Sometimes I don't understand how things get the ratings they do; "Doesn't work forwards, doesn't work backwards, requires a second mortgage to afford, and the designer personally slapped me in the face and insulted my mother. 3/5 stars, not too shabby."😁
@@SamsTrains I was thinking more of the star ratings which is something I've noticed a few times before you had the letter grading. Not a criticism, more of a humourous observation and I love your videos regardless.
Sam, if it was so poor back in 2010 that was a disgrace given the excellent running qualities of the Minitrix model from the 1970s. N gauge has been around since the 1960s so there is no excuse.
Sam made the terrible mistake thinking because dapol make good 00 means they make good n gauge. I'd recommend steering clear of n gauge from dapol regarding steam. There locos are ancient and graham farish are just 100% better. Please look at a class 31 from farish, decent detail, good lights, ABSOLUTELY SILENT MOTOR [almost ;D ]
@Londontransportduck not too bad but still very VERY flawed, there's a good reason dapol loco spares are so easy to find, I saw a 9f that was manufactured in at least 2020 and then proceed to watch the valve gear fall off while an old trix 9f and farish black 5 doing the rounds like they did from factory.
Don't agree at all. I have a large number of Dapol Locos and only one, a WR 0-6-0PT runs erratically. In recent weeks I have purchased 4 of their new Class 59 's, absolutely stunning! My Pines Express and East Anglian sets are also very impressive. Some years ago I purchased a number of reduced GWR / WR prairie tanks for about £35 each. All still great runners. By comparison the GF matchbox tank in the new Western Rambler set is useless, despite a return to the dealer.
Hi Sam. Dave Jones of DJM worked at Dapol before leaving to start DJM. After numerous bad experiences, I've sworn off Dapol N gauge steam locos. However, at some point, Dapol will release the loco drive Battle of Britain class, which will be interesting.
I have a Dapol 70013 Oliver Cromwell that I bought in 2016 I think (possibly the last N gauge loco I bought), and it is fantastic. It runs even slower than yours, and much smoother, doesn't derail, isn't noisy, and is immensely powerful. I've had it on 36 coaches on a large N gauge layout belonging to a friend before, with seemingly more power left in it. However, Dapol's main issue for me is quality. Their locos can vary from excellent to poor from loco to loco (my terrier is great, but my 57xx isn't), and their older 00 wagons are pretty poor too. And their 0 gauge, quite often I buy a wagon and put it in my bag, then when I get home one of the buffers has fallen off the bufferbeam.
JerseyBill here and I have sworn off any tender drive locomotives altogether from all brands. They all seem to have similar problems at some point no matter what scale and don't get me started about split chassis locomotives. lol. Great video and your assessment is accurate.
As an engineer, I can see that they used the Wong driveshaft for the job, the motor and loco are connected by these X heads, a type of driveshaft that become stiff in s motion (like curves), and so causing derailments. Had they used the round heads, which are more fexible. This loco would’ve been a good runner.
I personally love old tender drive locos in Ngauge, as you can replace the motor and mechanism with the little Kato chassis and pop the tender body back on top!. Its diecast, has a flywheel and costs under £30 :) Oh, and is also a brilliant base for 3d printed bodies.
To see (in my opinion) "how it should,d be done" get yourself a recent Kato Japanese steam loco. They are I feel some of the best running locos available. Even better than many HO/OO steam locos! Also exceptionally good value. At a direct exchange rate comparison (not counting post or customs) you could get a large 2-8-2 tender loco from Japan for less than £60!
@@SamsTrainsI have seven Btitts and in four different gauges, my ‘N’ is a Minitrix and my ‘O’ is an MMP kit built by myself. All brilliant runners. Regards from Ron. 👍🚂
Hi Sam, I hear you say in your review and expensive model costs around 200-250 pound, that is like 290€ for a locomotive. Today i bought this locomotive from Märklin number 39281. Here in Belgium this locomotive costs 339€ at the local store and around 400€ at Märklin, so that is around 290 to 340 pound. This is an entry level at Märklin as most locomotives cost around 400€ and upwards. Even a secondhand analogue model in good condition can set you back 120-200€ and then i'm talking about locomotives from 1986. To upgrade this old locomotive will costs you around 170€ to digitalize with new motor, decoder, sound and finetuning in speed. The point i'm trying to make: You review a lot of locomotives and you are right, some are absolute crapshows.. but getting crappy locomotives from the UK vendors like Hornby & co doesn't surprise me as the budget is limited to 200 pound is dirt cheap for a locomotive and you wouldn't even find a decent model for that price at Märklin.
