ColinB

DCC is not the issue, the issue is that the DCC system is not fully developed. There is no reason that someone could not make a box that took a bank of toggle switches used for points and convert it to a DCC signal, but its cost would probably be more than the DCC controller. Similarly there is no reason why someone could not develop a remote device that has 4 rotary controllers that could be configured to control say 4 locos on DCC, against as far as I know nobody has developed one. The reason that they appear as an app on Smart Phones is it is lot easier to implement rather than go down the road of unique hardware. Personally I find Smart Phones a pain, you set the app up and then you change your finger position and the app disappears as you have hit one of those tiny buttons on surround of the phone or the phone goes to sleep. You can get it back eventually, but it is just a pain. One of the most expensive parts of any electronic device is the display so if you can use something that has one then you save yourself a lot of expense and grief, hence why a lot of controllers use USB to talk to a PC or WiFi to talk to a phone.

Yes you are both right the Hornby Dublo verson is basically the original plastic model with the original plastic body, replaced by a diecast one. The chassis and tender are exactly the same as a normal equivalent Hornby model (not Railroad). They come in a more fancy box but there again the new 9F does, but seeing they both cost about the same perhaps that is why. My HD City of Lichfield arrived with a wonky body and suspect valve gear which eventually broke, so no special treatment by Hornby because it was more expensive. The down side to all of this is my Supplier said they don't check the HD models on a length of track as most people that buy them don't want them run, so you are more likely to get a duff one. I intend on running all my HD models and have fitted them with sound decoders.

I bought Edward Thompson when it first came out, I think it was well over £150. It was just after Hattons got pushed off the preoder list by Hornby as I lost my order for Sun Castle. So yes when I saw the email from Hattons I realised that was a good price for a good loco, sadly for me the Sun Castle ones had sold out.

There is a lot to be said for the Model Shop, I had some spare time and went round my local one (well about 6 miles away). I bought some modern concertina wagons by Dapol which had I not seen them in the flesh, probably wouldn't have bothered. I am surprised about the stall at a Swapmeet, I haven't done Swapmeets for years but I do Motorbike Autojumbles and you do get the same sort of people there. Perhaps I am different but generally I know the going rate for something on EBay so if I see it at an Autojumble cheaper, then I don't bother haggling I just buy it. Many years ago I was an Autojumble and a bike frame with log book was being sold, I looked at the price which was £100 and I was half tempted to buy it. £100 was work the hassle of trying to reregister it. Anyway the guy in front of me was haggling with the Seller and it got to £65.00, but the guy only wanted to pay £50.00 and walked off saying he would be back later as the Seller would eventually take it. I promptly offered the Seller the £65.00 and got the frame which to me was worth the £100, so £65.00 was a bargain. So the moral is, if you want it and you think it is a reasonable price just buy it, because someone else will. As to Model shops well Rails makes a very nice living doing it, but then when he first started he was prepared to go the extra mile, which is what you have to do. A lot of people start a business and think it will be easy, it is not from talking to a lot of Retailers.

RMWeb probabl;y would have had a field day, who cares they are not the only people that buy locos, seeing as that fix I am sure added £50 to the retail price. By changing the design from the original version you have in Engineering a worse case scenario where you have two sets of valve gear and con rods that look the same but are different in places by a few fractions of a mm. I doubt the designer wanted to change the design as he probably realised the issues involved for future maintenance. Just imagine how much extra the tooling cost for that one simple change. Changing from 8 pin to 21 pin was not an issue it is just a different PCB which in reality was just a "carry over" from the design they used on the Duchess many years ago. A PCB that size from China cost fractions of a $1. In fact the 21 pin PCB is easier to solder to, as the person who designed it did a really decent job. I only wish you could buy that PCB at a reasonable price, I would convert all my tender DCC locos as the PCB is so much better than the 8 pin one they use. Sadly Simon is fixated with RMWeb rather than the more important issue of quality control, perhaps if he did Sam wouldn't have reason to give a really good loco a "crappy" review.

