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Hornby Hawksworth and Centenary Coaches – and some connectors I made earlier

Silver Sidelines

Entry posted by Silver Sidelines

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In recent posts I have detailed corridor connectors for Bachmann Collett coaches and I have touched on the Hornby Hawksworth Full Brake.

 

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Hornby Hawksworth Coaches as bought (left) and as modified (right)

 

When Hornby introduced their Hawksworth coaches back in 2010 I was most impressed with the coach detail but not so happy with Hornby’s corridor connectors.

 

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I wanted the coaches to be more closely coupled and it took me a lot of courage to remove Hornby’s moulded black plastic connectors.

 

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Closer coupling is quickly achieved by paring away some of the plastic from the Hornby R8220 coupling to enable it to push back further into the coupling pocket.

 

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For the Hawksworth coaches I adopted a ‘belt and braces’ approach and drilled through both the pocket and coupling enabling the coupling to be pinned in place. Subsequently I have discovered that there is often sufficient friction between the coupling and the pocket such that pinning may not be necessary.

 

Back to the corridor connectors, I had in my mind a 1964 article in the Railway Modeller detailing the use of black cartridge paper. (Forty years on and David A Smith of this web site has provided an update.)

 

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155gm/m black card cut as per RM instructions. The dimensions chosen for the Hornby Hawksworth coaches were 27mm x 14mm

 

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The bellows are formed by pushing together the two parts of the connector. I chose to use four folds (five panels).

 

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I used the end plate from a Bachmann Collett coach as a pattern for the curved top

 

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At each end of the rake of coaches the connector is fastened back using strong black buttonhole thread.

 

I used a rigid wooden spoon handle to tie the thread round before slipping it over the compressed bellows connector. The two end plates / rubbing plates are formed from 250mg/m card 28mm x 14.5mm.

 

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I used good quality PVA adhesive to fix the rubbing plates on each end of the bellows and then to fasten the completed unit to the coach

 

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Close up of connector with buttonhole thread retainers

 

Do they work –

.

 

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Hornby Hawksworth with modified Conectors (bottom) compared to unmodified Hornby Centenary Stock (top)

 

Whilst on the subject of Hornby ex GWR coaches I have been asked recently about the riding qualities of Centenary Coaches. I have a rake of four ‘Hornby’ coaches which

. The rake is fitted with Hornby metal wheels (R8234) and each coach weighs 145 gm, which is midway between Hornby super detail stock at 120 gm and Bachmann Mark 1s at 165 gm.

 

Two coaches are completely unmodified. Two coaches were bought very cheaply off eBay knowingly fitted with Kaydee couplings. I hadn’t bargained on the previous owner cutting the fixings off the bogies and glueing the Kaydees directly to the coach underframe. (How they were supposed to go round corners?) To sort the problem I bought a couple of old Airfix coaches and swapped the bogies and underframes.

 

All four coaches were then fitted with the original Airfix mini couplings. Hornby seem to have made some slight changes to the bogie centres and fixing point for use with their own range of couplings. When fitted with the Airfix couplings the plastic corridor connectors on the unmodified Hornby coaches would interlock. The solution was simple, couple the coaches alternately Airfix / Hornby / Airfix / Hornby.

 

I think cheap coaches nicely close coupled?

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Dukedog

Great write up for a very useful modification.

Thanks for posting, that's another useful tip for when I eventually get some Hawksworths!

 

Cheers

Frank

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Mikkel
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Hi Ray, what an excellent and useful post.  The result is very convincing. Thanks for the time spent in uploading this!

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PaternosterRow
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Hi Ray,

 

Loved the vid and the clearly laid out instruction pics.  Extremely neat work as per your usual standard.  I actually like those curtains by the way.

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Dogmatix

Ray, thanks for the pictures and explanations.

 

I have a couple of Hornby Hawkworths, and have also been experimenting, as the NEM pocktes are not quite right. Using the long-shanked Roco couplers supplied by Hornby there is still a gap, but standard Roco couplers don't couple properly. My latest attempt was to replace the corridor connections with some off some old Airfix centenary coaches, but I didn't get around to finishing the job.

 

By the way, rather than filing bits off the Hornby-supplied long-shanked Roco couplers, why not try standard Roco couplers? They are shorter (i.e. correct NEM length), and clip properly into the pockets.

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Silver Sidelines

Thanks for the comments.

 

Yes I did think about the short shanked Roco couplers but aren't they expensive?  I could only identify two UK suppliers, one of which appeared to only sell them in pairs.  I decided that I could afford to buy lots of the Hornby couplers off eBay and if I damaged the odd one it was no great loss.  As you know they are made from very tough Nylon and I would not be filing them.  I use a sharp 'snap off' knife (Stanley) on a cutting mat to pare at the plastic. 

 

I like your idea of reusing the Airfix corridor connectors.  You would have to be careful with the dummy lamp iron on the connectors when the coaches are close together as they can lock together and cause a derailment.

 

Regards

 

Ray

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