Weirdly enough, I had a dream about a similar locomotive a few months back. I dreamt I was at the National Railway Museum, and at the back of the station hall, opposite a blacksmith’s shop for some reason, was a Britannia- type loco known as “The Flying Buccaneer”. The NRM doesn’t have a loco like this, and to my knowledge I’ve never seen one, but somehow it was manifested into my dreams.
Sam. I have just purchased the same loco pre owned from Clarks rail. It is DCC fitted and I had the same issue running it on my main layout. I found the problem with it was if you don't make sure that both floating bogie wheels are on properly on the front bogie. Since finding this out I sorted the problem out. I model in N gauge, but like watching your channel.
Top marks for naming and shaming Sam, it shows how good your videos are for someone else to try to pass off as theirs. Don’t be put off and keep up your faithful work to the hobby. Please
Great review Sam, loving the N scale content!! As a suggestion, i recommend you check out a N scale model from Atlas. They have a ton of really good American locos, i have a few myself and they all run really quiet and have good detail.
Ahh interesting - I've seen some great Atlas HO models so would like to try that! Thanks for watching, Sam :)
3 месяца назад
I have the lined version of this. If it bounces up at the rear - get it looked at or swapped. My first one had this issue, but died before I could do anything due to a power surge. The replacement doesn't bounce and has run a lot longer, so here's hoping it works for years to come. It also really doesn't like radius 2 or lower curves. Radius 3+ are fine. You also really need a straight before any sort of curve with this to be honest.
I can remember seeing No. 70000 ‘Britannia’ in Cardiff Central as if it was 5 minutes ago. I’s give anything to go back. Plus the coupling rods on this model look as if they have been straight out of the 3D printer without being sanded.
@@SamsTrains Cheers Sam. See my more recent reply after I watched your vid for some more info. I would recommend the most recent Farish steamers with coreless motors. Some still have issues, but if you get a good one they are excellent and well built. The new tooled Next 18 4F for instance, is a great runner, has fully detailed cab and lots of fine details all round.
Completely agree with most of the comments and I have had some of the usual issues with Dapol in general over the years. In general, I still prefer older Farish engines. I don't like the Dapol tender drive set up at all. Despite my better judgement I bought this exact same model (£130 bought at Rails in Sheffield in 2023). Well I liked the look of it! I checked the wheels for gap etc., and all were exact as they should be. Sure enough, even after initial standard set up maintenance it was very clunky around my track, occasional derailing for no obvious reasons. So I gave it a very long run on a rolling road (hours of it back and forward!) and it now runs really smooth around even R1 curves. It hasn't give any problems of any sort since and runs as I would have hoped.......
Enjoyed the review Sam! I've looked at these a number of times, but think I'll give them a miss until the tooling is updated! Dapol tender driven steamers don't seem to have a good reputation, but I've found that most of their diesels have been really good runners! I've got their 27, -31-, 33, 43, 50 and 122, and only the 27 had running issues which were easily fixed once I knew what the problem was! I'm a big fan of their "supercreep" motor, which works exceptionally well on DCC! Keep the N gauge reviews coming! :) All the best, Ian.
