I mainly own Graham farish locomotives and rolling stock but also German and Japanese models as well including a few others.

Just moving to N gauge & having researched on forums I have already decided to go down the Japanese route as I am not overly bothered about accuracy in running the correct loco's. I have a Tomix train which was a second hand new purchase. It runs amazingly on my Kato setup & the crawl is outstanding.

I've had issues with brand new N gauge locos. I have found Kato and Fleischman to be the best quality and reliability. Many other makes have tended not to run consistently reliably - some died suddenly for no reasons I can fathom. I've found Dapol and Graham Farish problomatic.

Hi Jonathan. Wow - this is worrying! I have bought 92+ locos and (don't laugh/cry) I have only run one loco - this was my first ever purchase, a Graham Farish Seaside Excursion train set, and ran-in the Class 4F. I have still not laid an entire loop of track so now dread what I will find when I come to run my collection for the first time. Quite a few have been from Dapol and, because of how long ago I bought them, Dapol will probably not accept them back if they are faulty! What a dunce!

Both my Dapol 9Fs and Q1s when they first came out ran badly and the only to ensure good running was to add additional weight in the tenders. The wheels do not like any dirt on tracks so they have be cleaned otherwise the locos can stutter.

Hello , I re-started in the hobby during lockdown. I used the old 1980's Farish stock - all now replaced. I have a small layout (on standard internal door). My experience with Dapol is worse than yours. The latest (Hymek and Class 57xx) are quite noisy- but as they move I kept them. Dapol are not my best runners and all have had to have repairs or enhancements. The biggest indictment for Dapol is that their official repairers (DCC Limited) have a 6-8 week turn round. I understand that Dapol's future plans are to move to Loco driven motors. Regards

Extraordinarily professional and proficient work. Not a fan of N gauge and never really have been, but I watched it end to end because of the intrinsic quality. Not sure I would buy Dapol - ever, as it appears from this that you are directly financing and 'enabling' the furtherance of enthusiastically poor quality goods. Consumers deserve better.

Hello , it's not just the new purchases that are troublesome. I have a Dapol School's class (the third replacement , repaired and enhanced) and I've had for under two years. Now the motor has blown and it's another cost to have it replaced. Maybe that I'm unlucky with Dapol, but even my secondhand Farish locos run well.

Hi Jonathan! That was an excellent analysis of the state of N scale quality control! I hadn't thought it was quite as bad, but the numbers don't lie! I do think you've been a bit unlucky though! From the crossovers we have, I haven't had any problems with the Dapol HST, motor or dummy car! The frame on my Dapol 57xx is straight, and the loco runs okay, but does struggle at low speed sometimes! My sound fitted Farish 08 has been abysmal since day one, but after fixing it myself, I felt sending it back would be wrong! It actually ran really well for nearly a year, but has now failed again! Both of my Farish 37's have ran well since fitting with DCC, but didn't crawl very well on DC! I've also got the new Dapol 56 on pre-order, and also an A4, but I think the A4 is old tooling, so it will be interesting to compare with your experiences of Dapol tender driven locos! In terms of rolling stock, my main problem was with the Rapido Conflat P wagons that had poorly fitting wheels! They''re still working after some self maintenance, but it's annoying to have to perform it on an RTR model! Oh well! Hope you're a bit luckier with your purchases this year! All the best, Ian.

As someone who mainly runs Japanese and Chinese N scale, this pretty shocking, I have 9 HST's, 8 of which run great (including a 30 year old model), one that runs a bit rough, but no serious issues otherwise

Hi Jonathan, great video but what a shocker in terms of the quality of today’s N gauge locos! I am currently having a bad experience with a Dapol A4 and thus is the second one I’ve had and there will not be a third I’ve totally fallen out right now with Dapol!!! Hopefully you can keep the fleet going with no more failures! Cheers Gary

Hi Jonathan, very intersting vid and such a good idea. I mentioned in your first vid you did re Dapol steam loco's, that I too had purchased a 7MT Brittania loco. Unfortunately, I still haven't run it, so that should be fun! I hope you don't mind, in a few months, when I have wired up my points and bus, I'd like to do a similar type vid, I do think it's important to give feedback on what we all purchase for what is, let's face it, a fair chunk of change! Great vid and thanks for putting the hard yards in putting it together for us.

