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Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:00 am
by earlswood nob
Good morning all

SEF do a Buckjumper kit, which was upgraded a while ago.

It's a lovely loco and can be built in several versions.b

Earlswood No

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2019 12:31 pm
by Hatfield Shed
Or you can carve about a J72, with new tank, cab and bunker wall overlays and new tank tops and roof to make a reasonable 'lookee-likee', if you go in for that kind of thing. The GER/NER relationship is quite apparent if you embark on this project: we put the dome 'here' at Stratford, 'there' at Darlington, style; much in common underneath the external differences.

Quite how this very neat class has avoided a RTR OO model eludes me! I did suggest to the previous Bach MD when it became clear that the J72 would have to be wholly renewed, that going for a different class - yes Stratford's - rather then competing with a mountain of your own decent looking s/h product, (and the endless bleating for mechanisms to be sold separately) might be the better choice; but that clearly didn't make the cut...

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:14 pm
by 65447
Hatfield Shed wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 12:31 pm Quite how this very neat class has avoided a RTR OO model eludes me! I did suggest to the previous Bach MD when it became clear that the J72 would have to be wholly renewed, that going for a different class - yes Stratford's - rather then competing with a mountain of your own decent looking s/h product, (and the endless bleating for mechanisms to be sold separately) might be the better choice; but that clearly didn't make the cut...
A model J69 was planned by Airfix and would have gone into production had that company not gone into liquidation. Hornby had previously developed an N7/3 but acquired the Airfix tooling for the N2 and made that instead. The N7/3 sample was numbered 69633 and is said to have survived.

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2019 8:38 am
by Hatfield Shed
65447 wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:14 pmA model J69 was planned by Airfix and would have gone into production had that company not gone into liquidation. Hornby had previously developed an N7/3 but acquired the Airfix tooling for the N2 and made that instead. The N7/3 sample was numbered 69633 and is said to have survived.
Shame to have 'lost' the Airfix J69, as if to the standard of their other tooling - such as the N2 - it would still be useful today. A friend who is quite interested in the development of RTR model ranges has never shown me that, but has chapter and verse on all
the Triang-Hornby/Hornby 'might have beens'. My reaction to it is that the business seems to have invested steadily in scoping potential new subjects for the range, and then deciding not to go ahead after all on practically all of them. Stagnating in short by not doing enough towards increasing choice. But then again we had a good choice from the kit makers.

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:32 pm
by RayS
Accdg to Hattons, the BR N7 is moved backwards still further to Oct-Dec. What's the betting we don't see them this year? Why was production space wasted on the photographic grey versions - surely a minority interest. :(

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 7:11 am
by exile
I think you will find that photographic grey was in fact pre-grouping war time austerity grey - used from around 1915 - 1923.

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 8:09 am
by jwealleans
... and still being used up (although maybe not on N7s) in 1927.

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2019 12:42 pm
by 65447
Oxford Rail have notified today (10/10/19) the availability of the early BR version at £114.95 MRP:

www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/products/br-ear ... -or76n7003

Note discrepancies in the product details re running numbers and suchlike - the heading states 69621 (the last Stratford-built N7), the photograph shows 69612 and the text states 9621...

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 3:35 pm
by RayS
69612 arrived today - thanks Hattons. Back-to-backs checked and seem all correct. Only time for a quick run up and down through a few Peco points. Runs very quietly and smoothly. Not being a rivet counter I am very happy to have a nice little GE loco, apart from the overlong couplings. I am toying with using Vitrains ones, which are much shorter and without a socket, but the tiny wedge that fits into the triangular gap on the chassis is too small and would need padding out with plasticard to make a tighter fit. Any other ideas?

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:13 pm
by mick b
If ?? they are the normal NEM style coupling .

Cut the back off the coupling box and then glue them to the mounting pronged part of the coupling. That will pull them in by at least 3mm .

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:51 pm
by RayS
Thanks Mick b - I have just done that for the rear one; the Vitrains idea is fine for the front; altogether much neater looking and both work fine forwards and backwards, with freight stock at least.

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:04 pm
by RayS
First try to post a pic - my N7 with shortened couplings

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:15 pm
by RayS
Try again

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:24 pm
by drmditch
I hope that works!

(I find that on my railway the coupling bar needs to be outside the buffers - to avoid buffer locking.)

Re: Oxford Rail N7

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:19 pm
by RayS
Front coupling bar 1.5mm ahead of buffers; rear about 2mm beyond. No probs so far.