philiprporter

11 minutes ago, gridwatcher said:

Looks like Heljan will be there first on the 86.... ...... As for sound chips. I think when reconfigured the new Loksound v5 will be able to power the servo on the pan. so asking Charlie petty or Biff would answer that. My biggest question and the one I cannot get an answer to is the pan itself. How high will it go? It certainly doesn't look anything like high enough for running on wires? In reality the pan should be softly sprung and extend several millimetres beyond where the wire lies to leave pan head running on wire under light pressure? Anyone help us? Don't want the most beautiful locomotive on Wellpark to be the only one whose pan head doesn't run on the wires? 

My understanding from the video posted here is that the max height of the pan can be adjusted with CVs and there is a section where Andy Y confirms it is indeed softly sprung when raised. 

Really great show-many thanks to all involved!

Looks fantastic - can't wait till this arrives and thanks for the great video - answered pretty much every question I had! 

8 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

 

Much of the posting is about the length of time projects are taking and speculation about possible outcomes for those projects.  The announcement hasn't attracted a vast amout of comment in it'self, but, rather, has sparked off much discussion about the results DJM are / are not managing to achieve.

 

Regards

 

J

Yes I think that's it in a nutshell - I know that many of us who knowingly took a financial risk to support DJ projects, were getting increasingly concerned about delay after delay (you only have to look at the DJ Models class 92 thread to see how long ago people were starting to express concerns) and I rather suspect that the recent announcement has acted as a catalyst to prompt a more public airing of concerns and questions among/from those who may have kept such concerns under wraps for hope of a good outcome - which may of course still happen, but patience and goodwill have limits, which were already probably being stretched close to breaking point.

So when we are told to expect an announcement, I know I and others hoped that this would be an announcement about the APT going to tooling or some other genuinely exciting development - but when we actually saw what the announcement contained, patience and goodwill reached breaking point - at least that's what went on in my head and I know the same applies to others. 

30 minutes ago, acko22 said:

Hi all,

 

I think after 4 days and what has overwhelmingly been a negative response which has certainly raised more questions and concerns than even he expected!

 

I think DJM has put himself into a legal minefield which I honestly don't think he is prepared to deal with. That been said can he recover yes but only by shutting up with the announcements and comments he has made. Added into that actually getting models onto the market to the "higher standards" he proclaimed.

 

Should he fail to do so then I think the writing is on the wall after this episode.

So all in the ball is now firmly in his court and is his final chance to salvage things, either actually produce some results or fold!

Yes I think this is the only option - focus on getting at least a couple of the models promised out in the shops and to us crowd funders and restore some faith - because the only other option doesn't bear thinking about and as others have already indicated, I suspect there is a good deal of human suffering going on here, self-inflicted or not, which is not a good thing.

As an APT crowd funder who accepted the financial risk I was taking, I (and I suspect many others of us) need to really see some concrete and fast progress, a clear timescale for delivery with clear milestones and an end to the bizarre pronouncements, such that we can be reassured that genuine progress is being made - otherwise I very much fear many of us will not be making further payments (and I suspect its already probably too late and that many will now just accept a £250 loss and not pay future instalments, which if the case, means the APT project is dead in the water) - and after the website saga, the PayPal saga, the lack of progress and now this episode, I certainly wouldn't touch another crowd-funded project (or any other project that required any form of advanced payment prior to goods being in the shops) from this manufacturer. 

So it really is a case of getting some models out - if its not already too late to salvage the company. 

3 hours ago, timward55 said:

Gosh! I am so glad that Paypal made him refund APT deposits. I kept my refund and what a good decision that turned out to be. Having looked at his accounts and seen this bizarre announcement I am so sorry for those with money tied up in 'crowd-funded' projects. 

This sounds promising - I paid my APT deposit using PayPal - could you let me know how you went about getting refunded by them?

So this is possibly a daft question, but as an APT crowd-funder who has paid the first £250 installment can I legitimately ask for a refund? I'm assuming not given that no terms and conditions were or have subsequently been made available as far as I am aware - and I knew I was taking a financial risk at the time - but it would be good to know if its worth a shot (i.e. whether there is any legal obligation to refund)?

Well as an APT crowd-funder (and with some confidence in a positive crowd-fund outcome, having invested money in Revolution Trains and received some amazing models in return) I have to confess that this is utterly bizarre and just adds to my feelings of unease about whether I will see any return at all on my initial payment. Despite the inherent risks of crowd funding that have been well-discussed at length, I had faith, perhaps foolishly, of the APT becoming a reality and was prepared to take the financial risk, but I suspect it may never happen now, simply because this announcement is going to have further annoyed so many people who, like me, were perhaps nervous and a little miffed about the lack of progress (not just on the APT) and hanging on in the hope that all may be well - I very much doubt this now. I hope I'm proven wrong as I would love to see the APT become a reality, but the way this business model is panning out just doesn't seem to be working and this announcement just adds further to a growing sense of disillusionment with the company. Great shame for those who were prepared to support the various projects and a great shame for the hobby in general. 

