APT Fan

Noticeable difference between the cab lighting on 37 034 and 37 305, I think I prefer the 'dimmer' cab of 37 034 but happy with both. In fact the lighting representation on all my Bachmanns seems pretty accurate to me. Initially I didn't mind the inaccurate white LEDs on my Hornby 56 and 87 but now it is starting to bug me when running along side the Bachmanns.

An interesting debate about the level of crapness of Hornby pantographs. Maybe the debate should be whether Hornby are the worst manufacturer of pantograph's? It might be an afterthought for Hornby but the pantograph is one of the most important features of an electric loco.

No that honour goes to the 8 pin class 87s, it isn't even attached to the model and merely 'clips on', embarrassing - compare that to the Bachmann Class 90. A nightmare to fit a basic decoder let alone sound. The lighting PCB on my APT driving car failed after about 3 hours use and was that extremely hot, it was a potential fire risk. The TTS sound decoder on my HST failed after about 5 hours use, it just isn't good enough considering published RRPs. After my Hornby experiences, my Class 56 orders were cancelled and moved to Cavalex, my Mk3s came from Oxford rail and my MGRs from Accurascale rather than Hornby. My 08, 37s, 47s, and 9F all came from Bachmann with factory sound (bar the 08), Hornby were not even considered. I actually ran a Bachmann 47 last night, first time in ages an it ran like a dream, it oozes class and quality, probably the best model I have. That is the standard Hornby need to aspire to then then achieve and maybe then they can justify the crazy prices they are charging.

That is a lot of words but the simple fact is that for a £500 model the quality simply was not good enough, it certainly put me off anything Hornby.

Exactly! Told my dad about it last night, he was shocked as he used to go there as a kid, so probably over 70 years ago and introduced me to the shop when I was a kid maybe about 45 years ago. I used to call in regularly and buy second hand BR Blue models and all sorts of other modelling products like the old Airfix OO kits with my limited teenage budget in the early 80s. Fantastic place and had a real vibe to it. This news is really, really sad, its a dark day. Whilst those old memories are great to think back to, I will say this, they have done a fantastic job of modernising their business and moving with the times which makes this news much more of a shock. The Hattons website is arguably the best in the industry in terms of structure, organisation, navigation and searching. I don't know why but many model railway websites seem to be really poorly designed and Hattons should be congratulated for their innovation in this field and will leave a big gap. ☹️

Or maybe not? It is difficult to speculate how well a business is doing without knowing the details. It doesn't sound like Hornby are doing great given some of the figures I've seen published in the press.

I fitted an 8 pin decoder to the underside of the PCB and then fabricated a cowling to go over the drive shaft to guard against any potential contact between the two (see post below). My assessment was that there isn't enough clearance to be able to fit/sit a decoder on top of the PCB without it fouling the roof which is why I opted for underside fitting. I think that is the reason why I've never had a problem re-fitting the body as you don't have to really 'push' down to get the clips to re-locate in the slots.

I read somewhere on this forum that Steam loco's need more maintenance than Diesels? How so? Is it to do with the con rods? I've read in the manual that the bearings need occasional lubricating but do the con rod joints need light oiling as well? Thanks

Is it actually stopping? Mine was and was causing a short, thought it was going to have to go back but is fine now. First 'potential' problem I've had with a Bachmann and that's why I looked no further for the 9F. Never even looked at the Hornby version after my experiences with the 87, HST and APT - that's 3 out of only 4 Hornby's I own. I think if you are in any doubt then it might be worth considering a return. It is an inconvenience and a pain but at the end of the day these things cost a lot of cash and should be right, yes even out of the box.

I received mine on Monday, first time I've ever bought a steam loco and I didn't really know what to expect. I read the Bachmann 'running - in' instructions and it says run at half speed for half an hour in each direction whilst pulling a load. So I put it on track cleaning detail and had it pulling my track cleaning wagon which provides quite a bit of drag. It was shocking and would only travel a maximum of about a metre before causing a short with the Z21 showing a big red flashing light, as you say looked like it was tight and I thought mine was very jerky (if that's a word). I had to keep taking the loco off the track and reset the controller, I worked out that the problem seemed to be caused by the driving wheels rather than the tender or the front wheels. On flipping it over and inspecting it, the forward facing sand pipes didn't look quite right in that they seemed to be sitting very low and not quite square. I touched the part and it jumped out of its mount so I removed it. The two forward facing sand pipes have been moulded from a single piece of plastic which clips into a couple of mounts on the underside of the loco. Removing the piece solved all of my problems, its had a really good run in without skipping a beat. My perception is that its 'loosened up' now and I've had it flat out pulling 11 coaches. I think those sand pipes are going to cause more problems than they are worth and having them fitted isn't something I'm that fussed about personally. I'd obviously seen pictures of the loco before and kind of expected it to look very 'functional' but its actually very elegant when you see it in the flesh and I can't stop running it now, I'm enjoying the sound and the playable horn is great fun! Track Cleaning and run-in Flat out hauling 11 coaches

R30030 IS a 21 pin model? I'm referring to the parts list, bottom right and that is the latest data sheet from July '21. Anyway it doesn't matter, I'll work it out myself as its clearly inaccurate. Thanks.

What switches me off about Hornby is the lack of factory fitted DCC models. I assume this is a deliberate strategy and they have done the market research in that the DC market must be bigger than DCC so the cost does not justify the means?

An interesting thread providing more options for those of us with more modern rolling stock.

