East Coast & GNER HST power car deco samples have arrived

[Neil Dapol]

[JeremiahBunyan]

GNER one looks amazing! And I think you'll have nailed the shade on silver on the East Coast units too.

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[carderrail]

Wow. the East Coast one looks great. This is going to be expensive..

[Ben A]

They look really nice.

I appreciate that it may be a trick of the light, but the East Coast wording looks a little too orange-red to me - my recollection is that the lettering was slightly more purple.

Might be worth just double checking.

cheers

Ben A.

[JeremiahBunyan]

Now that Ben has mentioned it, I do agree. However due to the intensity of the white I feel it is simply the lighting.

Also to my eyes the power car on the left seems to have a slight bow to the upper edge of the white part of the livery.

[JackD09]

Both look great, but on the east coast version the front cab window (next to the cab door) should have black around it in a triangle shape.

[Neil Dapol]

Hi these samples are under review at the moment. thank you for your feed back, this is being incorporated into our comments for the factory.

[Nealjennings125]

Excellent both samples are looking very good especially the GNER Powercars, I look forward to seeing them released.
Thanks, Neal.

[JR_P]

Ben A I concur with your observation that the East Coast writing is the wrong colour (caveated by the fact that it could be the lighting, the contrast of my screen, etc, etc).... the colour should def be more pink.

Neil Dapol these look pretty good - the GNER yellow colour could be more ‘saturated’; it looks a bit washed-out. By contrast, the orange band looks a bit bright and should be slightly more ‘dusky’.... nevertheless, a good start. Again, could be a ‘trick of the light’. Finally, please could you also provide head-on photos; primarily it is the light cluster arrangement i’m Interested in.

[resolve10]

Good to see these progressing. A couple of pretty significant errors though, if I may point them out:

East Coast:

The East Coast logo is too high up the bodyside. If you were to run ruler through the stripe, it would line up with the upper door handle on the cab door, but on prototype images it looks like it should actually be somewhere between the two door handles. This suggests the placement is too high by a few millimetres.

GNER:

The colours look good to me, which was the thing I was most concerned about. The typeface for the power car numbers and the 'nameplate' is wrong though, and lets it down hugely. Could this be looked at? Fox Transfers do them in the correct typeface, but not everyone will want to rename/renumber them. This is an area I've noticed Dapol get wrong often (DB liveried locos as an example) but it's important as it gives the loco/power car its identity so it is often closely scrutinised.

[JR_P]

Yeah, I second the comment about ‘DB’ - the aspect ratio of the letters is wrong - too tall versus width. Quite apparent on the Cl 67.... a bit disappointing - by contrast GF have it spot-on with their models.

[Joel Dapol]

Thanks for the feedback, some good observations made.

[Hedley r]

Hi I also think that they’re amazing as well and I love them both so it’s going to be a bit difficult for me to choose between them
hedley

[JeremiahBunyan]

Any news about decoration samples of the other two liveries?

[Joel Dapol]

Yes, we have had samples but there are issues that need correcting. These have been fed through to the factory and we are waiting for the re-submissions. The VEC and GWR liveries are trickier than most people might expect.

[JeremiahBunyan]

Can't comment about the GWR one, though I do understand sometimes liveries that look simple can be a pain.

The VTEC one was going to be a headache anyway. Coca-Cola cans do have a lot of swirls, imagine that on an HST...!

[DavidInYork]

Any news on when these might appear? It's looking likely that the Virgin branding will have disappeared from the real ones before the model appears (VIrgin / Stagecoach are out on 24th June)!

[Ian3721]

Hi Joel, is it possible to get an update on the HSTs. From the point of view of getting funds ready etc

[resolve10]

Judging by ads in the modelling press these should be in stores this month, looking forward to them!

[JeremiahBunyan]

More likely July. Fingers crossed though.

[resolve10]

Looks like you were right Jeremiah, still no sign of them. Maybe a hold up in transport but at least they're on the way, it would be ridiculous business to take out a half page ad promoting their arrival for them not to be here imminently. It's already a bit embarrassing that they didn't turn up in the month they said, but at least we can be fairly sure of seeing them in the next week or two.

[JeremiahBunyan]

Well a lot of things go on behind the scenes. Lots of it beyond the grasp of Dapol and the factories and things get delayed.

I don't find it embarrassing (rather a strong word for what is essentially a hobby to keep us occupied). It happens to every model train manufacturer. This is not only a Dapol problem. At best model train manufacturers can make a plan and give you an ETA, no one has made promises here and none of us have paid money upfront to Dapol and signed an agreement in blood to have it delivered at a time agreed upon by two parties. I've been noticing quite a few people imagining promises being made lately and I've looked back and found none.

Last of all I don't think such delays are intentional by anyone. The factories in China want to get paid and therefore they want to produce models. Dapol wants to get paid therefore they'd prefer selling models rather than having them delayed.

Sometimes people get a little too serious about a hobby, and not necessarily in a good way.

[resolve10]

Ironically, that's quite a serious post in itself.

All I was saying it was embarrassing that they've spent presumably a not insignificant amount of money on taking out a full page ad, with incorrect information on it. Which it clearly is.