Hornby King tender de railing

[DCB]

A little tip which may save someone else hours of experimentation.   We have a Hornby King, Chinese loco drive with the 4000 gallon tender common to Castle/ Hall/ Grange / Star etc   We have had the thing for a couple of years at least and its a feeble performer and underscale in height which annoys me.

However it won't stay on the track when reversing.   It has inside bearings for the Tender wheels and miles of sideplay enough to get round 12" radius curves, but every time we try to get it on the turntable it derails on the approach pointwork whether at the terminus or in the FY.

I spent hours putting the damned thing back on the track after inspecting it.  Nothing seemed amiss.

My son re railed it yesterday. "Dad the water scoop is too low." he announced.

And it was, its moulded on to a very thin mounting and hung down level with the wheel tyres, I adjusted it.  It broke off.   Problem solved it now reverses beautifully.

The whole thing is 1 to 2 mm too low but I never realised the scoop was also 1 to 2 mm too low, or is it that Hornby modelled it in the down position.

Hope this saves someone some head scratching.  There may be other posts on this but I can't find any in the search facility.

[The Johnster]

Easily missed, water scoops and their associated gear.  When I was a Canton freight guard in the '70s, one of my link jobs was the 03.15 Cardiff Long Dyke-Carlisle, 7M49, which we worked to Hereford where we were relieved.  This was a 'single manned' job for the driver, with me acting as secondman to take the loco off shed to Long Dyke yard.  The job was booked for a 47, but on this particular night that I am telling the story about, no loco was available and we were taken to Long Dyke (other side of the line from Newtown Goods) in the shed's minibus; Hereford men had left a loco coupled to the train earlier.

 

When we got there, I noticed that the loco was an early series 40, with no headcode panel and with discs, and mentioned this to the driver who I knew would not have passed out on 40s.  'Nah', he said, 'it's a D68; you just check I'm not overloaded1'.  Fair enough, leave it to the loco department, I thought, not traffic's business.  I examined the train, set the lamps out on the van, laid the fire in the stove, and went back up to the loco to give the driver the load.  'See, it's a D68' he commented, but I'd made the load out for a 40.  He'd apparently missed that the loco was much longer than a class 37, and had no headcode panels, but the controls looked exactly the same as a 37 and I had no doubt regarding his ability to drive the thing, only some concern that he wouldn't be able to trace a fault if we developed one.  He'd also taken no notice of the odd whistling noise when he'd started her up.

 

But he'd also completely overlooked the bl**dy great wheel on the cab bulkhead for the scoop.  That's right, a batch of 40s were fitted with water scoops to replenish the steam heating header tanks for non-stop Euston-Glasgow trains and one of these had fetched up on our train.  'What's that for?', I asked, in my best innocent expression.  'Handbrake', he said dismissively with a distinct overtone of 'mind your own and get on with your work'.  'What's this handbrake for, then?', I countered, which I reckon made it Guard 2, Driver 1.  'What the ...., it's a water scoop!', he admitted, and the water gauge behind it, showing empty, confirmed it.  

 

He was happy enough to drive the 40, though, and we set off without further comment.

Edited December 10, 2018 by The Johnster