Hornby new wagons

[Cor-onGRT4]

Anyone noticed the new releases of the Hornby 5 plank and 7 plank wagons and 3 P.O. wagonset, they have all new undercarriage with nem pockets couplings and detailed underframe,

looks like there are three types of new undercarriage 9 ft -10 ft and wood and steel undercarriage, and two types of buffers, so they finally upgrated them.

They looks very good to me.

very fine printing as always, but with much better body. 

Edited February 23, 2018 by Cor-onGRT4

[Flyingscotsmanfan]

Also the split spoke wheels do a lot for these models too. Just goes to show that older products can still look with with minimal upgrading.

[dube]

not sure the axle box`s are correct on the 3, 4 and 6 plank wagons

Edited February 23, 2018 by dube

[Dunsignalling]

Also the split spoke wheels do a lot for these models too. Just goes to show that older products can still look with with minimal upgrading.

I don't think "minimal" is really fair, they have metal buffer heads and the brake gear is so much improved that it's almost certainly a completely new underframe.

 

The look of them suggests some input from the Oxford side of the fence to me, quite reminiscent of their LNER 6-plank.

 

John

Edited February 23, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

not sure the axle box`s are correct on the 3, 4 and 6 plank wagons

PO wagon buyers had a choice of types, grease or oil essentially, and different builders used different styles. Hornby seem to have chosen a typical oil box.

 

Also, grease axleboxes tended to be troublesome and the owner of a wagon that regularly came back late because one ran hot and possibly incurred a surcharge from the railway company, would soon have decided a set of new oil ones were a good investment.

 

The ones illustrated do look more "1920" than "1890", though.

 

John

[Jenny Emily]

Thank goodness! Finally they have made these wagons worth buying. The horrible fat molded coupler has been a hard line for me that I would not cross, despite the beautiful liveries that Hornby were applying.

 

This is a very welcome development.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

I have absolutely no wish to knock Hornby (quite the opposite in fact) but shouldn't the solebars be wood rather than steel?

[Dunsignalling]

I have absolutely no wish to knock Hornby (quite the opposite in fact) but shouldn't the solebars be wood rather than steel?

Not always, most older wagons should but many built in the 1920s and 1930s had steel ones with some of the larger operators abandoning timber-framed for new orders altogether. One such was Stephenson Clarke, which may be why Bachmann haven't ever made a second batch of their timber-framed 7-plank in that livery. 

 

Steel framed PO's would mainly be 7/8 planks for coal traffic and, for other industries, 5-planks for minerals etc..

 

Always supposing that Hornby haven't perpetuated the incorrect 10' wheelbase and stretched bodies inherited from Airfix, two of the steel-framed examples illustrated (Hale Fuels and Lilleshall) may thus be OK. However, the markings on the Baldwin (10-ton 7-plank) and Silvey (8-ton 5-plank) models indicate significantly older wagons and steel frames are therefore less likely to be correct.

 

John

Edited February 24, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[Moxy]

I have absolutely no wish to knock Hornby (quite the opposite in fact) but shouldn't the solebars be wood rather than steel?

 

Some of the ones in the OP do have wooden solebars.  Arnold Sands, BQC & Pilkingtons all do.

 

As John has said above (while I was typing this reply!), it varies depending on the builder. 

 

I have attached a link to GER Society wagon page https://www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php/rolling-stock/wagons/1880-1889 the drawings aren't dated unfortunately, but they were experimenting with steel underframes as early as the 1870's.  There wasn't a clear cut off date for the changeover from wood to steel, both types overlapping by many years.

 

I think a better question would be 'is the livery correct for a steel underframe wagon?'

 

Moxy

[Butler Henderson]

They look to me to be a mix of 9ft and 10ft wheelbase - the Pilkington, BQC and Arnold Sands definitely look shorter in length than the others. The longer wagons look very much like those are from the old Airfix toolings

[Cor-onGRT4]

They look to me to be a mix of 9ft and 10ft wheelbase - the Pilkington, BQC and Arnold Sands definitely look shorter in length than the others. The longer wagons look very much like those are from the old Airfix toolings

Don't think there is any old Airfix toolings used, look at the two pictures one from last year release with the new split spokes wheels the other new Hales release with new undercarriage, much finer 

than the old one, most break gear molded together on the old, while the new release all is seperate and much finer, much better all together.

