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I do occasionally look in here and admire the various HO pieces. (I get my hands-on fix with continental - mainly Dutch - relatives who
have a fair number of rail enthusiasts among them. In one cousin's home we sit on old locomotive buffers as stools from which to
operate the layout. He needed a specially strengthened floor, I need to pay attention to avoid serious bruises to knees and toes.)

I am very happy that RTR OO has acquired so much from HO technique now that production is in China. It was a long time coming, but
very welcome now it is available. Still lagging well behind the maximum refinement that HO can offer, but so much better than what we
had just 20 years ago, on which:

QUOTE (Allegheny1600 @ 25 Mar 2019, 13:56) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Isn't it amazing that with a Lokprogrammer and a suitable decoder, you can download whichever sounds you wish for a vast array of
different locos?

All except British ones, of course!

This REALLY annoys me - that EU, US, World loco sounds are available freely yet British ones are not...
It's a function of a less mature market for this product. DCC didn't 'take off' in the UK until circa 2005 by my estimation. Until then it
was strictly individual enthusiasts finding their own way. Then came general provision of decoder sockets, decoder fitted and DCC sound
fitted locos. The business is squeezing every penny out of DCC sound while the good times last. What it needs is enthusiasts for sound
to start creating projects and making them available. (Actually I am happy they are not, give me the sound of metal wheels on rails, and
I can generate the other sounds in my head.) Well, that's my opinion anyway.

QUOTE (Allegheny1600 @ 30 Apr 2019, 12:48) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>DCC:
Improved electrical pick-up, especially at very slow speeds.
Simplified wiring (I am an electrical numpty!).
Control of lighting on locos & vehicles.
Ability to double head locos with perfect control.
Control the whole layout from a single moveable position.
Control multiple locos very simply.

DCC is something that I've gradually adopted over the last 15 years or so and I've not converted everything yet but I find it gives great
pleasure especially on a small layout. If I had a large roundy-roundy where trains only circulate at high speed, it may not add that much
but for me, it's great.
Same here, and over a similar period. I feel that lights are hardly worth bothering with for UK operation, and sound, meh! It's grossly
inadequate with my high fidelity sound reproduction hat on, positively painful to listen to.

But the control aspect with DCC, wonderful, per the list Allegheny1600 put up. And there's more. I really like being able to speed and
acceleration/deceleration match the locos in groups, and the easy way you can put locos 'on shed' with no need for isolating sections.
My layout is large, with about four scale miles of the eventual planned sixteen now operable, and DCC plays well to this too. Slow speed
refinement and control benefits for shunting moves, the high reliability for trains operating out of sight, starting and stopping very gently:
full automation thereby a realistic future element of the layout.

 

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QUOTE (SRman @ 26 Apr 2021, 02:45) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>... four Vectrons ...
Someone get on the blower to Dr Who, the Vectrons are quietly invading an as yet unidentified corner of Southeastern England! (They can overrun the rest of the world and anywhere North of Cambridge or West of Oxford, and no call to Dr Who is indicated. Only the centre of the world is to be defended.)

Have you gone over the exteriors to compare the three manufacturer's renderings? Always interesting to see how each team has performed.

 

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QUOTE (SRman @ 4 May 2021, 06:48) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>...One of those other wagons in that rake has all the loose bits and pieces that have fallen off rolling stock as it went around the layout. Some I know what they came off, others I have no idea whatsoever!
I am not the only one who does that then! I have been using my engineer department train lately, it having occurred to me that it is only occasionally operated and well located for the purpose, where it usually stands.

What I have learned so far:
Sort the off-falls by type; so far 'loco', wagon', 'coach', 'couplers', 'don't know', are the coarse categories.
Only put larger pieces in the ballast hoppers, or you cannot get them out without inverting the wagon.
I am really looking forward to the Pilchard from Oxford Rail, as it is an ideal shallow box which I will be able to subdivide.

 

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QUOTE (SRman @ 5 May 2021, 01:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>... I like your idea of separating out the various categories of "spares"...
I have thereby learnt something too. Topping the list of detail that falls off, are the coach dynamo mouldings. These have several times been the cause of derailments over the past 15 years, and I am now steadily removing any that pull off easily from my coaches, as the trains they are in come around for scheduled inspection/relubrication. (And from any new purchases, should Bachmann ever get around to their Thompson corridors in maroon.)

 

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Someone should show that to Banksy; betcha you can't do better...

 

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Babz, you so have to tell us a little more about those interesting vehicles; date of introduction into service, are the one window compartments in a sleeping car, why is the sliding door open on the chilled milk churn car, did the open end platforms also have provision for a gangway between the vehicles?

 

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34C I have had to cheat a bit I am not very well at the moment so I copied and Paste the info I just bought them because I like them and are from a long gone Era ...

Thanks, hope you make a quick return to health.

 

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... the long awaited Trix 25027 BR 02 Not so happy
Seems to just randomly loose all functions. not just sound, and sort of coasts along with no control until until whatever the issue is goes away, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes longer.

The video clip suggests the loco moving irregularly (a little vertical 'bounce' at the rear end of the loco) on the slip just as the sound sharply cuts off. I'd suspect a momentary short which interferes with the decoder's processing, and the loss of sound and other functions is while the decoder is resetting.
Does the loss of functions you describe always start at the same locations on the layout or can this be anywhere on the layout?
Do you see any irregular movement from the loco as the loss of function starts?
Any wheelsets incorrectly gauged, dangling tackle underneath fouling the track, or the rods momentarily catching on a crankpin, each other, or fixed structure on the loco?

