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0036 The sorry state of N gauge loco quality control
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- Опубліковано 13 сер 2024
- I've had 30 brand new N gauge locomotives - I summarise how many of them had running issues, how Dapol compare to Graham Farish, steam vs diesel, and by the the year in which I received them. I then take a brief look at some cosmetic issues and some rolling stock issues.
I ran each of the locos that I didn't send back for refund around the layout in its current state, so there are plenty of new running shots 🙂
Last year's video: • 0010 Has Dapol lost th...
Just moving to N gauge & having researched on forums I have already decided to go down the Japanese route as I am not overly bothered about accuracy in running the correct loco's. I have a Tomix train which was a second hand new purchase. It runs amazingly on my Kato setup & the crawl is outstanding.
Having a broad interest in trains in general is an advantage - it gives you more manufacturers to choose between. I'm glad yours run well :) For me it's British outline trains or no trains, and even then there are plenty of designs I don't like... so I'm stuck with mainly Dapol and Graham Farish.
Ive never been keen on Dapol. The old club I was at once, we had a bit 00 gauge layout with lots of different locos and stock from all different decades.
The only issues we had were with Dapol rolling stock, namely the damn six wheel milk tankers. Droopy couplings, back to backs on the wheels so far out they fell off on straight track, bent and warped chassis which caused them to teeter totter on the centre axle.
and even now, my brand new Dapol large prarie in 00 stutters like a mother****** on practically every single point on my layout -_- I know the issue here though, pickups. Not aligned correctly, or possibly the "sprung" centre axle insnt sprung enough to keep at least one set of wheels on the track. Im thinking either stay alive fitting, or trying to fit extra pickups on one of both of the pony trucks. Ugh.
Personally, I would be nervous about buying any dapol models at all! With that said though, my dapol 00 gauge Class 121 is a delight. It does stutter sometimes though.....which is odd given that it has a total of 8 wheels collecting power.........its not that smooth either.....i might fit that with a stay alive aswell....I will see.
It sounds fairly dire in 00 too then - I guess the approach to quality control will apply across everything they make. I receive new Dapol locos with a bit of nervousness, but always safe in the knowledge they can be returned - there's no way I'll buy any from places other than retailers with reasonable returns policies.
Hi Jonathan! That was an excellent analysis of the state of N scale quality control! I hadn't thought it was quite as bad, but the numbers don't lie! I do think you've been a bit unlucky though! From the crossovers we have, I haven't had any problems with the Dapol HST, motor or dummy car! The frame on my Dapol 57xx is straight, and the loco runs okay, but does struggle at low speed sometimes! My sound fitted Farish 08 has been abysmal since day one, but after fixing it myself, I felt sending it back would be wrong! It actually ran really well for nearly a year, but has now failed again! Both of my Farish 37's have ran well since fitting with DCC, but didn't crawl very well on DC! I've also got the new Dapol 56 on pre-order, and also an A4, but I think the A4 is old tooling, so it will be interesting to compare with your experiences of Dapol tender driven locos! In terms of rolling stock, my main problem was with the Rapido Conflat P wagons that had poorly fitting wheels! They''re still working after some self maintenance, but it's annoying to have to perform it on an RTR model! Oh well! Hope you're a bit luckier with your purchases this year! All the best, Ian.
Hi Ian,
Thanks 🙂 30 in the grand scheme isn't a massive sample, so there's still room in there for luck to play a big part, as your equivalent models demonstrate, but I think it's big enough to form a general impression.
Yes I'm hoping for a better 2024 too - if everything is made available when currently expected it's certainly going to be an expensive year!
Hi Jonathan, very intersting vid and such a good idea. I mentioned in your first vid you did re Dapol steam loco's, that I too had purchased a 7MT Brittania loco. Unfortunately, I still haven't run it, so that should be fun! I hope you don't mind, in a few months, when I have wired up my points and bus, I'd like to do a similar type vid, I do think it's important to give feedback on what we all purchase for what is, let's face it, a fair chunk of change! Great vid and thanks for putting the hard yards in putting it together for us.
