Foden

My sound fitted 66001 arrived earlier in the week and I've had my first chance to open it up and see what it is I've bought. This is my first accurascale model I've had delivered, so no previous personal experience of them as a manufacturer, but what a first impression it was. Opening the box felt like a real treat in its own right with all the reading material and limited edition certificate in there. The model itself is an absolute gem, perfect to my eye, running is excellent, and the sound file and driveability is also oustanding, I really appreciate the stay alive provision as standard on a sound fitted loco, I wish all manufacturers offered this. In conclusion I really couldn't be happier, it's the first loco I've ever bought which is genuinely ready to go bar a bit of weathering, no retrofitting better speakers or adding capacitors! I've also got a few 31s, a 37, and a 50 in the pipeline and on the basis of the quality of this model, I'm even more excited to see those arrive. Bravo guys, this one's a gem.

Very, very sad news to hear. Aside from being a very contented customer of theirs for decades, including the yearly Christmas presents that my wife genuinely enjoyed phoning up and ordering from, rather than doing it online as she enjoyed the chat, they dealt with the very sensitive task of purchasing my late Grandfather's collection some time after his passing, something they dealt with in a thoroughly decent and compassionate manner, turning something that was difficult and upsetting into a sense of closure. I'll forever be grateful for that, the business really felt like it had a good heart, and the staff and management there deserve the greatest of credit for that. I can only give my best wishes for all persons connected with the business for their futures, and thank them for everything they've done through the years. The hobby is sadly losing one of the good guys.

I came here to make exactly this post, so pleased someone already has. There was a good amount of excitement and interest when the crane was announced. I think Hattons may have been disappointed by a lack of expressions of interest in pre-orders at the time though. I'm sure AS now have enough experience of this format of 'announce > take pre-orders > release to wider market' to know how well things sell outside of pre-orders, and I hope that information is encouraging. I confess, I say this through the rose tinted glasses of actually wanting a few myself, but I've said it before, I think engineering/departmental stock fits on so many layouts, in so many interesting formations large and small, it surely has an incredibly wide appeal.

It's getting concerning how easily, and frequently you guys manage to reach into my current account and help yourselves lately. If you're managing to knock out top quality products for 170 quid whilst still clearly investing in further developments AND turn a decent profit to make it all worthwhile, then more power to you. But if you wouldn't mind cracking on with a couple more kettles, or something else I personally am less likely to buy for the time being, that would also be lovely.

Comparing the CAD above to the size of the bogies on my Flangeway Salmons, it certainly appears to be the 8ft bogies Hornby are modelling, which adds some nice variety. No complaints from me, I'd like a couple more anyway.

Bit unfair to tar Accurascale with that particular brush (no pun intended) on their first run though isn't it? They're releasing no less than six different liveries, and differing variations of them too over a broad timescale of the prototype's life. Furthermore two of the most asked for examples, the aforementioned 31/5 and blue 31/4 are in the first run. I've little doubt that by the second run, a good many more will be available too. Hornby have produced the higher spec 31 for what, 17 years? In that time we've never seen a Mainline livery, which is in the first of Accurascale's releases, never seen an EWS livery, and it took 16 of those years to see a dutch 31 that didn't crumble away at the floor, and even then it was wrong.

I appreciate you said mixed, rather than poor, but I always quite liked the 'new' super detailed Hornby 31. Early mazak rot issues aside, every one I've had has been a great runner and could pull decent loads. I'm sure more keen eyed modelers could point to some inaccuracies, which is fair, but I've always looked at them as a really good representation of the class, with perfectly decent features, and lighting functionality for the time, even though I've removed the fan drive on all of mine. That said, now the Accurascale model is on the horizon, I won't buy any more, but I wouldn't sell off my 5 Hornby models either. I think Hornby's biggest mistake with the class (and others too) is they've had the model in their range for many years, yet customers have been asking for releases, and re-releases of various subclasses and liveries that have been overlooked again, and again, such as 31/5 in dutch, banger blue 31/4 etc. Had they released more examples through the years, and less oddballs and namers, maybe the door wouldn't be left open for the likes of Accurascale, although ultimately I'm glad it has been.

