I hope everyone had a fantastic xmas and is continuing to enjoy some festive cheer. The new raft of covid measures meant our xmas was even less social than we planned it to be. Luckily, I have a fantastic partner, so we still had an amazing time. On the regulatory 3 hrs on xmas day, my parents popped over for lunch. My dad has started to build an 0 gauge layout and wanted to have a go with a DCC controller, so I set up Charlton ready to have a beer and run some trains. I got some trains ready to go and put my Dapol class 122 on the track, turned on the sound chip and pressed the throttle. The motor turned away but the unit would only crawl. This was very strange, as I have only run the class 122 at a few exhibitions, so I was surprised it had given up the ghost. Some googling found out that the Dapol class 121/122 have a raft of well known motor problems. I managed to take the unit apart, damaged a few detailing pieces and eventually I sorted out the issues.
Both of the motor drive shafts have a head that had come loose, meaning the drive shaft turned but it would not turn the gears. A lot of people on RMweb removed one of the drive shafts, so the motor only drives one set of wheels. I followed this fix, removing one drive shaft completely, whilst super gluing the drive head onto both ends of the other drive shaft, before refitting it. It is a very fiddly job to do, as the drive shafts are beneath the PCB board. After this experience and seeing that many other modellers have suffered the same issue, I am not buying a Dapol locomotive again. This is a personal blog and it is only my opinion, but I am really furious that a train that has seen very little running suddenly gives up, due to poor production quality. The (upcoming) story of the Hornby class 50 is a similar tale. These trains are not cheap, especially when sound fitting the locomotives and it is infuriating after all that detailing, for the train to be not able to run due to design faults.
Anyhow, having sorted out the problems on the class 122 (it was spread over 2 days, which included a lot of blaspheming!) I spent some time running some trains this evening. It was great fun and I caught some evening videos of trains running with the lights on. Other project continue to make good progress, with the class 45 just needing putting back together (a job for tomorrow) with the sound chip added and the python wagon only needs one more coat of varnish. All in all plenty of progress and all of the new baseboards for a roundy roundy layout are ordered! Bring on the spring!!
