Hornby - New tooling - Large Prairie

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, Jim104 said:

Its only 6 wheel pick up which is disappointing as all wheel pick up would have been better imo and at £100 + you would expect it.

 

Really?

You must shop somewhere different to me.

[Jim104]

16 hours ago, melmerby said:

Really?

You must shop somewhere different to me.

Did you pay more than this then Keith ?

[Jim104]

Have cured this running problem by filing a half round space in the bottom keeper plate below the driving wheel axle so that the axle can have some compensation. This allows the brass axle box to move up and down to adjust to less than billiard table track. My track is near perfectly level but there is always an exception. Heat in the room, wood expanding/contracting etc. Anyway well pleased with the result. 

[melmerby]

On 01/11/2020 at 10:32, Jim104 said:

Did you pay more than this then Keith ?

No, I paid less than £100.

However where are these all wheel pickup locos you seem to think are around at £100?

As yet I haven't bought one.

 

[Jim104]

26 minutes ago, melmerby said:

No, I paid less than £100.

However where are these all wheel pickup locos you seem to think are around at £100?

As yet I haven't bought one.

 

I actually said,

Its only 6 wheel pick up which is disappointing as all wheel pick up would have been better imo and at £100 + you would expect it.

That is In my option, all wheel pick up would be better......and with manufactures pushing towards the £200 per tender locomotive it surely must be expected. 

The new Dapol GWR Mogul is coming with all wheel pick up, so if they can do it , so can the Red and Blue box suppliers as well.

 

[melmerby]

40 minutes ago, Jim104 said:

 

The new Dapol GWR Mogul is coming with all wheel pick up, so if they can do it , so can the Red and Blue box suppliers as well.

 

It does not say it has pickups on the pony truck, (All Driving & Tender Wheels it says in the Dapol spiel) which it appears you are insisting a loco at that price should have.

From that point of view it is exactly the same as Hornby & Bachmann, as yet I haven't seen a loco from any of the UK manufacturers that has pickups on a floating two wheel truck. (The DJM/Hattons 48XX has a fixed position trailing wheelset like the prorotype)

I would welcome pickups on more wheels but I can't see it happening.

[The Johnster]

While I think all-wheel pickup, or pickup from one side on the pony and the other side on the radial, which would be easy enough on this model, is not a bad idea, my view is that 6 wheel pickup is adequate in nearly all cases, assuming well laid clean track, clean wheels, and clean properly adjusted pickups.  But I would like to see adjustable pickups as opposed to crudely bent into shape ones, and would even suggest self-adjusting pickups.  For DC control, it is possible to have too many pickups when it comes to isolating locos; it is sometimes and advantage to be able to park with a pony or radial wheel sitting harmlessly in the next section.

 

I use insulfrogs  with mostly 6-coupled chassis, btw, and do not have frog stalling issues except with a W4 Peckett on a setrack 4th-3rd radius curved point, which has a long enough dead section frog and frog gap to completely isolate the poor little thing.  Even then it's ok if she can get a bit of a run at it, and as it's not on the visible part of the layout this is allowed.  She manages a Peco Streamline Medium Radius insulfrog turnout fine at a crawl. 

[Jim104]

Kieth the Bachman lord nelson albeit an older model, had front bogie pick ups but sadly not on the tender, so they have tried. Lets hope they listen to us customers and improve, more pick ups and some compensation in the axles.

cheers

James

[Coach bogie]

One of my modelling neighbours brought his prairie to my line to run in as he does not have a continuous run. He made a similar comment about stalling on certain points. We both use Peco code 75. On my line it ran without any hesitation. In this case not the loco - its the laying of the track.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Edited November 3, 2020 by Coach bogie
SPAG

[aaron3820]

Spring loaded plungers might be the go to for pickups these days. I suspect they’d be a lot better than what Airfix used back in the day. 

[Jim104]

2 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

One of my modelling neighbours brought his prairie to my line to run in as he does not have a continuous run. He made a similar comment about stalling on certain points. We both use Peco code 75. On my line it ran without any hesitation. In this case not the loco - its the laying of the track.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Hi Mike, I have a large oo layout with all code 100 track, yes my track laying might not be to snooker table flatness, I dont know anyone who has achieved this but all other locos (over 200) run through my pointwork fine. The only area I was having trouble with was the double slips, all of which are at the terminus station throat. The 61XX could not cope with them as both front and back driving wheels sit very nicely over the plastic frogs and the centre axle lost electrical contact because of the rigid wheel set.. It would be nice if Peco could produce code 100 live frog double slips and a live frog scissor crossover as well!  And over the years I have had peco 100 pointwork go banana shape on me as well producing a very small hump in the point.. The modification I have made nows allows for better running, but I am always reluctant to start hacking around a brand new £100 + model.

cheers

James

 

 

[melmerby]

6 hours ago, aaron3820 said:

Spring loaded plungers might be the go to for pickups these days. I suspect they’d be a lot better than what Airfix used back in the day. 