It’s a slippery slope, one which I gather Bachmann acknowledged they were also on. To their credit, they rethought the way they were announcing/delivering products, and while it’s inevitably not pleased everyone, I’d go as far as saying the larger majority of their customers prefer things the way they are now. Whether there’s talk between manufacturers behind the scenes on what is in the pipeline I don’t know, from what I’ve read I’ve picked up that some of the newer manufacturers at the table have more of a cordial relationship, and perhaps have some lines of communication and understanding between them, I admit I’m just speculating based on snippets I’ve read, and heard.

I share this same arrangement. This year, (way back in November, he says very smugly), as I was passing anyway, I decided to actually enter one of their shops, armed with a shopping list of lotions, potions, and those ‘bath bombs’ that resemble a mento being dropped into a bottle of diet cola. Let’s just say I hastily left a few moments later with what felt like the beginnings of a respiratory complication. I don’t mean to sound pretentious, the many aromas in isolation were mostly lovely, but the combined clout of all of them was truly a force to behold!

My beloved knows a lot more about this hobby than I give her credit for. She’s not a hobbyist, nor a train enthusiast by any stretch, but over the years enough passing interest has lead her to understand things somewhat more than I assumed she did. Regarding gifts, she generally picks from a list that I give her (and the opposite is also true), I don’t know exactly what it is I’m getting, but I do know it’s definitely something I would want, it works quite well.

Space permitting, New Street seems an obvious one. Depending on era, could also be quite a boring one once the majority was built over, so perhaps I’d be tempted to model it up to the ceiling above track only in that instance. On a more personal note, the idea of modelling Nuneaton Trent valley has always appealed to me, and has been a ‘pie in the sky’ ambition for some time. You’ve got the new (or old) grade separated flyover at one end, and a four lane over bridge the other. Still would need considerable space to model it true to scale, but a good variety of movements along and across the layout, both freight and passenger, and particularly for anyone interested in the WCML. Quite extensive goods yards too in older eras. (not my photo)

Hi guys, just to get back to you on this, as I've had a spare moment with the voltmeter to take some readings. I'm using a Digitrax DCS210 as my command station, and I'm seeing around 14.6v AC at the track. With the loco on track with the power on, and playing the sound file at idle I'm getting DC voltages of 14.2V before the lifelink, and 13.2v at the capacitor end. When the power is turned off, they both drop pretty well instantly to ~2v, so it would appear the capacitor is toast. It looks like I've made an error in assumption that the Zen type stay alives are suitable for this application, clearly they are not for the reasons Nigel has posted above, and are only suitable when used with their own management PCB. Fortunately, in this case only a capacitor is ruined, not a more expensive decoder, or loco, or worse.... As designed, the three wire PCB is connected/soldered to the decoder, the capacitor itself is only two wire. In this instance I've simply cut the plug off the tail of the capacitor, and soldered it to the lifelink. I've just ordered a selection of the Lias kung-fu stay alives recommended, they look really good, so will see how I go with them. Always useful to have a selection of different types and sizes for different installs, so thanks for the recommendation.

Thanks Nigel and Paul, sadly I can’t find my voltmeter at the moment, I’ve ordered another one off Amazon, which means I’ll find it as soon as the new one arrives, then I’ll have two! Originally I used 3x 470uf tantalums due to their small size, I wasn’t expecting much from them, but maybe enough to keep the sound on and the motor going over brief dead sections from dirt (all my turnouts are fully powered unifrogs), I didn’t notice any improvement. I then turned to some of the larger ‘Zen’ stay alives I use on my other locos, all of which are Loksound V4&5. https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/3-wire-large-stay-alive-for-zen-black-blue-decoders/ I use these 3 wire pcbs soldered to the decoder on my ESU examples, in this case I just cut the plug off one of these and wired it to the life link board instead. I’m not sure what the capacitance is as it doesn’t appear to be stated anywhere, but as a point of reference I have several of these installed as above, and they give between 1, and a few seconds of sound and motor power after the power to track has been lost depending on the loco. Clearly I’ll know more when I can get that voltmeter in, I’d expect if everything is working as it should, the zen capacitor should be offering some improvement as it does on my other installs (unless for reasons I can’t fathom it’ll only work with the zen pcb provided), the 1410uf from the tantalums I couldn’t say, I’ve never used that type of capacitor before, I simply followed the tutorial off the youchoos website as it looked like a tidy install on a small loco. https://www.youchoos.co.uk/Index-Resource.php?L1=Guides&Item=OOBachCL03N18 I’ll report back tomorrow evening with my findings with the voltmeter. Again, Thankyou guys for your help. I’ve done several sound and stay alive installs on my Loksound fitted locos without any bother, but this little loco is a right head scratcher, and being a Zimo is more alien to me in its operation. I don’t want to give up on it as it’s a lovely loco, the sound file is great, and I’d quite like to broaden into using more Zimo decoders along with ESU in future also. However I can’t help but feel I’m missing something obvious and being a bit of a numpty!