So from now on , i buy also Hornby 4-5-6& 7 plank wagons, before i never did, horrible underframes.

And comparing price, they are somewhere between Oxford and Bachmann, so medium priced.

But then i must say , Hornby isn't as expensive with all the last new releases with their wagons, compared to Bachmann.

If we look at the GWR brake , hopper and SR cattle van very good detailed and about 10,- pounds average less than new Bachmann releases, and many more new ones to come.  

So, many thanks to Hornby for these ones

Edited February 24, 2018 by Cor-onGRT4

[dube]

Shame I think the 7 plank is wrong with the old stretched body and steel under frame, and the the smaller size 3 4 and 6 plank wagons to RCH 1887 / 1907 ? specs would have had grease axle boxes throughout their lives, 5 planks OK though

[Poor Old Bruce]

Shame I think the 7 plank is wrong with the old stretched body and steel under frame,

 

My thoughts as well. How many PO coal wagons were 10ft wb?

 

Well done Hornby for the upgrade though. I wonder if there is any chance the chassis will be available separately?

[The Johnster]

Very few, if any, mineral wagons ever used a 10' wheelbase chassis, 9' was to all intents universal on wooden and steel wagons up to the end of their revenue use in the 1980s.  The RCH standards specified 9', and the collieries were set up for this in terms of loading hopper spacings in the washeries, weighbridges, and siding space/minimum curvature of track.  They strenously resisted any attempt by the railways to change this, and objected to such improvements as vacuum brakes, instanter couplers, and pneumatic buffers.

 

I believe a small batch of BR standard steel 16ton minerals were built to XP standards with a 10' wheelbase, but I know very little more about this.  I would imagine their field of operations to be mixed trains in the Scottish Highlands.

 

These new wagons look very good indeed, and I am a little miffed that they are outside my time period a little.  If H can overcome the 10' chassis problem on mineral wagons with later liveries, particularly those suitable for the late 40s and the 50s, I will be a willing customer for them!

Edited February 25, 2018 by The Johnster

[Quarryscapes]

Looks like the same old body mouldings on a new underframe, hence needing a 10ft one. Good work though, I've a few of these bodies on Cambrian Gloucester underframes!

 

Of the two I know, the Granophast one is pretty accurate, the Lilleshall one is very wrong though. (Should be a Gloucester 15ft 5 plank body on wooden 9ft underframe)

 

What's the R number of the Granophast one?

[Cor-onGRT4]

Looks like the same old body mouldings on a new underframe, hence needing a 10ft one. Good work though, I've a few of these bodies on Cambrian Gloucester underframes!

 

Of the two I know, the Granophast one is pretty accurate, the Lilleshall one is very wrong though. (Should be a Gloucester 15ft 5 plank body on wooden 9ft underframe)

 

What's the R number of the Granophast one?

Granophast comes only in a set as shown in picture with 5 and 7 plank, setnumber R 6882.

But there are two more 3 plank wagons to come,  SECR R 6858 and Armstrong Withworth & Co R 6859 and new 4 and 6 plank on the same undercarriage

[Quarryscapes]

Anyone want to go thirds with me? 

[The Johnster]

If we are saying that any re-released future H mineral 7-plank or steel 16ton minerals will remain on the scale 10' wheelbase inherited from Triang and featuring a moulded brake handle, in the same way that the Dapol versions are the old Hornby Dublo models with new couplings, then H are at best missing an opportunity and at worst shooting themselves in the foot with the same bullet they've been using since Rovex days.  No serious or even semi-serious modeller is going to buy a wagon which is so disastrously out of scale and character irresepective of how good the finish and lettering are when very good RTR options are available from Baccy and Ox, and the perfectly acceptable Airfix/Dapol/Kitmaster plastic construction kit, cheap as chips and easily assembled (I once built and finished 10 in an evening for a club layout, using production line methods and chopping the numbers about to get as many different wagons individually numbered as I could, and that included fitting scale instanter couplings and real coal loads) has been around for nearly 60 years.