 

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Good morning everyone I put a link up about the same engine about 5 minutes in going round with sound on then when you get to last bend the sound dies. What does everyone think?

That looks to me like normal operation, in response to a command for a slight reduction in speed; the loco coasting with steam shut off. But if there was no speed reduction command...

 

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...I know they say they test, in reality unless you have someone testing in Full Dcc and for a length of time say an hour or so not everything will get picked up.
I had a Trix elok that was supposedly tested and yet they failed to pick up a very obvious lighting issue...

Reliance on post manufacture testing* is a 'car crash'. The product has to be designed to the economic trade off point of minimum cost for the complete product cycle. This isn't 'perfection' in the case of non-safety critical consumer goods, but a very low level of failure. It does make the customer part of the process: but that's always the case with goods in this category. (Sorry.)

*Something that most people are unaware of is that when testing, especially when as in this case it has to be performed by human beings, there are both false fails, good items rejected, and false passes, substandard items accepted. (If you want to deep end, look up alpha and beta risk in tests of nul hypotheses.)

 

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... I expect an article that costs over 500 euros to be perfect when I get it.

The number of New people that are at MSL now and some of the correspondence I have had with them shows me lack of Knowledge by them. And lacking in detail.

I suspect it is actually my posting you disagree with.

Now there are two different issues in your post, which I have separated in the quote.

First is that you are undoubtedly right to expect a high standard product: but perfection does not exist in this world from an engineering perspective. The appropriate standard for any given product is costed in great detail to deliver the standard expected by the customer at the lowest net cost to the business.

Here's a manufacturing engineering perspective: I was pleased when leading a team in the early 1980s that a six sigma programme produced the first defective at just over 600,000 units. We were 'on the money' pitching the manufacturing quality right at the optimum point in the Taguchi loss function. (When you achieve this type of performance the very occasional failure can be handled extremely well with the customer, they get a rapid replacement and a full refund, and quite likely people are chauffered to an entertainment, followed by dinner, night in a grand hotel etc..) The last such programme I worked on, the standard had been pushed yet higher.

'She was a good cook as cooks go, and like all good cooks, she went.' As applying to retailers: the sad fact is that they will never pay their people what they are worth, and off they go, quite often to run their own business where they can achieve a better reward for their skills.

 

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...Don't ask me what I did ...

Most likely rectified one or more flaky electrical connections.

I keep mechanism notes on my locos, to ensure that stuff doesn't get forgotten:
What adjustments or minor alterations were made to optimise performance
If they have required significant intervention to eliminate a problem, what was done;
If there is one or more feature in construction and arrangement appraised as weak, 'on watch';
If there is any promising novel feature, for future reference.

 

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...I did not know They actualy Made Model Trains in Oz.

Everything I have seen reported about current RTR production of Australian prototype models is that the method is exactly as elsewhere in the developed world, the manufacturing is in China, using the slew of factories that deliver pretty much all North American, much European, and nearly all UK productions.

It's never been cheap in Oz, because of the smaller market size, here's a fine example.

Eureka Models AD60 Class Garratt 4-8-4+4-8-4

AD60 Class Garratt 4-8-4+4-8-4 Eureka Models Review by Neil Wood Garratt Locomotives: A general history The Garratt locomotive was first patented in 1907 by William Garratt. Overseas experience working on railways in Peru, Australia and Cuba had inspired him to create a method of mounting...

www.modelrailforum.com

 

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...Eureka AD60, that one will see a re-run, and I would expect the new version to be a smidgen more expensive than the quoted $845.

Perhaps the 'new price' for the re-run will provide a correction to the general UK value perception?

NAH....

 

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How does the song go? You're so fine, I'm telling all the world...

(Around 2013/14 there was a story circulating that Auscision might try the UK OO market, potentially branded as 'Austrains'. This at a time when several other entrants were looking to disturb the Hornby/Bachmann/Heljan triumvirate: DJM, Oxford Rail, Rapido, particularly come to mind. Sure they could have done well, but probably realised that they were looking at a lot of competition. Which is now active and out there.)

 

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I don't know if Auscision entering the UK market under the moniker Austrains would have flown all that well, because at the time there was an actual Australian model train maker called Austrains...

That's my memory malfunctioning about the identity in that case! The story died within weeks, and there's not much to quickly find on line about it now...

Edited to add: Why I couldn't find it yesterday I don't know, but here it is.

Austrains' British Venture

This announcement was published in the latest October Australia Model Railway Magazine (AMRA) here in Australia. I was shown it when I went to visit a friend who models Victorian Railways and subscribes to the magazine. I don't know if any one has put it here, which is surprising it has not...

www.modelrailforum.com

And back to HO.

 

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Sheet over the open wagons, camo net the armour. It's all about minimising what the enemy can see of your assets, to the greatest possible extent. Naturally this varied between theatres: in Western Europe once Allied air superiority had been obtained it was essential.

 

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...Of course, I just need a loco, baggage and diner to go with them.

Which begs the question, what's the model traction position in Egypt for a loco contemporary with this stock? Distant memory says there were various Beyer-Peacock and North British steamers during the inter-war period, and then come WWII there would be Stanier 8Fs.