Just seen this having wrestled for an hour to get the wretched bodyshell off - managed to slip and trash one of the radiator grilles, as the force needed to get the clips away from the body is absolutely ridiculous!  The lugs on the inside of the shell are massive and I'm amazed the body shell can flex enough without cracking - its a really bad design - I'm going to file them down a bit to see if that makes things better. 

It's all the more disappointing because Dapol have had 9 years to get it right.

 

Plenty of people here and elsewhere highlighted concerns with the window sizes & body shape and many contacted Dapol directly, myself included. Despite claims they had re-tooled, that now appears not to be the case. 

 

In September 2012 the specs were listed as: "Permanently coupled 2 car set, through wiring, directional lighting, all wheel pickups, no gap concertina corridor connectors and 1 PCB with a single decoder required" and again it seems much of this is no longer the case. I haven't seen anything from Dapol stating any revised specs (happy to be proven wrong) only that they'd had issues with "destruction testing" and latterly that it has missed it's production slot. To now find that many of the features promised are no longer present makes even more of a joke of the extended development period. 

 

I'm left with the impression that the 142 has been something of a millstone around Dapol's neck for 9 years, and they've tossed it out hoping the N Gauge market would be so grateful to finally have a Pacer at all that they'd be willing to overlook everything that's wrong with it. 

 

Tom.  

Agree 100% with that Tom.

Just seen photos of the 142 on FB - it does look poor with wires and circuit board etc clearly visible - not to mention the already discussed issues with shape etc. Considering this has to be one of the longest gestation periods ever for an n-gauge model, its very poor indeed; I had naively thought the length of time from announcement to appearing on the shelves would mean that the many issues already pointed out here and on other forums were being addressed. That obviously hasn't happened and the visible wiring, circuit board etc just isn't acceptable. Big shame and I've cancelled my three pre-orders.

Mine has just arrived from Sheffield - a couple of greasy fingerprints to wipe off and a grille and window dropped off in transit, but easy enough to remedy. It really does have the 'wow' factor and has to be a contender for one of the best RTR O Gauge diesel releases yet?

One question - does anyone know what the 2 small plastic pieces at both ends of the board on which the loco is mounted are for? They are glued to the board and align with two vertical cylindrical 'bits' at both ends of the loco, but nothing links the two so they don't appear to be part of the 'mounting for transit' system? 

Wow that looks good!!

Enjoyable show, but they really need to sort out some better catering, nobody was checking wrist bands on both occasions when I entered/re-entered the arena (they really need to sort that one out!) and very limited in terms of stands to buy modelling essentials (paints, glues, tools etc) which was a shame as thats always a useful part of any model railway show. Good selection of layouts though and not too cramped. 

Hi Phil

 

Depends on the date of your modelling.

 

Early years saw unfitted tank wagons of 10 to 14 load of various vintages. The diesel was siphoned from the top of the tanks before unloading facilities were added. 

 

By the mid sixites it depended on the company who had the contract covering the six month period each contract ran. Shell- BP seemed to win more than the others but Esso did have a good share as well.

 

Shell-BP used unfitted tanks until the mid sixties, these would have been B tanks in black livery. After about 64/65 time they were delivering fuel in 45 ton GLW wagons (later TTAs). To start with black liveried B tanks would used, later both black B tanks and grey liveried A tanks were used. Diesel is classed as a B product because of its high flash point but unlike most B products it is clean so can be carried in either type of tanks. It wasn't unit the late fifties/early sixties that the valves on a tanks were good enough for bottom discharge so early unfitted grey/silver A tanks were unloaded by siphoning.

 

Esso used both 35 ton GLW tanks and 45 ton GLW tanks, again both A and B tanks could be seen at Kings Cross. I cannot recall any photos of Esso unfitted tanks at Kings Cross.

 

Mobil tanks were used in early days, these were unfitted and siphoned unloaded. Later in the late sixties or early seventies their tanks had a spell of delivering fuel in 45 ton GLW wagons.

 

Other companies could have delivered diesel but I cannot recall any others than I have mentioned.

 

As for what is available in 7 mm I am not sure as I am a 4mm modeller. I am sure someone can help.