I have an N gauge Dapol 0-6-0 tender driven Q1, lovely looking loco, but I've nicknamed it `Straightline` as it seems any short radius points or tight curves it meets, it falls off the track, my Minitrix 9f 2-10-0`s and A4`s sail over them no issues
Hi, you have too many comments already for me to read through them all (managed 110), so apologies if I repeat what someone else has said. That was a great review, and sadly mirrors my experience of Dapol N-gauge tender steam loco running quality. I was bemused by it to start with, so made a video about it, and got plenty of comments from other people sharing similar experience. Of Dapol tender steam locos I had 1 good loco from 2018, and in 2022-2023 5 bad ones, one of which was a Britannia. The Britannia was the final straw - I don't buy any brand-new old-tool Dapol steam locos any more. I returned the Britannia for refund - during its backwards running-in it was regularly grinding almost to a halt - it didn't derail like yours though. When Hattons closed I wasn't tempted by any such "bargains" - I know I need the option to return for refund ;) An example of nice in-cab detail in British outline N is Graham Farish's LMS 4F. If you want to see how my Dapol Britannia ran it's here (linked at the appropriate timestamp): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yahiSgG5kIo.html
I have two Dapol N Gauge Britannia's and both are good runners! The drive shaft is fairly easy to reengage and not really an issue for me. I agree with one issue though and that is the drawbar. That looks very suspect in the way it can contort itself in an awkward way whilst in reverse and cause those derailments.
Great vid Sam. Finally an honest review on a big platform of a Dapol steamer; it's been a long time coming. I finally had time this eve to watch the full thing. I'm not sure you would remember, but when you reviewed two TT wagons some time ago we had a little discussion about prices and our conversation ended as follows: Sam: "Oh okay! Well that is ridiculous - EFE rail are consistently terrible value in my experience. A lot of the Dapol N scale stuff is pretty affordable though - £93.50 for a 2mt, £133 for a Britannia (retailer prices, so comparable to Hornby's with the club discount). So I'd say it works out at around the same as N gauge then Thanks for watching, Sam :)" My response was: "I think the sets are very good value in TT and the locos look stunning. I really wish you would review an N gauge steam loco by Dapol. You would be very surprised and probably not in a good way! They keep churning out engines that should have been redesigned. Us N gaugers have had to put up with some dodgy stuff over the years Sam!" So you can imagine how pleased I was to see you reviewing this loco. I had a feeling it wasn't going to go down too well. I wasn't pleased that you had a disappointing time with the loco of course, but that you could see the state of affairs as they stand. There have been a few issues with Dapol steam locos over the years that we N Gaugers have had to battle with including the following: Motors getting hot Wires between loco and tender breaking Valve gear very delicate and easy to bend Noisy motors Circuit board issues Cardan shaft disengaging easily Traction tyres causing wobbles Derailments Poor QC The list goes on. It isn't just steam locos that have issues, and it isn't just Dapol that have issues either. I have many horror stories as well as lots of lovely locos that run perfectly. In the past the magazine reviews all used to say 'Runs smoothly and quietly throughout the speed steps' and experience told us otherwise. I used to go to the Dapol open days and they are a nice bunch of people that mean well. I picked up a lot of NQP stuff for bargain prices over the years and got to chat to them. I don't have a beef with them, but it saddens me to see these old locos sold for such high prices these days with issues that haven't been addressed at all. The newest N gauge steam loco from them, which was the re-tooled M7 had quite a few issues. N gauge needs quality control and improvements or people will be put off for good. You have to love N Gauge to be involved with it but it can be as frustrating as it is fun!
Kato trains used to have thier early N scale Japanese steam engines with the motor in the tender, so seeing a "modern" N scale steam loco with tender drive is quite a suprise
An eye opening video Sam, I've got a Dapol A4 with the same loco to tender drive pinion that keeps falling out, I wouldn't consider another Dapol loco, Graham Farish all my locos run really well, I must say that in OO gauge I have a Castle and a Country locomotives for some time now, purchased new, no problems with these at all, J
Thanks so much for this vid, I love to see n gauge reviews, i have a very similar merchant navy class that behaves the same, its back with the dealer atm
The funny thing about the design is that the whole point of having the tender in the rear was so that one could stuff the boiler full of lead and use a weight transferring (bent down) drawbar to maximise the maximum possible weight on the driving wheels, but someone at Dapol didn’t quite understand!