Alan Gibson do them, I used them on my 43XX chassis kit, work well.

So do the Airfix ones if kept clean of grease & gunk.

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, Jim104 said:

 It would be nice if Peco could produce code 100 live frog double slips and a live frog scissor crossover as well!

James

 

 

Hi James

You could try making them live using silver conductive paint (Not graphite based or other type), as it has a very low resistance once cured, in the order of small fractions of an ohm for something like a frog.

Unfortunately it will inevitably wear and need re-doing after a period of use.

[The Johnster]

8 hours ago, aaron3820 said:

Spring loaded plungers might be the go to for pickups these days. I suspect they’d be a lot better than what Airfix used back in the day. 

And they could be made adjustable!  The Airfix were a brave attempt, and work if they are meticulously maintained to be crud free, but are a bit too delicate for general use. 

[Great Eastern Lady]

On 28/10/2020 at 18:25, tomparryharry said:

 

Strangely enough, I didn't mind  firing to Terriers. Keeping away from the blessed Westinghouse was the main thing! 

Those pumps do spit , and trying to get to the fireman’s water valve for the injectors without burning your hand is great fun (not)

[Ruffnut Thorston]

On 02/11/2020 at 15:10, melmerby said:

It does not say it has pickups on the pony truck, (All Driving & Tender Wheels it says in the Dapol spiel) which it appears you are insisting a loco at that price should have.

From that point of view it is exactly the same as Hornby & Bachmann, as yet I haven't seen a loco from any of the UK manufacturers that has pickups on a floating two wheel truck. (The DJM/Hattons 48XX has a fixed position trailing wheelset like the prorotype)

I would welcome pickups on more wheels but I can't see it happening.

 

 

The old Bachmann LMS Ivatt 2-6-2 tank loco has pick ups on the front pony truck, but not the rear.....

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Ruffnut Thorston
Tidying

[melmerby]

11 hours ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:

 

 

The old Bachmann LMS Ivatt 2-6-2 tank loco has pick ups on the front pony truck, but not the rear.....

 

 

 

Interesting.

I wonder why they didn't carry that through to the GWR Prairies?

 

EDIT That must have been an aberration!

Just checked some more Bachmann locos and none of my tanks have pickups anywhere other than the driving wheels.

Even the Lanky 2-4-2T only has 4 wheel pickup.

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by melmerby

[No Decorum]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Interesting.

I wonder why they didn't carry that through to the GWR Prairies?

 

EDIT That must have been an aberration!

Just checked some more Bachmann locos and none of my tanks have pickups anywhere other than the driving wheels.

Even the Lanky 2-4-2T only has 4 wheel pickup.

 

The Lanky 2-4-2T has, or should have, a pick up on one side of the leading radial truck and another on the other side of the trailing truck, giving  six wheel pickup. Particularly effective as the leading and trailing axles are independently sprung. The mechanism is most ingenious but unfortunately the metal contacts which are supposed to bear down on the live axles and provide the springing can be assembled in such a way as not to make contact. It’s quite fiddly to correct but very well worth doing.

[melmerby]

32 minutes ago, No Decorum said:

The Lanky 2-4-2T has, or should have, a pick up on one side of the leading radial truck and another on the other side of the trailing truck, giving  six wheel pickup. Particularly effective as the leading and trailing axles are independently sprung. The mechanism is most ingenious but unfortunately the metal contacts which are supposed to bear down on the live axles and provide the springing can be assembled in such a way as not to make contact. It’s quite fiddly to correct but very well worth doing.

The wheels on mine seem to just flop around and I assumed there was no contacts.

I shall have to investigate to check they are working.

[No Decorum]

9 minutes ago, melmerby said:

The wheels on mine seem to just flop around and I assumed there was no contacts.

I shall have to investigate to check they are working.

They do flop. I suggest you look for the insulation around the axle at one end and apply power to the opposite wheel, then the other feed to the other truck, where the insulation should be on the other side. If the driving wheels spin, happy days!

[PMP]

15 hours ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:

 

 

The old Bachmann LMS Ivatt 2-6-2 tank loco has pick ups on the front pony truck, but not the rear.....

 

 

 

I’d be very surprised if it did. The old ivatt was split chassis. 

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, PMP said:

I’d be very surprised if it did. The old ivatt was split chassis. 

Bachmann V1/v3 even had pickups on their ponies in the split chassis days.

 

Technology was good back in the olden days too.

[john dew]

1 hour ago, PMP said:

I’d be very surprised if it did. The old ivatt was split chassis. 

I have two split chassis Ivatts running regularly on Granby. They both have pony pick ups from new.

[tomparryharry]

2 hours ago, PMP said:

I’d be very surprised if it did. The old ivatt was split chassis. 

 

Even funnier, old chap. It's a Hornby page....

[melmerby]

13 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Even funnier, old chap. It's a Hornby page....

.....and we are discussing why the Hornby Prairie does not have pickups on the pony trucks and giving examples of others that have them.