It was something to do with the wheels and I assume that the designer wanted to "carry over" the old designed chassis to keep costs down. To get it right he had to redesign the chassis at an increased price and I assume the wheels, valve gear and conrods as well. That is probably why it is one of Hornby's most expensive locos. Trouble is yes, it is now perfectly correct but how many people noticed it anyway, they probably would have sold more had they stuck with the original design and not priced the loco at such an expensive price. I have the old one and the new one and I admit the newer one is better looking but when they are both running on my layout you never notice it anyway. Last time I looked there was at least £100 difference between the new Hornby one and the older Bachmann one, which has not got to be good for sales. Then we have Hornby's suspect Quality Assurance which allows Sam the reviewer to get one with a duff motor, again not good for business.

I think the price of newsprint went through the roof plus a smaller market for magazines means that the price of every magazine is expensive. Then of course because the magazines are so expensive the market gets smaller and it is an ever diminishing circle. Of course the web has made things worse, if I want information as to new models I get mail shots from the major retailers although the magazines sometimes do articles on some things that don't appear on the mail shots.

The other disadvantages the Bachmann 9F has is the fiddly tender drawbar connection and the tender has no pickups. I imagine sound could be an issue as I doubt there is much room in them. I did put a DCC decoder in mine but I can't remember how much space there was.

On a lot of the later Zimo sound decoders the equivalent F1 function for a normal decoder is on the sound decoder function F6, which corresponds to the sound of shoveling. It is sometimes a good idea to put it on this one, as normally the firebox door will only be open when the fireman is shoveling coal.

Looks like I may have it wrong. On my YouChoos reference for a Zimo MX645 it lists AUX3 as F3 and AUX4 as F4. On some decoders they list AUX1 and AUX2 as the front and back lights which we know as F0, so in effect they are describing them by their physical channels in hardware. So AUX3 is equivalent to F1 and AUX4 is equivalent to F2 on a non sound decoder. On other Zimo decoders the control is on much higher function values, so as someone said you need to look at the function list for the particular implementation of your sound decoder. Alternatively if you don't have the function list then wire it up and basically find it via trial and error, I had to do that on a Dapol where they forgot to list firebox flicker although it was fitted. I have seen it on F25.

Generally with the list of sound functions there is generally an Aux2 function, that is the one to use. You could by the use of diodes/resistors on the front and rear light functions get it to come on with function 0. I have done it on one of my locos I just got to remember the simple circuit I used. I think if you connect the positive of the flicker diode to pin 7 (ref voltage) and then connect the negative to pins 2 and 6 via suitable resistors it should work by just using F0 the lights function. Generally steam locos don't have lights so a good solution.

I watched that review by Sam about the Bachmann 9F and how bad it was. Now I bought one of those ages ago, so I did my own tests on it. As far as I could tell no notable issues, ran perfectly ok with a four carriage load. As atom3624 said the paint job is better.

The 9F is a really nice model, I have one and I must admit it really is good runner but it is incredibly expensive. I bought mine when it first got released so it was a lot cheaper although still over £200.

At the moment there is a world wide shortage of microprocessors which is why it is so difficult to obtain many of the more popular DCC decoders. So unless Hornby are making their own microprocessors, I imagine the release data is heavily dependent on obtaining suitable electronic parts.

I am not so sure, the purple West Country only took off because sadly she died. They are incredibly expensive and virtually anyone that models has at least one already. I suppose they might appeal to collectors. I will stick to the HD A4s they are a lot cheaper.

Yes I have a similar question. There was all the fanfare, it even featured on the Hornby program. Since then it has all gone quiet.

I bought this Coca Cola Summer tram off Hornby, substantially reduced. It is DCC ready and has a 21 pin socket. It also has working lights.

I think you are right DarkRedCape. When I did do pre orders from Hattons they would reach a number and then say that they were sold out. Then several months later Hornby would tell Hattons that they weren't getting their initial allocation. Hornby do it with all their Retailers. I suspect business is not so good at the moment, hence the olive branch to Hattons, unfortunately too late. As to Hattons retail shop, TMC is similar, if you want a specific loco you have to find it on their webpage and tell them in the shop. They then get it from one of their sheds. They do have shelves of weathered stuff and buildings, but a big annoyance is that nothing is priced so you have to find it on their webpage. Try doing a search on their webpage with a mobile phone while you are in the shop, not easy.