Sam check the wires from the tender to the loco as they are a swine for breaking that will cause the erratic running, if mine start not running well this is the first thing I check 👌
Welcome to the wonderful world of Dapol N gauge tender locos Sam. I have a Schools class, looks great, runs in one direction on my layout, derails in the other direction. What you have to remember manufacturers very rarely revisit models in N gauge, Dapol especially. You can tell the best runners as they sell out very quickly, hence why you can find loads of Dapol tender locos available which have been around for a few years. Dapols locos are often too light, and inconsistant in their performance. Saying that my Dapol Terrier is fantastic and they did revisit the M7 and that again is great. For tender N gauge locos, its Graham Farish for me or (if you can get one) Union Mills, very little detail but magnificent runners. Dont be too disheartened, but be prepared for disappointment and a lot of tweaking to get them running
Ooh interesting so this isn't a one off loco then?? That is true - many of these tender locos have been discounted quite a bit over the past year or so. Graham Farish have been awesome for me so far - will try more! Thanks for watching, Sam :)
@@SamsTrains I don't think it will be Sam, especially not with the old dapol tooled engines. The trouble with N is that there is little competition, if you want a specific UK loco in OO you have choices, in N you don't (unless you want one of the main GWR or LNER locos), so you are stuck with whatever is available, good or bad. Or you try to get lucky on an auction site. But unfortunately these locos are often untested (my last buy from Hattons was unfortunately a 2nd hand dead duck), so you take a risk. Anyway, there are also some great locos out there, I thoroughly recommend Dapols Terrier and the Farish Fairburn tank. Good luck
I'm on the third School's class after the first 2 would not work at all. The problem I find is the thin connectors linking the tender and loco - they are just too thin. It's not the drive shaft. Last month after 15 months the motor seized up. Sam , stay away from Dapol N gauge tender locos.
Regarding tender motors with a cardan shaft to the loco I have a couple of Rivarossi Royal Scots, (scale somewhere between OO & HO - a bit strange...), with this set up and it works very well - they are lovely runners. The OO gauge Graham Farish King, Merchant Navy and Black 5 locos from the early 1950's also used this configuration but with a very odd 2-pole motor, which runs fine if it does start to run, but which unfortunately isn't exactly guaranteed!!
15:05 - My Graham Farish 4F has painted cab detail, so that might be one to try :) . I also have a Dapol Britannia, but sadly, it's been one of my worst locos. It's always been wobbly and stuttery - and now, the wires connecting the loco to the tender have broken, so it's picking up from the tender wheels only (which tend to get very dirty). Needless to say, I don't run it very often!
The two Dapol steamers I have are this one, and the 9F. By chance for me, both are correct runners. I might be lucky... Honestly, on Dapol N, their diesels are less circonvoluted. I have a class 22 and a class 35 from them, nice models overall. By the way Sam, I'm running them on 280mm curves minimum (Tomix track, 17mm broader than your second radius Peco), that might help...
I would be carful with dapol tender engines as most of them have quite bad running problems but dmu's, emu's, diesels and saddle/pannier tanks will be fine. P.S-great vid
I bought a Dapol A4 with a similiar mechanism some time ago. Detail wise it was light years ahead of my ancient Farish A4. Unfortunately it ran horribly and derailed a lot when it ran in a clockwise direction and was awful over points. I bought it from UK and had it sent to Australia. So sending it back wasnt worth the trouble. I tried all the tips as found online to sort it to no avail. All in all it was very disapointing, So It got sold off and I went back to my old Farish A4.
In my experience many n-scale locos need a lot of running-in; much longer than the recommended standard 30 minutes each way. Both my Panniers were poor runners from new; after many hours' use they now run smoothly and quietly.
The drive shaft solution thing is very similar to older German Arnold tender engines. German Railways class 18.4 or class 01 had these too. But with those, it worked fine. Roco also did this in the 80s with their N scale class 44. Compared to Fleischmann's tender- driven engines they work and pull really well. Those tender driven things run superbly, as long as they are run on super even track and are maintained wrll. If not, they'll get stuck hopelessly on any slight bump or push the engine along with fully stuck wheels... So there have been quite shitty steamers in N scale. I guess with this one it's down to that weird and really coarse drawbar. Never seen anything like that.
You should do a video at some point where you go into that storage closet with the old broken models, pick out like 5 that are in poor condition, and then see if you can fix them up. It wouldn't be like Salvage or Scrap where there's a time limit, just unpressured repair work.
Beautiful looking loco considering the scale, but in my opinion no where near as good looking as an 00 gauge version- I think for the price it at least needs cab detail! Great n gauge review sam, as always!