Guys, if I may ask another question in regards to my first post. The loco runs sweet as you'd like for a short wheel base shunter when there's no sound, there's no hesitation. However, when sound is on, the performance is terrible, it'll often do merely an inch or two at low speed, higher speed is better, but it often struggles getting there because it cuts out and needs a nudge. I figured that this was simply down to the fact that sound requires more power, and the lack of pickups of a larger loco means the loco has insufficient pickup for power and sound, hence the journey to install a stay alive. After various stay alives have been fitted (via a Youchoos life link) I'm yet to see any noticeable improvement, what I've mentioned above remains the case. I can lift the loco from the track after it's had over 10mins with power, and there's no continuation of sound whatsoever the moment it is lifted, equally if it's lifted while in motion with the sound off, the wheels stop straight away, simply put, it's like the capacitors are not there at all. I've looked through the CV list online, and can't find anything relevant other than maybe adjusting #153 for run on time, which makes no difference if it's 0, 255, or anywhere in between. I can't imagine it's a fault of the capacitors, as I've tried a few now, they can't all be faulty. I suppose the life link could, but maybe I'm missing a setting somewhere? Update to add, the track, the wheels, the pickups are perfectly clean, I've chased dirt and pickup contact and continuity obsessively trying to get the damn thing to run better with sound, to no avail. I have however noted it runs rather better with sound on my code 100 test track, than my bullhead layout plank.

Thankyou very much Andy, I appreciate the help.

After close to 15 years membership (it's probably more in reality, as I was registered on the 'old' forums, but no idea for how long, that's ancient history now, and I was only a wee child then!) it's about time I contributed something back, so I've just signed up to premium membership. However, I note back in May there were a few cases of people reporting Malwarebytes blocking the integration page, unfortunately this has just happened for me now also. I note I have an option to ignore and continue, is it safe to assume that is okay to do so, and there's no harm on the other side, so to speak?

Thanks so much for the help guys, both Paul and Norman are spot on. I had noticed after I did the first reset that the option in JMRI defaulted to CV8=0 (my own fault for not reading it properly, I confess). I then did another reset with the option to revert back to factory sound (CV8=8) but I had the same problem, so I assumed it was something else. I've just tried it again, and this time it's worked perfectly, the decoder has reverted to exactly how it was from the factory! Oddly, before the second reset I had changed the loco address, and when I did it, the address reverted back to 3, so I thought the reset (CV8=8) had been successful, and it wasn't the cause of my issues. Perhaps the reset hadn't completed properly, and the one I did earlier today after the above advise did, I'm not too sure. But thankyou for all the help, I've a better idea what to look for now if I ever find similar issues. I also didn't know about the sprint starts acting as if on DC, and that's handy to know.

Fair enough point Pete, and indeed I will do exactly that if someone on here is not able to share some knowledge of a similar issue, it might be something simple I've missed. * I don't currently have panel pro, but I have used a throttle in decoder pro to check the running of the loco after resetting it, which highlighted the problems I'd mentioned. * Indeed, CV8 only ever reverts to the manufacturer ID, but you are correct, the loco address reverted to 3 after each reset, which leads me to believe the reset was successful. * The decoder has been tested on an ESU decoder tester board, so it is now completely independent of the loco, and the stay alive. The CV for the master volume is now reset to factory settings, the speaker does still work on the loco, and there's also one on the ESU board too, ruling out any potential speaker/amp issues, as it still plays sounds, just not correctly. That's an interesting one, it sounds very similar, I wonder what has caused this for you (and potentially me). I will try it again later as it's been roughly a week since it was last touched. Thanks for the replies everyone.