A very interesting video! I have had the same HST dummy car issues on mine. I have a slight HST obsession, but this does mean I have a large sample size! Of my 22 pairs of power cars, 15 had the "issue". Those that didn't are all 5 of my older 6-pin DCC ready models, and only 2 from the new 18-pin (new motor) chassis ones. Those 2 are the most recent releases, so hopefully this is the end of the bad QC! I have thankfully found a fix to the dummy car issue, but its really not good enough! We shouldn't have to repair new models straight out of the box. But I will be fair to Dapol, they have always been extremely helpful, and have (so-far) always found a fix.

I think a lot of British N gaugers are just happy to have something to run. The quality has been very, very hit and miss.

Thanks for this scary report 🙄 . Buying my equipment from overseas, I know that I am taking significant risks with BR Ngauge models. To extend your list, here are 3 locomotives that I have problems with. The first one is a Farish City of Birmingham coronation that I've paid less than 100 £. But the gearing was and is still stuck I've tried a repair, but I broke one tiny part. The second one was a Rapido class 28 which drives well in one direction and poorly in the other. 3 returns to Rapido. As they tell me they didn't find any issues, then I gave up. The other is a freshly bought Sonic Model J50/3. Some wheels are wobbling a bit, which creates current pickup problems. I've owned 15 Ngauge BR locomotives, and have problems with only 3 of them. It seems that I'm a lucky guy. As I don't have any Dapol models is maybe the reason for these numbers 😁

Excellent video, it is off putting to new and existing modellers with the number of faults. The locos are not cheap to buy. The majority of my fleet are Union Mills Steam Tender Driven locos and I've only had a fault with one which was rectified. Unfortunately Colin of Union Mills has I believe retired. These locos are die cast with excellent pulling power.

Hi Jonathan - really Interesting video. Pity you didn't include Revolution Trains. My count 4 bought - 2 good and 2 bad. Now I can tell you about the Class 59. I picked one up at Model Rail Scotland. Excellent model with fantastic pulling power - 10 Dapol Yeoman hoppers up my helix at half power. Going back to your video - it would appear all manufacturers seem to have issues with quality which is frustrating given the price we pay for models. Dapol do seem to come at the bottom of the pile when it comes to loco issues. That said I have to admit none of the Dapol diesels I have give me any real trouble - the exception being the HST's - which run fine in one direction but make a slight annoying grinding noise in the other. Very enjoyable video Jonathan. Cheers Euan

Greetings Jonathan 👋 you definitely paint a more than fair picture of the lack of quality control given to N Gauge products by the various manufacturers 🤕 and Dapol are by far the worst 😢 which is such a shame 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Simple things like making sure the wheel 🛞 sets are properly in the bogies are simingly beyond the wit of man 😤 Still can't understand why we love the scale so much 🤭 Very best wishes from the Emerald Isle ☘️

Bought a class dapol class 67 Wrexham and Shropshire bargain from rails of Sheffield last year. Fitted with DCC 6 pin decoder. Its speed control is not correct. It speeds up when lights are enabled and also speeds up when you try and slow it down. Brother in law changed its settings on his iPad for me but it’s still not totally right. Turned out not to be the bargain I thought it was going to be. I’m gonna try a different decoder in it sometime, maybe the Bachman one. Stick to Graham farish I reckon and you’re sometimes better buying second hand.

Ghosts in the Engine.

I'd stay away from dapol and stick to farish. Even better are Kato. Having said that, all mine are second hand and all superb runners.

i think you have been a bit unlucky. diesel are definitely more reliable though. which is lucky for me.

US N quality does not compare, my score would be 99 good, one bad….i gave up on dapol steam years ago as they were all terrible….

Just not acceptable given the price.