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Hornby class 08


Piemanlarger

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Got mine (a green one) from Tim @ arcadia this lunchtime, £136.

 

Got it running on Eskmuir this evening as we set up for Manchester MRS exhibition.

 

First impressions are mixed - the horn is not what my memory of an 08 is like, more of a steam whistle but maybe they were like this originally - can anyone confirm? Idling and taking power seems OK, not as good as some 08 sounds i have seen on other layouts but not too bad. Volume is quite low but not checked CV value to see if Hornby have it turned down or if its just a function of the tight space inside. Best of all IU guess is that the sound works on DC as well as DCC.

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Guest Max Stafford

Most 08s were built with air whistles and the majority left still carry them. A nice sound, akin to a Caledonian h00ter. While not utterly sold on sound, I think I will be having a noisy gronk since they have such aural character! :)

 

Dave.

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The function keys are - F1 sound on/off, F2 airhorn, F3 coupler, F4 compressor, F5 brake release, F6 shunting mode, F7 airhorn short, F8 notch up and F9 notch down. It does sound quite. I haven't had a chance to try it out properly yet but it does have a nice feature - once the revs drop after powering up, the engine slows right down and then recovers to tick over. I will try and video it tomorrow. Tony.

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a quick reply from bryan at howes....

 

Had a Hornby sound 08 on the bench, firstly is not fitted with lights.

 

Function keys are:-

 

F1 sound on/off, F2 long hooter, F3 coupler, F4 compressor, F5 Brake release, F6 shunt mode, F7 Hooter short, F8 Notch up and F9 Notch down.

 

The speaker is in the front, it is facing inwards without any apparent provision for the sound to get out, the decoder is a 21 pin, it is all fitted neatly inside the engine compartment so it doesnt intrude into the cab which is nicely detailed.

 

I make no comment on the sounds other than the level is set at maximum and, being a standard decoder and not a micro, it should be loud enough for most people, no doubt there will be video of one posted by someone in due course.

 

Hope this is of some help

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I bought the EWS version today from Olivia's.

Rails had sold out already,so i had to pay £153 for mine (serves me right for not ordering ! ) ( £133 at Rails )

The speaker is indeed housed behind the radiator grille.

I have heard both the Hornby version, & the Olivia's version today before purchasing, and i plumped for the Hornby sound much to the owners amazement as he thought the Hornby sound was rubbish.

I disagreed. True,the whistle sound is unbelievably unprototypical, but the tick over is excellent,as are the other functional sounds.

Hornby do get some stick from time to time for their sound reproductions,but i have their Class 60 (048) and that is better than any i have heard,and this shunter is excellent. These are my opinions of course,it depends entirely on the purchaser whether it is their cup of tea.

For me, putting sound into a shunter before this arrival was always a non starter due to the complexity of fitting it,therefore this addition is a bonus for me. I know fellow modellers who have actually fitted sound into one, not to go there again as space just didn't lend itself to adding a speaker in such a small engine. I haven't taken the top off mine yet,but i will in time to see how Hornby have done it.

 

People are very quick to criticise anything just for the sake of it nowdays.

Again, personal opinion,but i think the Hornby Class 08 is better than Bachmann's example ( although Bachmann's are fine ),and the addition of sound is a big bonus.

The only downer for me is the price. £153 is daft money really for a shunter,sound or not, but you either buy it, or you don't it's as simple as that ! But they seem to be flying off the shelves !

Santa has definately come early this year !!

Enjoy it, Hornby have done a good job here :)

 

www.johnthompson606.fotopic.net

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Hi - I have the EWS Chris Wren and ran it for the first time this afternoon after picking it up from signal box at the folkestone show.

 

Initial impressions were very good - but by god has it made me realise how dirty my track is / was - spent ages tooth picking assorted muck out of points that nothing else seemed to worry about. Also if you get one make sure you give the wheels and wheel backs a bit of attention as mine had a bit of crud on them but not much.

 

Happy shunting

 

Chris

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lol, spent the last two days operating Rimenough at the Cirencester show then as the trader opposite me was packing up asked for a quick demo of the ews version./ It ran on my rickity trackwork opk so baught one after all. Sounded ok, but only ran it for 30 seconds!

 

Full insight Monday!

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Hi - I have the EWS Chris Wren and ran it for the first time this afternoon after picking it up from signal box at the folkestone show.

 

Initial impressions were very good - but by god has it made me realise how dirty my track is / was - spent ages tooth picking assorted muck out of points that nothing else seemed to worry about. Also if you get one make sure you give the wheels and wheel backs a bit of attention as mine had a bit of crud on them but not much.

 

Happy shunting

 

Chris

 

I must say I was disappointed with the sound of the Green Hornby 08 after looking forward to it for some time The sound is distorted and makes some unusual noises when returning to idling like wheels over rail joins. Also it takes an absolute age to notch down and ticks over to fast. The whistle is strange but that is not uncommon on an 08. It would be interesting to know where they recorded it though.

 

Although It is not run in yet it also stalls when moving off despite the track being cleaned to within an inch of it's life this only seems to happen when the sound is on and it doesn't like any imperfections in the track, slightest bump and the sound shuts down then starts up again etc etc. I will run it in and if i'm happy with that it will be heading to Oxfordshire to have the sound re-blown, I only really bought it due to the difficulty of fitting your own in. If not then I guess it will be back to the model shop for another one as i'm not conviced there isn't a problem with the pick ups as someone was returning an EWS one which didn't run when I bought this one.

 

E

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my 08 is a howes one but i had the same problem as the Hornby sound release, stalling on points and dirty track. I did however put it on the rolling road for while (ie about 8 hours) which seemed to cure the erratic running, i only left it that long as i forgot id set it running and went out!

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my 08 is a howes one but i had the same problem as the Hornby sound release, stalling on points and dirty track. I did however put it on the rolling road for while (ie about 8 hours) which seemed to cure the erratic running, i only left it that long as i forgot id set it running and went out!

 

 

agghhhhhh feel like throwing mine - ive spent so much time cleaning points and track and swearing at the damn thing - never had this bother with my Lima one from 1984....

 

is it worth tweaking the cv that stops it going through start up procedure if theres a current break ? thats all i can think to do ?

 

Chris

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is it worth tweaking the cv that stops it going through start up procedure if theres a current break ? thats all i can think to do ?

 

I'd say that's worthwhile for any sound loco. I have a Hornby 08 which I put Howes sound in, and it does need clean + level track to perform well. Once that's sorted it's pretty reliable though, so I would have thought the pickups etc. would be fine on the Hornby one.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

 

 

 

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CLEAN TRACK is an absolute must for sound chips!!!!! They are nowhere near as forgiving of dirty track as regular chips or DC locos ! Needless to say dead-frog points are problematic also.

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CLEAN TRACK is an absolute must for sound chips!!!!! They are nowhere near as forgiving of dirty track as regular chips or DC locos ! Needless to say dead-frog points are problematic also.

 

yup you are bang on but this flippin thing is stopping on straight track that has been baby wiped, track rubbered, isopropyl'd and bit of hardboarded - It was code 100 but its been rubbed down to code 75 !!!

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