I would beware of buying old stock at a knock down price from discount merchants. I don't collect N gauge, except by mistake! I got an N gauge coach at a knock down price on eBay thinking it was OO. I laughed when it came! Have fun and keep the reviews coming.
Its getting better these days but traction tyres are still used quite a bit in N gauge. I think a lot of it is due to weight. If i take them off my farish A1 it wont pull anything at all (but that js tender driven)
If you want to review a far more primitive version of that mechanism, take a look at an old Graham Farish OO loco (5MT, King, Merchant, NYC Hudson), 2 pole motors (which run far more reliably than people make them out to), rather awkward to disassemble but easy enough to rebuild too
I recommend for a different style of review the Leyland fleet line by rapido many route options, a couple livery’s and are incredibly detail and come with lights just a recommendation, great video.
I wonder if the derailing problem isd something to do with the drive shaft coupling? It looks like the tender is "twisting" and derailing perhaps? O wonder if you ran it on a stand, and checked to see whether there is a torque problem when the connection between cab and tender binds with part of the loco on curves, causing the tender to twist, and derail?
Oh Sam, defeated by a n scale model. I don’t blame you though. N scale models made with plastic never want to stay on the rails without some lead. Thanks as always!
Hi mukka, There is,no orange lining which is a big omission and detracts from the overall look. Is that correct or has Dapol dropped the ball on this? Shame Hattons has closed... you could have sent it back. Now you are stuck with it. 😢 Cheers from Oz. Gaz
@Simon-Davis ahhhhh, thanks for the info chum. That is good to know. Never knew that. So it seems austerity and cost cutting was rife even back in the 1960s. They look tacky and cheap without lining. Certainly helped Dapol with saving a few pence as well by the look of it. It would have looked fabulous with the lining; those locos looked smart when adorned with some love and attention. Shame they were merely relegated to deserving just a once over with a spray gun. Sad.
@@GaryNumeroUno Such cost cutting measures were rife on BR back in the day. Money was being haemorrhaged left right and centre with a bloated workforce and dwindling revenues. Brand new diesels weren't being cleaned properly so their reliability suffered, they too were being painted in no frills 'economy Green'. Coaches were being turned out without lining, stations were being denied even basic maintenance. The nationalised railway was a complete and utter mess, people seem to forget just how bad it really was and only view things through rose tints. To be fair to Dapol, they've done a multitude of versions of this model over the years, the majority of them being lined green (in the same incorrect shade as Hornby liked to use at one point). With such a large number of models produced, they have also covered the one offs and less usual variations as well; this being one of the less usual.
This wasn't Dapol's first N scale loco as they acquired Minitrix toolings of British trains in the mid-80s or early-90s. I'm not sure when they started in O scale, though. Around the time this model was introduced, Dapol was awarded the title of N-gauge Manufacturer of the Year.
Just wondered why you didn’t fix the back to backs, to see how it would run with correct gauging. The Brits and other Dapol loco’s I’ve seen on the club layout all run fine.
Age of the model is no excuse. I get some humor on how amazed you get with certain features, detail and smooth mechanisms in N scale; that they should be so good at this size. There were excellent N-scale models way back in say 1980 nevermind 2010. Kato you're familiar with, but there was also Arnold Rapido and Con-Cor, and by 1990 Atlas was making decent models, so Dapol making this unreliable loco back in 2010 is no excuse. And locomotives with drive shafts in N-Scale was out of vogue in 2010 and usually when you did see N-scale steam locos with drive shafts they were tiny American 4-4-0 locos from the year 1860 from Bachmann, not large 4-6-2s from the mid 20th century. All the steam locos I saw from virtually every manufacturer had loco mounted drive systems including Rivarossi 0-4-0 tank engines (of course to be fair it would be impossible to a DCC to many of these engines). So for once I am harsher in judgment than you.😅
I don't much like the Dapol N scale tender locos, the pickup solution to the tender breaks apart very easily and the motor shaft goes through the cab, making it quite unrealistic. Not planning to get any more Dapol tender engines in N. :(
Back in the late 80s I bought a SNCF class 241P steam loco made by Joef, that had the motor and gears all in the tender. So wondering why Dapol didn't just have the tender driving the loco, would've used the weight of the motor for traction.
