Accurascale have a Manor underway

[Bigmet]

There have been hints that Accurascale would produce some OO steam locos, (and I hope some matching steam era stock) and they have now announced a Manor. https://accurascale.co.uk/blogs/news/to ... locomotive

There's a test shot from the tooling so clearly they have been working at this some time, and there's lots to like in the specification. Plenty of metal in the loco bodywork for a start, something Hornby are increasingly using, to the advantage of their models that have it. All the detail is in the announcement link; I am an interested bystander on this one, as an indicator of just what we can expect from subsequent steam introductions...

[End2end]

"There is also a flickering firebox light in the cab and in DCC this employs ESU’s intelligent flicker to synchronise the effect with the sound from the speakers."
Very clever and very tempting!
Thanks
End2end

[Bigmet]

I will wait for the 'unintelligent driver' option, forgot to put the blower on while coasting at speed into a small bore tunnel and has a cylinder of flame rocketing out of the firehole. Shame that you won't be able to see the effect because the loco is in a tunnel, but good to know that this event is provided for...

I must write to Paul Isles, now with Accurascale, about emulating Bachmann's screw locked adjustable spacing loco to tender drawbar. Easily the best method on offer in OO, as firstly the drawbar is where it should be, and it can be set to scale spacing if the layout curves permit, or as close as possible if they don't. So very simple, you'ld a thunk every manufacturer would have picked it up by now, but not so...

[Paul-H]

Was very surprised to hear they were using a 3 pole motor in it, thought 5 pole was standard these days or did I miss hear that in the Video (Quite possible these days).

[Bigmet]

Three pole motor: it is in print in the spec in the link in the opening post. And a good design of three pole motor is very good: I can make three direct comparisons of the same mechanisms fitted with five pole and three pole motors, and the on track performance seen 'blind' yields no clues which is which.

[Bigmet]

https://accurascale.co.uk/blogs/news/go ... and-update
Progress report. Intention to pick up on some areas for improvement, but overall already looking neat and tidy; though I am no expert on Swindon's doings so others may well see aspects I miss.

[Bigmet]

Promising a 'running on the rails' video of the production version in the near future, so we can have a good look at the smoothness achieved when the mechanism is working as intended. (They have shown an engineering sample of the assembled model on a rolling road, and it appears rotationally smooth enough; but with the usual visible 'wobbles' on the rollers, that are typically not evident on the rails.) As someone who won't be buying, my interest in it is as an indicator of what may be expected from subsequent products from this source.