RSS Fetcher Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 I've taken this 'article' from the old RMweb3 and have made it more compact. For those who saw it at the time, my apologies. For newcomers, I hope they find this conversion of the newer Hornby LNER Gresley coaches of interest. I bought one of the later Hornby Gresley coach for a good scrutiny to see what could be done to remedy some of the well-publicised faults, but I wondered how much is achievable? Underframe : I suspect Hornby started off with the chassis for the following reason. Their solebars are 33mm apart on the outside whereas solebars are usually around 31.5mm apart LMS and GWR coaches. In fact this is the measurement on Hornby's LMS Stanier coaches and GWR Auto coach. So having completed a chassis that was too wide, Hornby must have found there was little room to form a tumblehome on the coach body sides. Body : I can see no way of lowering the incorrect half-round beading in the centre of the below-waist panelling. Detail : The bogies have separate glued on shackle spring shock absorbers. They were falling off during handling, as were the bogie stepboards. Excellent detailed solebars and Hornby have even fitted the pipe that runs the full length of the chassis. There IS a market for Gresley coaches, make no mistake. The domed roof and teak livery is beyond the capability of most modellers for starters. I consider Hornby should........ A) Make a new underframe following the overall outside sole bar dimensions on the LMS Stanier coaches (31.5mm) B) Retool the body with a proper tumblehome AND mould the entire door and grab handles in place instead of fitting separate mouldings. They cannot be knocked off and are not far off scale. C) Alter bogies to one piece moulding (eliminating separate parts that have to be glued on). Bogie stepboards should plug into holes. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ The sides are too flat and lack the proper tumblehome. Also the beading that runs down the centre of the panel below the waist is too high... Taking these coaches apart is easy. Just push the clear plastic lugs to one side (located under the bogies) and prize the chassis out of the body. The interior moulding then drops away. Lift bogies at the coupling end and their lugs should come out of the bolsters. The trussrod moulding is in one peice and was lifted from the underframe with a screwdriver. First the solebars were removed from the floor. I did this by first making saw cuts down the bufferbeam then ran a new knife blade along the join where the solebars meet the floor until the solebars fell off. The plastic cuts very easily I might add. I then found it best to remove the cylinders, dynamo and V hangers and also remove any locating tabs. I then removed around 1mm off each edge of the floor until it was 28mm wide, then the solebars were glued back in position using Slaters Mek-pak. They were now 31mm across the solebars instead of the previous 33mm. The truss rod moulding was dismantled so each side could be glued to the inside faces of the solebars. The cross members were then narrowed to fit in between. Then the V hangers, cylinders and dynamo were glued back in position. The coupling mechanism went back with no modification required, as did the bogies. The chassis clipped over the clear glazing lugs as it did before. Assembled coach. Hornby have got the split between the crimson and cream too high, however, if it is lowered it sets the waist lining too close to the middle beading, which as we know is too high, and there would be precious little room for the running number. Will have to live with it..... I noticed the ride hieght is lower than my other coaches including the Hornby Staniers. The body was therefore raised with a 20thou piece of plastikard placed over the bogie centre pin. The underframe has been slightly weathered to make it more prominent. Coaches look less down at heel since the body was raised on the bogies to match the ride hieght of other coaches. A black line was added along the gutter to complete. The final modification was that of fitting 3.5mm wide etched brass stepboards. The Hornby ones had all-but dissapeared under the coach when I set the solebars closer together. THOMPSON FULL BRAKE. The Bachmann LNER Thompson coaches are probably no longer available. However, it is probably still possible to buy the full brake. It is llustrated as purchased in BR corporate blue livery. Bogies are too narrow, the trussrod/batterybox configuration looks very LMS-ish, no stepboards and LNER aficionado's might care to comment on the roof profile !Despite my comments, I feel this model looks very neat. The blue will have to go though! To be continued... <BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"> View the full article Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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