My guess is that the dodgy gauging is causing the flanges to interfere with the rather large fishplates, which explains those large "jumps"; they act like speedbumps in a McDonald's drive thru.
If OO/HO gauge tender drives kinda suck, I can't imagine this in N scale. Granted, I have the old 4-4-0 American by Bachmann. Had two, sold one after it sucked when running because the tender wheels don't turn properly. Then I got one for free from a friend, serviced it, it now runs to a certain degree without the motor burning out. I was actually very close to buying this last year, but now, I'm glad I didn't. I am looking for the M7, which seems to be a more modern tooling with cab details. While I understand your disappointment, I would love to see a review of it or the 14xx. A shame, but it looks like Grafar will be a better choice.
If I can get nicely detailed N-scale steam locos, I think that'd be my choice for a layout. I think it'd be rather nice to have a more elaborate layout with more scenery, buildings, roads, yards, etc. However, I'm not naive enough to believe it's easy to create reliable locos in that scale. Hence why I'd also consider tt120 if Hornby wasn't being so stingy.
I know all modellers should expect the models they buy (whatever the age) should at the very least work. But, Sam, you have proven yourself to be a damn fine constructor and modification expert, so what about doing a series of videos in which you attempt this with underperforming models? New motors, pick-ups, wheels, etc, and get your 3D printers stuck in. Even lighting and interiors, if you want to push yourself. I cannibalise old and broken models to make weird Frankenstein engines, but only because i haven't got your tools and skill levels. So, glass half full ? New content? Cheers and love to Chloe 😊
The argument that they could not get small motors is crazy, way back in the early 1970's Marklin launched Z gauge so small motors did exist. This loco has a silly power train, hence the jerky running
if you think this is bad you should try a manor class. I bought mine second hand as non runner or spares and repairs as cheap as £50 just needs a new wire or traction tyre. I haven't bought any dapol steam locomotive from new. The motor is call super creap but it should really delete the e out of creap.
Had similar issues with Dapol A4 Seagull. Noisy and not happy on size 2 curves. Also tender came away from loco and had to reconnect the drive. With n gauge I have had a few issues generally with the motion jamming. I find n scale diesels pretty trouble free.
You will have to learn how to get the drive shaft back in- the Britannia is the most difficult of the Dapol steamers to do. My Britannia is one of the earliest ones and has run reliably over 25 exhibitions, knocking up about 40 to 50 actual miles in service. In that time it has had a service at DCC Supplies with precautionary replacement traction tyres. However you are reviewing a loco that is the best part of 10 years old. My 22 A3s and 17 A4s from Dapol are workhorses and again all run high mileages. In the same period I've worn out three Farish A1s on similar duties. One way to preserve traction tyres is to NEVER EVER push the loco along by hand.
It probably has gears to each wheel as the rods look to be plastic and are just along for the ride. They don't need to be strong they are cosmetic. A suggestion. Would it be possible to obtain a spare front driving axle and do away with the driving bands on the rear by fixing a spare front axle in its place?
That’s unfortunate that one, the overall appearance of the model looks quite good and I do like the brittanias, I like the yellow axleboxes on this model, it’s also something I really like on my OO gauge standard design locomotives, as N Gauge is my dads scale he doesn’t have one of these but not because of the derailing issue, he just isn’t much of a fan of the standard locomotives compared to me. Sent a tweet to you a couple of hours sam regarding something on the Kernow Railmotor, not sure if you have seen it yet though.
Hi Sam. It might be worth regauging the wheels if you can, though I suspect the main culprit is the wonky drawbar between the engine & tender. Try 3D printing one. It’d be a shame to send this one to the scrapper like its prototype. 😢
I have 5 9fs, lovely runners and detail, better on DCC , rough running on DC.??, all my points are Peco long radius, or medium, perfect running, no problems...
Hi Sam, real shame you got a bad Dapol. They’re not immune to poor examples like every manufacturer. I have several Dapol N gauge engines without any any issues including the Ixion Manor they made a few years ago. I personally recommend them as I’ve had no issues but I’m aware a number do and sadly are very focal. I wouldn’t write them off but they’re very good in my opinion.
