My Hornby Networker came to me rather broken. I fixed it up with some needed spare parts, but it never really worked properly, needing continual assistance to get to the other end of my workbench, let alone running on an actual layout.
I gather that's not unique to mine -- they have a reputation. Mine might be a particularly bad example, or it might be typical. The entire unit is a high-friction mess, with every single axle having both pickups and a bad quality sleeve bearing on the axle. The
Years ago I picked up a load of Airfix Mk2D coaches on the cheap.
Being cheap, most of them were Brake Second Opens, and most of the rest were First Opens.
Many of them were also in poor condition. One turned out to have broken/missing bogies and gangways. There's a distinct lack of stepboards, buffers, and so on.
There are also shortcomings in the original Airfix representation -- such as the FO having 2+2 seating, but at the correct 7-bay pitch. It should be 2+1 for a proper FO...