I'm sorry to hear that, it's bad luck and very unusual. I have two 37 SFX's and they've both been perfect as was my latest 47, there has been a noticeable improvement in the sound on the recent models compared with my Class 158 and Class 90 which are a little older. Generally I haven't had a single problem with anything Bachmann and have been very pleased over all. In terms of the light switches, I'm pretty sure the lights were relay operated hence the 'click', I've tried unsuccessfully to download the circuit diagrams tonight but anything relay operated does give a noticeable and reassuring clunk to tell the operator that the power has been applied. At the end of the day, how often do we switch the lights on and off, does the click matter that much? As an Electrical Engineer I've become accustomed to listening to the sound of electrical plant and understanding what they mean. I have a sound fitted 87 and its a noisy rascal but all that noise is the cooling fans rather than the motors or the DC Drives and I'm not sure many people appreciate that. In reality and with a bit of hindsight, I'm not sure it was that necessary to move that amount of air that loudly just to keep the drives cool. We see today electrical cars driving around that are almost silent, but then again we've moved to inverter drives now.

This is from 1969 https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=3&id=18444&gallery=Railways&page=22 As mentioned in this thread, the article below also discusses the adoption of BR Blue from the mid 60's. I didn't realise. https://railrevisited.blogspot.com/2019/10/history-life-times-of-rail-blue.html

🖕

https://support.Hornby.com/hc/en-gb/article_attachments/4403630109458 I don't quite understand this service sheet. How can the part number of X7259 for the pantograph sets be the same for R3580 and R30030? Also how can the part number of X7253 for the main PCB be the same for all models when some are 8 pin and others are 21 pin?

32-859A is described as 'preserved' so I'm not sure what era the model is representative of.

Is 32-859A or 32-859B more suited to a BR Blue layout? Thanks

This! When considering a purchase I now think anything but Hornby, I feel like they treat customers and retailers with contempt. Luckily we have plenty of choice nowadays - they no longer offer much, if anything that is exclusive to them. Then there is the price, I was recently sent an 'offer' from one of the retailers for a Hornby A4 Pacific which was 'reduced' from £399 to £289 - I read the spec, its only DCC 'Ready'!! I mean what on earth are Hornby thinking about by not factory fitting DCC? The mere thought of fitting DCC myself to one of their locos fills me with dread, the provisioning is always inadequate and the user manuals filled with inaccuracies. Their engineering design indicates a lot of inexperience boarding on amateur, and the quality control is well publicised now and I'm repeat victim of it. I only have four Hornby's and have had numerous problems with them all. In comparison I recently purchased a Bachmann Class 37 SFX for £218 from the same retailer which I'm delighted with, I think I have five Bachmann's and have yet to be disappointed. I wanted a Class 08 last year and went straight for a Bachmann without even considering the Hornby equivalent, it'll be the same if I decide to go for a 9F.

Hi, Does anyone know how to remove the pantograph on the latest model?

I think I've got a four line WCML quite fixed in my head, its one of the things that make it unique and it feels appropriate given the length of the layout and the stock I have. I do think though that one of the most fascinating sections of the WCML is between Warrington and Wigan where it goes under the Liverpool to Manchester and it separates into two tracks passes the old Vulcan Works before becoming four tracks again but would be completely unfeasible to build. Any of those four line stations from Crewe to Preston would make a great project I think I'm okay for reach and can get to the corner because the returns have access gaps behind for practical reasons. Is 3DPlanIt a good investment? Many CAD and drawing packages have dreadful interfaces nowadays, sometimes I feel the software designers seem to be going backwards. Have you found the software accurate when you go from screen to board. I remember years ago in the car industry designing car wiring harnesses using CAD with some clever routing software and it never quite got it right and you could only find all the issues after you'd built a prototype and tried fitting it in the Body in white. Its aircraft for me nowadays and not a lot has changed, well not as much as you'd wish.

Loft in winter daylight Led lighting fitted - its very bright, probably too bright now! The returns feel a bit tight for four tracks. I've been experimenting with the curves The fixed track is 4th radius. Following the advice, I've been looking at the curves but I can't quite get my head around the 'gentle curve' concept? I was thinking that the four tracks would roughly run down the centre of both the South and North sections and the returns to give space either side for some features. I'm just not sure when to start curving from a straight.

With 12mm ply? Not seen any signs so far, its been in 12 months. The gaps between the CLS bearers are 500mm and the board is effectively 'stretched' between them when screwed in. I have added quite a bit more under board bracing where I've had to piece the baseboard, one side is made up of single pieces of 900mm width, the other side is pieced with two boards of 600mm + 300mm widths. So far I've just used up the CLS off cuts but have more timber which is initially earmarked to make the backboard up stands but any spare could be used for extra bracing, I'll keep an eye on it. The Baseboard has been painted with exterior undercoat. I picked up the LED batton lighting yesterday, two 4ft and a 5ft for the middle between the windows, hopefully get them in today.

Thanks for the reply, yes OO gauge, unfortunately I was unable to add tags to the post and could find absolutely no option to enable 'full editing' - I'm using Chrome, I'm not sure why full editing isn't the default? Anyway, I have seen the Everard / Dean Park and New Junction channels but not the Boomer one, thanks for that! I think I've seen some good automation stuff on the Chadwick park channel, lots of really good information on these channels. I do have a few boxes of flexitrack and some set piece 3rd and 4th radius curves. The plan was to use the set 3rd and 4th curves and use them as a reference for 5th and 6th radius curves using the flexitrack for the high speed lines. I've heard Richard (Everard) mention that it looks more realistic to have gradual curves but with me having to get four tracks through such a narrow return, I think that will be impractical and a compromise I have to accept given the setup. I have had a loop of track setup with the 4th radius curves and trains ran well and fast even though I was still completing the extra under board bracing at the time. I was also going to use concrete sleeper track for the outer fast lines and wooden sleepers for the inner local lines - something that I vaguely remember seeing frequently on the WCML back in the 80s. I was thinking of using cork underlay with individual runs for each line and large sections under the fiddle area.