Well finally sorted it with a lot of help from a really helpful lady at Hornby. Once she had contacted DPD who gave me a sat nav image it became obvious. People seem to use Google maps which in my case takes you to the back of my property, the road is completely wrong, but so what the computer is always right. The location it takes you to is a bunch of garages at the back of my property. Now most people with an once of intelligence would immediately realise something is wrong but we have a DPD driver. Obviously not seeing any front doors didn't deter them and decided to leave it at my neighbor's back gate (being end of Terrace I have side access, so no need of a back gate). Amazingly it was still there, seeing it is a public thoroughfare that is even more amazing. So thumbs up to DPD Local. On a more serious note the woman at Hornby Customer Service was so helpful, so thank you Hornby.

Well I found out why they didn't deliver yesterday. They delivered today to the wrong address. They left it at my back porch except I don't have a back porch. The photo is of an "old de worlde" house with an old oak door. There is no house in the immediate vicinity of where I live like that, so obviously they have delivered to wrong address. How you can do that woith modern post codes who knows?

I know atom3624 that is why I doubt they will have much success. I don't know but it is either a change of direction by the new boss or possibly Hornby is having difficulty getting pre orders for a lot of their products. As someone said to me many years ago, when the money gets tight the hobbies are the first to go. It was a Classic Motorcycle Spares Dealer who knew when a recession was coming because of the huge reduction in sales of spare parts for restoration projects. I wonder when Hornby will ditch their tier system, it looks like it is crumbling.

It is in cases like this that you remove the decoder replace it with a DC header and then check if the loco runs on DC. You also won't blow anything up if you do your testing on dc which you could easily do on DCC if you are playing with motor connections.

I am amazed that many people would take exception about the review of the TT set by Charlie. I too watched the video and it was a fair assessment of the product Hornby is trying to sell, why Peco would get so upset by a person recommending that if you are going to run TT then buy their track, defeats me. There again there seems to be a lot of illogical people around at the moment. He highlighted that Hornby got their circular track calculations wrong and I do wonder how many people returned their set or thought that they were doing something wrong when the track didn't line up properly. As to the rogue piece of sticky tape, again shouldn't happen. Hornby seemed to have this attitude of "that will do" which I am pretty sure was what British Leyland used to say. It is not acceptable on a modern product especially when Simon spouts on and on about it is all in the detail, well they definitely didn't bother with that one and many other things regarding TT. I suspect Hornby ventured into TT as the OO market is saturated and currently Hornby are not competing on price, quality and features with the other OO manufacturers so they need a source of revenue. To mess it up on a brand new product just shows how poor their processes are. As to Peco they want to grow up a bit, before they go the same way. Also what he said about TT was fair, if the other manufacturers do not venture into it, you are left with Hornby and we all know how reliable they are. OO, and N are well established less so O gauge so is there room for another gauge? Who knows.

Well after all the good words I said about DPD, today I saw their other side. I ordered a Coca Cola tram off Hornby due to be delivered today between 12.30 and 1.30 as I was waiting for a rep to come about fitting some doors I decided to clean the kitchen as its windows overlooks the front door. At about 12.45 gets a mail to say DPD tried to deliver my parcel. Needless to say I was amazed as if someone had knocked the door I would have seen them. So I decided to phone up DPD Local after I put the parcel number in, the voice said connecting you to the local depot and then the phone went dead. I then thought ok I will send an Email via their site. After filling in all the relevant data the form said "failed to send", 1 tried it 3 times and got the same. So it appears DPD are going the same way as all the others. I suspect the courier was behind schedule and took the easy option, by saying they tried to deliver but could not, thus saving a journey and not being late.

I got an Email from Hattons saying that they are taking pre orders for 2022 and 2023 items. Does that mean that Hornby have made up with them. On the other hand I doubt many people will be taking them up on their offer after what happened last time, a shame as it wasn't Hattons fault. It could on the other hand be a change of tack by Hornby's new chief exec.