 

It is probably worth investing in a good mineral wagon from the point of view that there are still a good number of modellers working in the pre 1980s genre and a good number of that good number have room for 60 wagon coal trains and the corresponding empties; a 7 plank or 16ton steel mineral is probably one of the most surefire sellers in the world of wagons.

[Poor Old Bruce]

Very few, if any, mineral wagons ever used a 10' wheelbase chassis, 9' was to all intents universal on wooden and steel wagons up to the end of their revenue use in the 1980s.  The RCH standards specified 9', and the collieries were set up for this in terms of loading hopper spacings in the washeries, weighbridges, and siding space/minimum curvature of track.  They strenously resisted any attempt by the railways to change this, and objected to such improvements as vacuum brakes, instanter couplers, and pneumatic buffers.

 

I believe a small batch of BR standard steel 16ton minerals were built to XP standards with a 10' wheelbase, but I know very little more about this.  I would imagine their field of operations to be mixed trains in the Scottish Highlands.

 

The reasitance to change at loading and unloading facilities was the main reason for re-bodying the 16T Mins. BR wanted to upgrade from the 'old order' of 35 MPH coal trains but had to abide by customers' whims at the time.

 

Just for the record, the 10ft wb 16 tonners were not new builds but new bodies on second hand (Palbrick) underframes. AFAIK they seem to have merged in with the rest of the fleet rather than used for particular traffics.

[Mark Saunders]

It will be nice to see if the 21' foot 6" inch over headstocks 12' foot wheelbase chassis has a similar reworking!

 

Mark Saunderds

[markw]

Am I missing somthing here, isn,t the 4 shoe morton with cross shaft a very unlikley brake arrangement for these PO minerals?

[Dunsignalling]

My thoughts as well. How many PO coal wagons were 10ft wb?

 

Well done Hornby for the upgrade though. I wonder if there is any chance the chassis will be available separately?

1. Absolutely none AFAIK. I was hoping the ghosts of Airfix were finally being laid to rest.

 

2. The underframe should be useful (with the addition of a VB cylinder) though, for upgrading some of my older vans. It'll save me hunting through piles of S/h Bachmann ones to find ones on which they assembled the brake gear correctly.......... 

 

John

[Dunsignalling]

If we are saying that any re-released future H mineral 7-plank or steel 16ton minerals will remain on the scale 10' wheelbase inherited from Triang and featuring a moulded brake handle, in the same way that the Dapol versions are the old Hornby Dublo models with new couplings, then H are at best missing an opportunity and at worst shooting themselves in the foot with the same bullet they've been using since Rovex days.  No serious or even semi-serious modeller is going to buy a wagon which is so disastrously out of scale and character irresepective of how good the finish and lettering are when very good RTR options are available from Baccy and Ox, and the perfectly acceptable Airfix/Dapol/Kitmaster plastic construction kit, cheap as chips and easily assembled (I once built and finished 10 in an evening for a club layout, using production line methods and chopping the numbers about to get as many different wagons individually numbered as I could, and that included fitting scale instanter couplings and real coal loads) has been around for nearly 60 years.

 

It is probably worth investing in a good mineral wagon from the point of view that there are still a good number of modellers working in the pre 1980s genre and a good number of that good number have room for 60 wagon coal trains and the corresponding empties; a 7 plank or 16ton steel mineral is probably one of the most surefire sellers in the world of wagons.

The 10' wheelbase is a hangover from the wagons absorbed from Airfix via Dapol. The old Tri-ang ones were a scale 9' 6" IIRC.

 

John

 

Edit: Just measured a Conflat P and a tank wagon (both branded "Tri-ang Hornby") off my "to do" pile and, yes, they are 9' 6". 

Edited February 26, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[The Johnster]

I stand corrected, but 9'6" is just as inaccurate as 10'; accuracy is a fixed point of measurement and a miss is as good as mile, or 6 inches as good as a foot.  See recent posts in 'Cwmdimbath; South Wales in the 1950s (Layout Topics) for the sage of my recent failure to eliminate moulded brake handles from my railway!

[bigherb]

Looks like a good job, wheelbase errors excepted. Screw mounted NEM pockets a nice touch

 

Comparison with Bachmann Oxford and Dapol.

 

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by bigherb