Karhedron

I have pre-ordered D1000 already and I have started flogging childhood collectables on eBay. How well they sell will determine how many more I get.

I am vaguely suprised to see them being discounted so much. The reviews when they came out seemed boradly positive. There is matching stock in the form of Mk3 coaching and DVTs. Catenary is available (I think). And yet they don't seem to be selling particularly well. Is it true that OHELs don't sell particularly well? I gather Dapol put the 92 on the the back burner as a result. Is it the lack of stuff to run alongside? The 87 and 90 are available but dated and there is no OHEL suburban stock. The forthcoming 350 will rememdy this to some extent but I am not sure if 86s were still working out of Euston by the time the 350s arrived.

Given the effort they put into getting details (including livery) right on the class 22s, I think they will probably do alright with the Westerns. After all, RMWeb gives access to a big pool of volunteer researchers, plenty of whom have an interest in seeing that new releases are as accurate as possible.

Woohoo! Definitely look forward to Warley then. I think it is very sensible to use the 00 version as the prototype for the true masterpiece.

I haven't tried MT couplings before, are these numbers the ones that plug into Rapido boxes? It would be nice to have a way to convert old stock apart from cutting the boxes off to replace with Dapol NEM pockets.

I got mine to work with a little adjustment but I tried them in Dapol stock with their own NEM pockets. Perhaps the farish pockets are slightly tighter or restrict the coupling movement in some way.

I found that it helped the push shunting to adjust the trip pins inward a bit so they were closer to the centre-line. This increased the deflection and made the delayed action shunting work much better.

Interesting. I had to do the same with mine during my experiments with rare-earth magnets (back on page 5 I think). At the time I assumed it was because I was using my own magnets, what experiences have others had adjusting the trip pins?

Can't find the post (it might have been on the N gauge Yahoo group) but I am pretty sure they work.

I think that the problem is losing the springs during fitting or use. I have not heard anyone complaining that the trip pins are falling out.

Sounds an excellent idea to me. Farish do the same with the front bogies on their N gauge steam locos and the result seems to be popular with everyone as the perfect compromise. Again, sounds excellent. Based on the above I assume that the valance will be part of the body and not swinging with the bogie.

It has a different arrangement of front end details to the Dapol model. Dapol have the handrails above the headcode boxes horizontal whereas D6334 had them vertical. I think it has the wrong design of door too. There are some other small detail differences too. That is the challenge with the D6300s, for a small, shortlived class, there was a great deal of variation. Dapol is to be applauded for the dialogue it established in this thread in identifying class members it could accurately model. Sadly is seems that all-over green just could not be produced accurately.

Past experience from Heljan suggests that un-named & un-numbered locos are poor sellers. The majority of buyers seem to want their locos complete. Those who want to rename/number are usually willing to remove the identity of an existing loco. Most of Heljan's "plain" 47s ended up in various bargain bins.

I think it would require a new front-end tooling to accomodate as I think only the locos with headcode discs wore this livery, only Dapol can comment on whether that would economically viable. Hopefully the strong sales of the first batch are a good omen for other variants but we will have to wait and see. Even if Dapol decided to do a batch in original condition tommorrow, I doubt we would see them this year.

Following the experiences of others here, i secured mine with a dab of matt varnish at both ends. Time will tell if this is an effective solution but so far so good.

Thanks Dave.

Looking forward to see these. Having experimented with a couple of these I am now satisfied that these new couplers are right for me but I have quite a lot of non-NEM stock to convert. I also have a couple of part-built kits that have been put on hold in anticipation of the NEM pockets becoming available. No point in fitting rapido boxes only to have to carve them off later. Dave, this is a slight odd request but do you have a list anywhere of which models you have produced that have NEM pockets already? I seem to recall that some models like the Colletts started out with standard rapidos but aquired NEMs at some point.

Well I have taken the plunge and ordered my N gauge one. Now the challenge is to avoid bankruptcy and not order more (yet).

Not sure if this is the right place but does anyone know of a comprehensive list of rail-served dairies and creameries?

Whilst I sympathise with modellers who are struggling to find one of these locos, I am at least glad from Dapol's point of view that it has sold so well. As their first RTR 00 loco for some years (excluding commissions) it could have gone one way or the other. Hopefully these sales bode well for future runs and also for it appearing in N gauge. Dave, is there a timescale yet for the N gauge version?

Thanks for the tip, I have ordered a copy.

I holiday in the area every year and it is a lovely place with the occasional bit of railway infrastructure still in place. I sometimes wonder how long the line would have lasted if not for the floods in 64. Doubtless the Beeching axe would still have fallen as the majority of photos I have seen show 3 coach trains and most stations with single-figure number of passengers. Still it is as charming a cross-country route as one could wish to find and very modellable. I know that there was a creamery at Felin Fach on the Aberaeron Branch but I have not been able to find any pictures of it or of trains serving it. Any pointers would be welcome.

Not a livery expert but I have seen a shot of a green hymek on the Hemtock branch, not sure if it is 7005 or not but I am not sure if Hymeks were frequent visitors to the branch.

Yes, you could run them in this way and you would not necessarily need a siphon or BG. BGs were often used as milk trains usually ran at express passenger speeds on the mainline. However when the dairy was at the end of a branch, the trip to the junction would be unlikely to be made at high speed so a normal brake van would suffice. There is a nice picture of the Hemyock branch here showing a 1400 with a toad brake van on its way to pick up the milk. The Hemyock branch had a speed limit of around 25mph IIRC so there was no need for a passenger-rated brake vehicle for this journey. http://chasewaterstuff.wordpress.com/tag/hemyock/

Up until the withdrawal of passenger services, the Hemyock train had an ex-Barry coach (the gaslighting being necessary as the run on the branch was not fast enough or long enough to power lighting from coach dynamos). The guard would normally ride in this. I have seen pictures after the withdrawl of passenger services with a class 22 and a midland BG (I think it was a 50' stanier brake) but I can't remember seeing any with a southern brake vehicle. I could be wrong of course.