Hi, thanks 🙂 Wow you weren't kidding when you said it would be a while before you run it! Yes, by all means if you want to make a similarly-themed video that's fine - the more of the reality that's out there, the more informed everyone can be. Thanks - I was surprised at how long this one took to put together in the end, I'm glad people are enjoying it 🙂
Hello , it's not just the new purchases that are troublesome. I have a Dapol School's class (the third replacement , repaired and enhanced) and I've had for under two years. Now the motor has blown and it's another cost to have it replaced. Maybe that I'm unlucky with Dapol, but even my secondhand Farish locos run well.
Hi, sorry to hear your Schools class has been so troublesome. Yes, these locos need to not only work to start with, but ought to keep working for a reasonable amount of time. Mine don't do loads of running, so I may yet be in for motor failures in the future.
Umm, I am in the middel of replacing all bar one of my Dapol Locos with Farish with the odd Sonic for good measure. It is also worth saying that I have preowned Farish that work better than new Dapol. The only issues experienced with Farish have proved to be simple operator error when adjusting C.V's. 🙂
I think that shows Dapol reaping the result of persistent poor quality. I've done better with pre-owned Dapol from the Rails of Sheffield website, because they've tested them first.
@@endoorrailway Quite. Best of luck with the so called second generation Dapol Locos you have on pre order, I for one will not be bothering.🙂
Hi Jonathan, great video but what a shocker in terms of the quality of today’s N gauge locos! I am currently having a bad experience with a Dapol A4 and thus is the second one I’ve had and there will not be a third I’ve totally fallen out right now with Dapol!!! Hopefully you can keep the fleet going with no more failures! Cheers Gary
Hi Gary, thank you :) I enjoyed watching your video last night and was intending to comment on it - the stuttering of that A4 looked awful, sorry you've had to experience two bad ones :( Sadly I think there are more failures to come, but I live in hope that they'll be less frequent! My Class 59 should be arriving tomorrow :)
Extraordinarily professional and proficient work.
Not a fan of N gauge and never really have been, but I watched it end to end because of the intrinsic quality. Not sure I would buy Dapol - ever, as it appears from this that you are directly financing and 'enabling' the furtherance of enthusiastically poor quality goods. Consumers deserve better.
Thank you very much, that's very kind of you to say so 🙂 I'm glad you enjoyed it - videos like this one with lots of shots and lots of graphics take me many hours to make, so I'm glad it makes it enjoyable to watch!
Yes I've considered that - ultimately I face the choice of helping Dapol get away with it by buying their products, or I just don't have the trains to run at all. I don't think the quality is acceptable for consumers, but I also want trains... one of my motivations for making videos like this one is to erode how easy it is for Dapol to get away with it by making the issue more visible.
Hi Jonathan - really Interesting video. Pity you didn't include Revolution Trains. My count 4 bought - 2 good and 2 bad. Now I can tell you about the Class 59. I picked one up at Model Rail Scotland. Excellent model with fantastic pulling power - 10 Dapol Yeoman hoppers up my helix at half power. Going back to your video - it would appear all manufacturers seem to have issues with quality which is frustrating given the price we pay for models. Dapol do seem to come at the bottom of the pile when it comes to loco issues. That said I have to admit none of the Dapol diesels I have give me any real trouble - the exception being the HST's - which run fine in one direction but make a slight annoying grinding noise in the other. Very enjoyable video Jonathan. Cheers Euan
Hi Euan, thanks :) I was surprised to see you had a Revolution Trains 59 in a Short - last I heard from Rails of Sheffield they were due Feb/March - I'm looking forward to receiving mine, and hopefully the 50/50 odds you've experienced with RT aren't the overall norm!
Hi Jonathan. Wow - this is worrying! I have bought 92+ locos and (don't laugh/cry) I have only run one loco - this was my first ever purchase, a Graham Farish Seaside Excursion train set, and ran-in the Class 4F. I have still not laid an entire loop of track so now dread what I will find when I come to run my collection for the first time. Quite a few have been from Dapol and, because of how long ago I bought them, Dapol will probably not accept them back if they are faulty! What a dunce!
