Going Spare

Apologies if I misled you: I was quoting from Service Sheet 323 which states "Bogie Frame (Dummy Car) X9637M", the 'M' denoting NEM coupling. It does seem, even for a Railroad model, very penny-pinching to have upgraded only one of the two vehicles.

Bogie frames with NEM coupling pockets were introduced in 2008 so if the original Lima-style coupling has been used, it must be a mistake. X9637M for non-motor bogies, X9636M for the motor bogie. Both in stock at Lendons, if that is any help.

EKM Exhibitions - ekmexhibitions.co.uk - are offering a Bachmann Jinty motor and may be prepared to post to the U.S.

Are you saying that the diameter of the armature shaft is too great to pass through the bearing? If so, perhaps you have been supplied with bearings for the 5-pole motor which I believe had a thinner armature shaft.

The rebuilt Merchant Navy did not have a live chassis block.

Thank you for that prompt. Even though there is nothing on the Service Sheet, the Hornby master spares list shown on Lendons' website quotes X13050 for the J36 Accessory Pack (loco & tender brake rodding, various pipes, snowplough and NEM coupling).

The accessory pack for the 48DS is X13249 and the only detailing part this includes is a blanking plate for the front of the loco if you do not wish to fit a tension-lock coupling (plus 3 t/l coupling heads) but there is no detailing pack showing for the J36 (Service Sheets 447 and 437, respectively).

I would contact Hornby Customer Services as you consider it to be a defect on what is a comparatively recently released model. They are quite receptive to such approaches and will help if they can.

According to Pat Hammond's British Model Trains catalogue (last produced in 2013), parlour cars Cygnus and Ibis plus kitchen car Minerva from the R1073 VSOE set had white roofs as well as R4482 brake car No. 65. I can not find any reference to white-roofed 12-wheelers.

Your chassis block will be the same as loco's R2105 upwards on Service Sheet 235 but not the same as that on sheet 328 as that is for the loco-drive version. There is a relevant thread "9F and a crumbling chassis" on the Hornby forum which suggests that, with a little work, a chassis block from earlier versions can be used.

Looking at the Service Sheet, the foremost screw passing up through the chassis bottom is noticeably longer than the others securing that moulding to the chassis block so that may also hold the front of the body in place while what appears to be a horizontal lug on the rear of the chassis block secures the rear end of the body, released when the screw is removed allowing the front of the chassis to fall away.

It is a number of years since I have handled the long clerestory coaches but memory suggests their build is more akin to the GW/LMS/LNER/SR coaches now in the Railroad range: the body sides, roof and inner ends is a one-piece moulding held in place on the underframe by clips at the bottom of each end (and possibly by two rather fragile lugs on the glazing close to the mid point of each side - memory hazy). The clerestory raised roof section clips to the main roof and the outer body end panels slide on. I do not know whether Chinese models are of different construction but would suspect not.

I'm sorry I can't help with dimensions but the brown wagon is from new 1960s tooling and looks to be longer. As issued, I believe it carried 2 Freightliner containers or 3 Minix vehicles.

By having a (spurious) SE&CR body, the loco appears to be the current R30039. If that is so, Service Sheet 139 is not relevant, indeed misleading. You would be better served referring to sheet 348. Screw S1014 has a BA thread so it has cut its way in to the wheel where a metric-threaded screw once sat. For China-made models, the screws are supplied only with the rods.

You could try Peters Spares as they have 10.5mm wheelsets as used on the Jouef/Hornby HO Eurostar.

That is not a standard Hornby A1/A3/A4 tender chassis as none were rigid, the rear wheelset being in a pivoting pony truck. Nor do they have what appears to be 4 traction tyres. Could it be a Trix A2?

The wormwheel is S9571 - as used on 0-4-0 tank locos - available from internet sellers. Also available in pack X8004 for 0-4-0s (although the worm also in the pack will not be suitable) as an alternative to X9472.

The Compound, County, D49 and Schools used the same chassis.

From memory, I believe another pointer to at least the metal chassis framed version of the 0-4-0T is that more recent releases (from around 8/9 years ago) have a body fixing screw under the front of the boiler/smokebox rather than the body simply clipping to the chassis frame, which may have been adopted at the same time as the speed reduction.

As an ex-Service Dealer, there are many comments I could make regarding Hornby's statement but I won't because any criticism by me of Hornby seems to result in the thread being locked! Just one word - whitewash - most regrettably comes to mind. Hornby appear, for whatever reason, not to be prepared to publicly acknowledge the problems they know exist. It was perhaps unfortunate that Service Sheet 464 was depicted as none of the parts listed on that sheet appear on the latest (October) Hornby master spares list on Lendons website, nor are they available through any of the major spares suppliers' sites.

Thank you for your kind comments: we did our best from 1994 to the end of 2016 having taken over from Kingcraft but as has been said, the relationship with Hornby was changing and sourcing spares was becoming ever more fraught. However, passing the baton to Peters Spares was purely the desire with serious illness in my immediate family not to work in to my 70th year, nothing more, nothing less. My erstwhile colleagues now EKMexhibitions have recently made the same decision to gradually call it a day.

Apologies up front if the sizing is not right but in the absence of any other suggestions so far, Hornby's X8100 buffer pack may be the answer. Shortening the stem will obviously be necessary as probably will be turning down the bufferhead as the replacements are intended for the Castle & County, but from images the overall styling looks to be pretty much the same. New Modellers Shop has stock.

Check Lendon's listing - they are showing Hornby sheet 370C for the Duchess.

Other Sheets for the Duchess with fixed pony truck are 336C with traditional drawbar (2009) and 370C with plug/socket connection (2014).

Again referring to Service Sheets, the fixed pony truck does indeed go back as far as 2008 but I am not sure the rest of the locomotive was then to the current standard.