Hi Clive - wow that's fantastic thanks so much! GIven that I'm interested in the 1970s I'm assuming that the Heljan B tanks are a little too 'early' for that period? I had hoped that someone would produce a TTA kit, but I cant seem to find one except the long-discontinued JLTRT kit? Thanks once again for the very informative response Clive.

Best wishes, Phil. 

Does anyone know what sort of oil tankers were used at the Kings Cross stabling point and whether any O gauge kits or RTR models of these are available? 

This is great news! Really hope this one will generate enough interest to make it into production. Fingers crossed!

This looks brilliant and I really, really hope that this will make it over the line now - great choices and prices. 

Still no layout work but enjoying some detailing work now-very rewarding doing this in n-gauge as I didn't think it would make much of a difference to loco appearance, but it really does!

Not much progress to report here aside from spending a lot of money on OHLE and colour signals and still enjoying respraying locos! A house move which I hope can happen in the next few months should give me the space to start building this - will be using 'off the shelf' laser cut baseboards as the foam board that I used on Standedge was a nightmare - ended with so much plywood edging and support that I may as well have started with plywood from the outset!

Anyway, here's the latest respray - a nightmare to put the loco back together (every detailing part seemed to ping off into the stratosphere never to be seen again!), but worth it in the end - just needs nameplates, brass buffers and buffer beam detailing now. The only problem with this respraying lark is that each loco looks better than the previous one as its a steep learning curve, so the early ones are probably bound for the Superstrip again and even this later one looks a bit ragged round the cab roof and red stripe   !

Apologies for resurrecting a very old thread, but I've got 2 of these pieces to fit to a Dapol 86 and I'm struggling to see the resemblance between the plastic ETH socket and the real thing, so I'm really puzzled as to how Dapol intend it to be fitted to the 86?

There are two square holes on the chassis where the ETH socket looks like it should go, but I have no idea which 'bit' of the plastic ETH socket goes in this hole - if indeed this is the intention of the square hole or if the ETH socket is just meant to be glued to the chassis base ignoring this square hole?

Can anyone help? I've attached a few pictures - apologies for the poor quality but these are tiny pieces and very hard to photograph!

Cheers, Phil. 

just been having a thunk about some of the freight you would see over the route from around 1978 when i started to take an interest regulars were 

 

Northwich - Healymills and return  25 or 37 & a mixture of fitted and non fitted wagons usualy 3-4 covhops 16t minerals and a couple of cartics (for bells wagon works denton ) with a breakvan this would call at dewsnap to drop & collect waggons of local trip workings 

 

BOCtanks Northwich british oxygen - healymills  usualy class 40 but occasional 40+25 though the rat should of come off at stockport  12x red &white boc tanks 

 

traffordpark -leeds flt and return  freightliners class47 and freightliner set usualy ran after midnight 

 

ukf tanks 47/56 thirteen bogie tanks in ukf fertiliser livery 

 

redbank parcels class 40 and rake of ccts /BGs etc ran SO westbound leeds - redbank 

 

passenger traffic was the ubiquitous heaton or crewe diesel 47 and 7 mk2a.b with the occasional class55  later went over to peaks 

 

summer fri/sat only holiday traffic class40s11 mk1s yorkshire to northwales hourly 

 

york mail class40/45/47 &55 york - shrewsbury and return mk1s and BGs etc 

 

occasionaly doubleheaded class 31s substitued for the 37/40s out of healymills 

Yes I agree - the more I look at them and compare to photographs the more they look way too clean!!

Thanks so much for the information on freight trains - thats very useful indeed!! 

Cheers, Phil. 

Great layout this.

 

As for the MGRs I too have recently done the rubber wheel thing. I did mine with brushwork though. Certainly more visible than yours. Not sure whether the level of visibility is very consistent on the real thing though to be honest.

Thanks so much - would love to see one of yours if you are happy to post? I agree - the level of visibility seems different in every picture I see!! I'm also a newbie to weathering rolling stock so I think there is a tendency to 'go light' when I probably should be plastering more muck on!!!

Likewise, seeing this layout in the flesh was the deciding factor in my attending this year-brilliant layout in every respect and a real inspiration to see.

If that's unfinished, it's hard to tell!

 

On the MGR rubbed stripes, maybe too subtle, but you've got the advantage of seeing the real thing, not a photo. But there would have been a wide variation anyway. Try just one dirtier and see if it looks wrong?

Thanks so much - yes I agree with you its too subtle - its strange, but in daylight (the pictures were taken under artificial light) they look OK but under the layout lights (which will be the norm) they look too feint. Will have another go this afternoon and see how they look - as you say, I guess it doesn't really matter how they come out, as every picture of an MGR seems to show a different degree of weathering and stripes - and sometimes no stripes!