and this arrived this morning....

[JeremiahBunyan]

According to a post recently on the Dapol facebook page, the Class 68 is in production IIRC.

[DRS Crewe On A Mission]

Hi all,

Is their an update on the OO Gauge Class 68s please? Are their any final sample photos of the three liveries? Has production started?

Another query that I have is what manufacturers DCC Decoder are the OO Gauge Class 68s going to be fitted with?

Thank you very much in advance.

[Bondy]

After seeing the sample, I am looking very much forward to the release. Well done to all involved

[Joel Dapol]

The sample shown was the that photographed at the start of the thread. Apart from some small tweaks, they were very happy with the rendition and the colours used. I guess they should be as they gave us the colour references :-).

[Spirit of the lakes]

So is there a photo of the final livery that's been passed by Drs Joel

[JeremiahBunyan]

I think that's a plausible estimate. Jan-Feb I suppose!

[ben68009]

So will we see them arriving January 2017 then? I'm very glad that approval has been given now.

[Joel Dapol]

That's the plan, we will start the tooling on this very shortly.

[JeremiahBunyan]

So that means the N gauge one will follow suit from early 2017? I initially wanted a DRS one, but since rumours spread about TPE and Northen Belle considering these locos I decided to wait (also goes easy on the wallet). Maybe a DRS one later.

[Joel Dapol]

Approval has now been given to the livery subject to a few tiny changes and production has been scheduled for later this year.

[ben68009]

Any updates mate?

[Joel Dapol]

We have a meeting soon with DRS and hopefully will post good news after.

[159220]

Did DRS approve? Would be super to see the final livery samples.
Seeing as TPE plan to use 19 x 68s, this would leave DRS with only 2! (Depending when the 2 x AGA are returned, then 4). I can see an additional order of these superb multi-modal locomotives.

[Joel Dapol]

I think you must take a very different view on the post than I do, you see I was at the event and certainly all the models ran perfectly all day. There was a small period of time when the Class 68 did not run but that was because Richard and I did not know the DCC address for the loco and had to wait for Andy to set it. Other than this, it ran flawlessly. The A4 chuffed and puffed throughout the event continuously and has now run for more than 200 hours. As Andy has stated he did not have any altercation with anybody and this coupled with the comments made about the models, would lead me to believe this was just a particularly nasty and childish attempt to discredit our new models.

You are correct in that 68-ROB has been put on moderated status, the reason being he/she made some personal and professional accusations regarding one of my colleagues that breaks the code of conduct rules set for the Digest. Factor this in with the `factual inaccuracies' he/she posted, in my view are perfectly justifiable reasons for a moderation of his/her future postings.

With regard to the Class 68: Delivery dates are always an estimate and until liveries are finalised a firm production date cannot be given. This is true for all manufacturers as I am sure you are aware. We feel the current livery samples are virtually there now and once this is confirmed we will be able to ascertain a delivery date with more certainty. This is the reason for the movement of the expected delivery date and not as 68-ROB implied rather nastily through a mechanical or technical issue.

I am interested in your particular area of expertise as you appear to be able assess apparent `flaky decisions' so well. In my view producing an accurate scale model of a water tower (with and without sound) may not be everybody's cup of tea, but in my view may have a place for some. We like to think we serve a broad spectrum of hobbyists at Dapol and if this means certain of our products sometimes do not appeal to the more traditionalists, c'est la vie as they say.

Finally, I would just like to fill a little knowledge gap for you, Andy and Richard have been working with Dapol for three years now and both have been involved with many key Dapol products already.

[Steve]

As I wasn't there and without witness from anyone who was, we can only take what we read at face value. I would not have bragged about a private conversation even if it took place at a public event, but is an indiscretion sufficient reason to paint the OP as creating a construction of lies?

68-ROB claims to be reporting a conversation which took place after a some kind of confrontation which Richard defused. On the whole he sounds very positive about it all. Richard must have done a great job in calming him down and probably answered questions whilst doing so.
The thing is, none of his claims have been denied or even commented on properly. Richard posts on this forum, but has not involved himself, as well as this, the same person he complained about has removed his replies and banned him from further un-moderated postings. There is rather a vacuum of reply

Meanwhile, Hattons have put the class 68 delivery as delayed again, does this mean there could there be truth in all this? There does seem to have been some flaky decisions at Dapol before Richard became involved. - Water towers anyone?