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Iain's occasional drivel, moans & groans


ba14eagle
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They must have produced an awful lot of them as they were being discounted ages ago and usually anything with 'Scotrail' along the side sells out within weeks. Ditto the Highlander coaches, now some £34 cheaper than the original discounted selling price.

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Feeling pretty low right now. Should be in Lanzarote, but in sweltering Wiltshire.

My On30 lockdown purchases have been a waste of time - cars keep uncoupling and loco runs in fits and starts. Anyone want to make me an offer?

And to top it off, my Class 117 DMU in chocolate and cream arrived this afternoon - but will be back in the postal system tomorrow, as that doesnt work properly. KMRC advise "send it standard postage, as our policy is to only refund you standard postage" - what, for a £300+ item? Do you think i'm crazy?

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Sorry to hear of your problems Iain. To be honest I think Wiltshire, even if sweltering, is preferable to sitting in a tube in the sky with who knows what circulating in the air.

If you obtain a free certificate of posting when you return the Class 117, I don't think KMRC could refuse to compensate you if it failed to reach them or was received damaged, if that is what they told you to do. I can understand your reluctance to do so though.

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Signed for is only £1 extra by Royal Mail you get proof of postage and you can track it as well. NEVER use Hermes to send anything expensive signed for or not as they rarely pay out for lost items and are a bunch of cowboys, l should know l used to work for them !

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1 hour ago, ba14eagle said:

Feeling pretty low right now. Should be in Lanzarote, but in sweltering Wiltshire.

My On30 lockdown purchases have been a waste of time - cars keep uncoupling and loco runs in fits and starts. Anyone want to make me an offer?

And to top it off, my Class 117 DMU in chocolate and cream arrived this afternoon - but will be back in the postal system tomorrow, as that doesnt work properly. KMRC advise "send it standard postage, as our policy is to only refund you standard postage" - what, for a £300+ item? Do you think i'm crazy?

We all have those kind of days now and again Iain, days where nothing seems to go right and everything seems to have been a waste of time. Lanzarote will still be there when everything sorts itself out but for the time being just enjoy what's available to you - there are far worse places around than Wiltshire to be confined. It's only 23 degrees in Lanzarote right now anyway, you'd catch your death of cold.

Put the On30 to one side for another day - I find that works a treat for me. If it's still giving you grief then let it go and concentrate on what you do best with the OO gauge.

It's disappointing when you receive something you've been looking forward to that doesn't work properly but it's not the end of the world. Sure there's going to be a delay of a few days while they get another one out to you but if it's what you want then it'll be worth the wait. As Dave says, just ask for a Royal Mail certificate of posting in the same way Hattons recommend you do, and it's then no longer your problem as you've done as you were instructed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My class 117 returned from KMRC and is now working fine, apart from the usual Bachmann squeeky axles. As I'd not seen any reviews online for it, I did a brief one of my own. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about a sound chip, as there doesn't seem to be a specific 117 project out there - just some similarly engined recordings. By all accounts, the factory fitted speakers aren't upto scratch either, so what do i do? - Just get a chip and see what the speakers are like or send it away and have the speakers changed too? Apparently, Bachmann have been quite clever in using their own PLU22x sockets in these sets and many sound chips needed functions remapping - too scary for me to undertake.

 

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  • 9 months later...
  • 11 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Despite it taking 5 hours each way by train, Mrs H and I had a great day out to Chester yesterday, to see Pete Waterman's latest Making Tracks layout. The layout is on show until 3rd September 2022 and is well worth the visit. Chester cathedral is also well worth a good look around, with some beautiful architecture and stained glass. The entrance fee is unbelievably low and we can thoroughly recommend the cafe / refectory. Chester is, obviously, a beautiful City and there is also the added attraction of Chester Model Centre to visit.

 

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Mrs Riddles and I went on Monday and agree with all the above. There is a convenient bus shuttle from the Railway Station to the city centre (alight and re-board at The Clock). The Crewe-Chester leg of our journey was by a very full Transport For Wales class 153 unit but we did manage to get a seat.

Thanks for posting the video.

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  • 4 months later...

Its been a while, so thought i'd just post a little update on whats going on at Summer Hampton - well not a lot outside, as its peeing down and the garden is in a bit of a mess. Ive a fair bit of gardening to do before much train running will take place this year and I suspect that some of the unbonded O gauge track joints will probably need doing.

There are a few new O gauge items to see service - a Heljan class 26 and a class 33 (not on my shopping list but a bargain that couldnt be refused), a pair of Heljan CCT vans and a couple more Dogfish, to bolster the ballast train set. A couple of pre-grouping goods wagons have also arrived to work with my S&D Jinty.