Hi Paul, I just looked back at last year's video comments as that sounded familiar! That's a nice big collection you have, I really hope you fare better than an 18 to 12 success ratio! I daresay it's very likely that at least some will be faulty, but you might as well give Dapol a try anyway - they might decide to be helpful. It might also be worth nailing a simple oval to a small-ish piece of wood that you can tuck away somewhere, just as a test loop. I think a lot of these locomotives don't come around again for many years, so it's worth buying when they're actually available, but also definitely worth a test when new. Good luck!
@@endoorrailway 😉👍
I mainly own Graham farish locomotives and rolling stock but also German and Japanese models as well including a few others.
A very interesting video! I have had the same HST dummy car issues on mine. I have a slight HST obsession, but this does mean I have a large sample size! Of my 22 pairs of power cars, 15 had the "issue". Those that didn't are all 5 of my older 6-pin DCC ready models, and only 2 from the new 18-pin (new motor) chassis ones. Those 2 are the most recent releases, so hopefully this is the end of the bad QC! I have thankfully found a fix to the dummy car issue, but its really not good enough! We shouldn't have to repair new models straight out of the box. But I will be fair to Dapol, they have always been extremely helpful, and have (so-far) always found a fix.
Your collection of HST is most impressive - you're well-placed to know what normal looks like for them! I agree that we shouldn't have to fix these things ourselves, but it seems to be a case of either that or not have the model. If it's relatively simple to explain, could you please let me know how you went about fixing the draggy dummy cars?
Thanks for this scary report 🙄 . Buying my equipment from overseas, I know that I am taking significant risks with BR Ngauge models.
To extend your list, here are 3 locomotives that I have problems with.
The first one is a Farish City of Birmingham coronation that I've paid less than 100 £. But the gearing was and is still stuck I've tried a repair, but I broke one tiny part. The second one was a Rapido class 28 which drives well in one direction and poorly in the other. 3 returns to Rapido. As they tell me they didn't find any issues, then I gave up.
The other is a freshly bought Sonic Model J50/3.
Some wheels are wobbling a bit, which creates current pickup problems.
I've owned 15 Ngauge BR locomotives, and have problems with only 3 of them. It seems that I'm a lucky guy. As I don't have any Dapol models is maybe the reason for these numbers 😁
Yes, luck can sway the stats both ways, but it seems to be common consensus that the worst odds are with Dapol. I hope your better luck continues!
Excellent video, it is off putting to new and existing modellers with the number of faults. The locos are not cheap to buy. The majority of my fleet are Union Mills Steam Tender Driven locos and I've only had a fault with one which was rectified. Unfortunately Colin of Union Mills has I believe retired. These locos are die cast with excellent pulling power.
Thank you 🙂 Yes, I do wonder what I'd have done if I'd known these statistics before I started buying locos! I expect that the current manufacturers have it within their capability to produce more reliable models, so I do find it a bit baffling that they don't.
I've had issues with brand new N gauge locos. I have found Kato and Fleischman to be the best quality and reliability. Many other makes have tended not to run consistently reliably - some died suddenly for no reasons I can fathom. I've found Dapol and Graham Farish problomatic.
Sounds like we could do with some extra manufacturers entering the British market.
Both my Dapol 9Fs and Q1s when they first came out ran badly and the only to ensure good running was to add additional weight in the tenders. The wheels do not like any dirt on tracks so they have be cleaned otherwise the locos can stutter.
Four bad ones - that's a sad story. Thanks for the pointers - I've learned to clean things regularly too!