I've never liked the 92, I thought the real thing was the class 60s ugly cousin, I don't model anything AC/DC electric, and it's not quite in my modelling era. There's practically no reason for me to ever own one of these, so it's quite something that I see this model at Warley, and photos posted by rightly jubilant owners, and start wondering if I can find a place for one in my collection based on little more than what a stunning model it is. Bravo Accurascale, the level of fidelity we see now in models is extremely impressive. I look forward to being similarly impressed when my Class 31s land.

I have a Zimo MX65N18 loaded from factory with Bachmann 03 sound. The loco was a really poor performer due to its short wheelbase, and power outage, so I decided to install a stay alive to help matters. I used a Youchoos life link pcb, and 3 small tantalum capacitors, but was disappointed with the near identical performance. I decided to do away with the tantalums, and solder on a larger capacitor from the Zen range from DCC concepts to see if a larger capacitor would help matters. However, after playing around with some CVs to adjust the run on time, the loco started acting oddly, performance was jerky, and the sound didn't always react correctly to the speed changes. I decided to revert the decoder back to factory settings, and start over. I used JMRI decoder pro through a Sprog, and although the program wouldn't allow me to reset CV8 to 8, as it's read only, there is a feature to reset to factory settings, which I assume is just a shortcut for resetting CV8 to 8 anyway. After resetting, the sounds were mostly gone, although the basic running of the loco was corrected. None of the function keys would activate any of the sounds, apart from F8 which faded the engine sound in, and out (without a start up procedure), and it was very quiet. I then wondered if having the capacitor installed was affecting the reset of the decoder, so I took the decoder out, put it on an ESU decoder tester board, and connected that to JMRI to try another reset, which gave the same result. After a couple of days I tried the above method again, this time I thought I was on to a winner! F1 activated the sound with startup procedure exactly as it would from factory, however I then realised none of the other function sounds were working still. Furthermore, when any speed step is applied to the decoder, the motor runs away at full power until idle or emergency stop is applied. I'm certain that the decoder hasn't been shorted out somehow through installation, I soldered to the loco circuit board, so not to the decoder itself, and and I'm always careful of static when handling any sensitive electronics. I'm wondering if the capacitor has potentially caused some problems, maybe because I tried to do a reset with it installed, or maybe the Zen capacitor (which is as standard meant to work with the Zen 3 wire control board) has caused issues, or maybe it's just 'one of those things', the loco is one of the more commonly used on my layout, and has seen good use for a couple of years now. Before I go and order a new sound decoder, I've never had a decoder fail on me before, so really not sure if they start acting like this, or they just stop working? Am I missing something?

Not a gimp mask in sight

Having already purchased RR 158849 on release, I was wondering if I needed the new 'express' 158761. But it's testimony to just how gorgeous the new model is that I've caved in and spent £280 on a very similar model to what I've got. But the two should look very nice next to each other. I can't help but wax lyrical about how highly I rate the new 158. We've been treated in recent times to some exquisite new models from many different manufacturers, but for me this one is the benchmark, similar to how I used to see the Hornby 60. It's out of my era, but if (I would assume when) Bachmann release a central trains liveried example, I'm pretty sure I would have to put in some overtime and snap one of those up too, purely for nostalgia, I used to catch these daily when I was at university, I thought the class wore the colours really well.

I'll be at the show on the Saturday, and was already planning to drive and park. If anyone from my area (Hinckley, Barwell, Earl Shilton, or surrounding areas) has had their plans affected, and would still like to attend the show on Saturday, please do PM me, I'm more than happy to pick up and drop off as necessary. I plan to leave at 7:30 on the morning to allow for traffic, and I usually stay at the show until pretty well the end. I also have a large Landrover Discovery, so can take multiple people comfortably if necessary, with space for bags etc. I don't require any recompense for this, the costs are the same had I gone alone regardless, I'm just happy to help get anyone to the show that otherwise cannot. The route takes me past Coventry also, so I can extend the same offer to anyone living in that area.

Marston Green is a good option. A return can be bought for as little as £2.70 for the ~4 minute journey. Trains are frequent at around 5ph Parking is then free for rail customers with a valid ticket. The caveat however is the car park isn't huge, so you take a gamble on getting a space, particularly on busy event days. An exhibition where there's plenty of railway enthusiasts, I'd imagine there's more than a few aware of this option. Interestingly there is no set maximum stay either, you could I suppose use this hack for travelling from the airport too.

Any insight as to when the replacement decks might be sent out to those who chose to keep the originals Richard?