As far as OO is concerned, there have been more departures than arrivals, mainly due to the disposal of Baker Wood Bunker. Virtually all of the locos and rolling stock have departed, joined by a few of the main diesel fleet - these have mainly departed to provide funds for O gauge items or because they will be replaced by newer models, in the case of the class 50's.

Hopefully the weather will soon dry up a bit and I will get the motivation to get outside and tidy up, but until then, take care everyone and catch up soon.

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  • 2 months later...

With plenty of warmth in the April sun, I ventured outside again to run some new stock (I didnt post the last running session as it only last about 20 minutes before the heavens opened.)

Today it was the turn of the Accurascale TPE Nova 3 set and Dapol 68. I'd waited nearly 4 years for these coaches to arrive and I was blown away by them when they did. Ive fitted a dcc chip so as to control the head and taillights - how I set that up, i really dont know! Anyway, I have obviously forgotten the address of this chip because I couldnt make the lights work - the coach lights worked though!

When it came to running, what a disappointment 😒 One bogie just wouldnt go a lap without derailing. I gave the wheels a thorough checkover but couldnt see any reason for the problem, although i did notice that there were some marks on the chassis floor, which had obviously been caused by the flanges of the wheels. The wheels all moved freely and were good to gauge, so what was the problem? I changed the couplings - it didnt help. Nothing helped. It was definitely one of the bogies - take the coach out of the set and the train ran perfectly. I moved the bogie to another coach in the train and it still derailed and others joined it in sympathy! That was it - 2 hours plus of frustration. I know my trackbed and trackwork isnt great, but most stuff runs on it. Are these coaches just too perfect and fine? Maybe. So, with heavy heart, Ive decided to call it a day with these. I just dont think they can cope with my reverse cants and dips and rises. Anyone interested in buying them? pm me if you are 😐

 

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It's the price we have to pay for demanding scale wheels etc... I had exactly the same trouble with my RevolutioN log wagons although fortunately they run fine up in the attic - outdoors it was a completely different story. I put it down to my tracklaying and spent a couple of hours over a few days attempting to remedy the problem by packing the track in places where my minature spirit levels indicated it was required. I was able to improve the running a good bit but didn't completely eradicate the problems so those wagons are no longer allowed outdoors. One major flaw with the log wagons is the bogie retaining screws working loose through the swivelling action and dropping out but that's another story.

I imagine there will be many disgruntled modellers experiencing similar problems because up to now we haven't had to have perfectly laid track in order to run our trains. Gone are the days of laying track on the living room carpet for a running session!

Today's fine scale models demand perfect trackwork and there's no other way round it.

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I wonder if you could get some more course wheels in there to be a bit more forgiving?

My Dad had a Hornby Mk2 coach that just would not go around the inside track where it had a negative camber (cork expanded when he ballasted). That wasn't a new model or super fine scale wheels or anything. We took it apart, couldn't find any difference to the rest. It went into the bin I believe.

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23 hours ago, Clay Mills Junction said:

I wonder if you could get some more course wheels in there to be a bit more forgiving?....

If they're anything like my log wagons I doubt there would be room for wheels with deeper flanges. Everything is just so 'to scale' these days. The only solution, in my opinion, is to ensure your track is as perfect as can be. Mine wasn't, still isn't in places, but the more time I spent remedying it the better the wagons performed.

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On 06/04/2023 at 22:39, mick said:

If they're anything like my log wagons I doubt there would be room for wheels with deeper flanges. Everything is just so 'to scale' these days. The only solution, in my opinion, is to ensure your track is as perfect as can be. Mine wasn't, still isn't in places, but the more time I spent remedying it the better the wagons performed.

As i'm slowly losing some of my enthusiasm for OO, I have put the coaches and loco up for sale on marketplace - although so far, i've only been contacted by the usual time wasters.

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56 minutes ago, ba14eagle said:

As i'm slowly losing some of my enthusiasm for OO....

Sorry to hear that Iain but when things aren't going well I can fully appreciate how you must be feeling. Perhaps it would be better to concentrate solely on O gauge and put all your efforts into that? 

I have to say I've enjoyed following along with your OO gauge exploits and it would be sad to see it come to an end, should that be a decision you eventually make, but just do whichever gives you the most satisfaction. 

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2 hours ago, ba14eagle said:

As i'm slowly losing some of my enthusiasm for OO, I have put the coaches and loco up for sale on marketplace - although so far, i've only been contacted by the usual time wasters.

You've still got a lot of OO stuff that does work though?

Though, in all honesty, had I been starting completely from scratch now, I'd go with O scale.

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