Greetings Jonathan 👋 you definitely paint a more than fair picture of the lack of quality control given to N Gauge products by the various manufacturers 🤕 and Dapol are by far the worst 😢 which is such a shame 🏴 Simple things like making sure the wheel 🛞 sets are properly in the bogies are simingly beyond the wit of man 😤 Still can't understand why we love the scale so much 🤭 Very best wishes from the Emerald Isle ☘️
Hi Paul,
Thanks, yes it can be a bit disheartening at times! It's still definitely by far my favourite scale though, even with all this faff - plenty of detail but also possible to cram a lot into a small space 🙂
As someone who mainly runs Japanese and Chinese N scale, this pretty shocking, I have 9 HST's, 8 of which run great (including a 30 year old model), one that runs a bit rough, but no serious issues otherwise
It does seem to be the case that it's British outline locos that have the quality issues - maybe the market just isn't big enough here to get the scale of economy to do proper quality control.
Hello , I re-started in the hobby during lockdown. I used the old 1980's Farish stock - all now replaced. I have a small layout (on standard internal door). My experience with Dapol is worse than yours. The latest (Hymek and Class 57xx) are quite noisy- but as they move I kept them. Dapol are not my best runners and all have had to have repairs or enhancements. The biggest indictment for Dapol is that their official repairers (DCC Limited) have a 6-8 week turn round. I understand that Dapol's future plans are to move to Loco driven motors. Regards
Hi, ouch even worse is pretty bad! Great to hear of another railway on a door 🙂 Yes, the unrebuilt Bulleid light pacifics say "first Next Generation Steam model, with entirely re-designed chassis and electronics. This model will also incorporate our new locomotive mounted motor" - I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out. Thanks for your comment, all the best.
Bought a class dapol class 67 Wrexham and Shropshire bargain from rails of Sheffield last year. Fitted with DCC 6 pin decoder. Its speed control is not correct. It speeds up when lights are enabled and also speeds up when you try and slow it down. Brother in law changed its settings on his iPad for me but it’s still not totally right. Turned out not to be the bargain I thought it was going to be. I’m gonna try a different decoder in it sometime, maybe the Bachman one. Stick to Graham farish I reckon and you’re sometimes better buying second hand.
Those sound like very unusual issues! Quite a few people commented on last year's video with various woes, but not like that. Hopefully a new decoder will fix it! So far I've fared well buying "like new" second hand from Rail of Sheffield - that way you know the loco has actually been checked.
@@endoorrailway I agree. I bought a second hand class 24 diesel, the green one to compliment the red one I have and it’s been ok. Bought off eBay for £73 total and then bought a Bachman decoder from eBay for £23. Everything is ok. 👍
I have stopped buying Graham Farish and Dapol. All have had issues with poor running (mainly wheel wobble) Even rolling stock, has bad wheels that wobble. Even brand new replacement wheels in the pack. They look good but the quality is crap.
Whilst there are some British outline options from other manufacturers Dapol and Graham Farish produce by far most of the options, it would be great if the other manufacturers competed more directly and forced the quality up.
I think a lot of British N gaugers are just happy to have something to run. The quality has been very, very hit and miss.
I think that probably sums it up accurately and succinctly!
Ghosts in the Engine.
lol, the behaviour of that red 66 is certainly a bit irrational!
I'd stay away from dapol and stick to farish. Even better are Kato. Having said that, all mine are second hand and all superb runners.
It would be lovely if Farish made more, and it would be great if Kato would go much, much further than the Class 800s in British outline... but sadly Dapol are the only option in many cases.
US N quality does not compare, my score would be 99 good, one bad….i gave up on dapol steam years ago as they were all terrible….
Yes I've heard that a few times now - it would be nice if the manufacturers of UK outline things could do likewise.
have you considered the possibility your locos are being sabotaged by ewoks
I honestly hadn't! Perhaps it's a risk of a sound-alike name that I hadn't considered.
i think you have been a bit unlucky. diesel are definitely more reliable though. which is lucky for me.
I may well have been - statistically 30 isn't massive, so luck can still sway the proportions a bit. With more diesels on pre-order for 2024 than steam it'll be interesting to see what the stats are like this time next year - hopefully much improved 🙂
@@endoorrailway good luck in 2024 then ! hopefully everything runs nicely!!
Just not acceptable given the price.