupon or Living Social." But that you may still be able to initiate a credit card chargeback via Paypal: "Ask for chargeback within 120 days (about 4 months) of when you paid or noticed the problem. You won't be able to ask if you noticed the problem more than 540 days (about 18 months) after you paid. If the seller disagrees with your claim, ask your card provider how to appeal under the chargeback scheme. You won’t be able to use chargeback if you used your debit or credit card to put money into your PayPal account and then use that money to buy something." Hope this helps - full details here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-with-a-purchase/getting-your-money-back-if-you-paid-by-card-or-paypal/

Who would be a model manufacturer eh?! Extreme plate spinning if you try and please everyone. To my eye its a belting model, it genuinely does raise the bar in many ways (lighting being the obvious one) and I'm looking forward to upgrading the speaker at some stage. Talking of which, has anyone figured out how to remove the body shell?

Have to agree with you here - I was itching to get one of these to use on Standedge Tunnel, but having seen one I also decided to skip it - £80 or less and I may be tempted, but for now the 101s, 150s and 156s rule the roost.

Yes absolutely - they only had to look at the crazy prices on eBay to see what demand was like for a sealed beam Peak - hindsight is a wonderful thing, but perhaps had Bachmann announced three years ago, we might have seen something genuinely new from Heljan announced - not that I'm knocking Heljan I hasten to add, as I'm really looking forward to their 45/1, but it would have been great to see something that has never been done RTR before.

Yes I agree, much as I am pleased that we will get a 45/1, I would have been seriously happy had classes 81-84 or 89 or one of the first generation 25kv EMUs been announced. Hey ho, will probably get one Bachmann and a few Heljan - as long as Heljan make the bodies easy to remove (unlike their 33 which I practically had to destroy to get into!) and as long as they install LEDs not bulbs.

That's really impressive Richard - apart from the flange squeal, but I've also heard unrealistic flange squeal on several 'high end' sound projects - what an absolute bargain that class 50 TTS chip is!

Great news!!

And now its gone from their website.....the plot thickens!

I hope this isn't an inappropriate post but for anyone who may be interested, the finished layout features in next month's Model Rail magazine on sale 13th June according to the advert in this month's issue. I haven't seen the article (apart from the text) but Chris Nevard took some amazing shots so I'm looking forward to seeing these in print! Cheers, Phil.

After chatting with Charlie at Railex I've had a go at fitting sound to my class 87. Its a pain in the neck to be honest and try as I might I couldn't get a sugarcube wedged inside the body (you could probably get a VERY small one in, but it would have to be small), so I black-tacked two of them to the underframe having removed the shroud that surrounds the day/night switch. One of them is just visible from the side when viewed at rail level (see pic) but it's not too noticeable. The chip (micro ESU & Legomanbiffo project) despite being tiny, is still too large to fit on top of the PCB, so its taped to the underside of the PCB above the cardan shaft and gear tower at one end. The wires from the speakers run up via the space in the chassis that houses one of the flywheels and thankfully there is a slot in the chassis that can accommodate the wires from the chip. Thankfully it sounds great, but no thanks to the design of the loco! The built in 'housing' for the speaker is a nonsense and the amount of grease knocking about in there would have killed any speaker I suspect - grease galore all over both gear towers and cardan shafts too, so a good clean was needed. That was after re-wiring multiple solder joints that broke despite careful handling (the wires to the motor had to break in order to lift the PCB away - no slack in them at all) and after much faff cinching down decoder wires on the surface of the PCD (there really is zero space, so you have to properly flatten everything own with tape) I was finally able to clip the body back on. Hopefully the above and pics may help others - much as I prefer to have speakers in the body shell to add a bit of bass/reverb, I can't see any way if getting all but the tiniest sugar cubes inside the body shell on this loco - and of course tiny speaker means 'tinny' sound. Short of milling the chassis I think this as good as I can do. Hornby really couldn't have made it more difficult to install sound to a loco! Anyway I'm glad I persevered because the Legomanbiffo sound project is awesome and two sugar cubes with speaker chambers as deep as possible without protruding below the chassis tanks sound a lot better than I was expecting.

Thanks very much indeed for this - the Big Boom Box I think is 4 ohm so that would indeed have zapped the chip Very grateful to you for pointing this out and hopefully will help others reading here not make an expensive mistake!

Sounds excellent! I've got a Paul Chetter Zimo in my 50 with a Zimo Big Boom Box where the fan assembly used to be (plenty of space) and it sounds monstrous(!) but I will try a TTS chip with that speaker in another 50 and see how it performs-thanks for sharing that video!

Hello Si yes there is gently sprung bounce in the pan when extended although I can't comment on the extent of any bounce when the pan is raised to its absolute maximum as I've only seen one with the pan height set 'out of the box'. Hope that helps? Cheers, Phil.