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Hornby - New tooling - Large Prairie


Andy Y
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5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

  Flywheels are nice to look at, not bad as ballast, and give an impression of 'proper engineering' to a chassis, but are in fact more or less pointless in slow running 4mm 

 

Err, not quite, I feel. The missing part of the process is an effective gear train. In that you can have a high-revving motor, with its flywheel. The geartrain transfers the rotational motion from the motor down to the driving axle(s). A you say, the flywheels job is to smooth out the geartrain, and retain a degree of inertia.  If you remove parts of the geartrain, then you can effectively negate any smooth-running qualities you might imagine. 

 

Some manufacturers do this as a cost-cutting exercise. One classic example is a manufacturer who appeared to 'spec-up' a model during its press release phase, then  dropped the standard when the company thought they could 'get away with it'.     

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Sorry @The Johnster, but I do now have to point out that the coupling rods from a Tri-ang Railways Princess are totally different from the coupling rods from a Tri-ang Railways R.52 type 0-6-0.

 

The Pacific rods are shorter, with a closer axle spacing, than the 0-6-0 type.

 

The B12/Hall type rods are also different from the 0-6-0 rods, I think the B12/ Hall type are longer still. (From memory!)

 

Yes, there are a lot of common parts, just not these rods. ;)
 

Your main point about the chassis not being correct for the GWR locos though, I certainly agree with. 
 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ruffnut Thorston
Clarification....wrong poster, not Ian. Sorry!
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21 minutes ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:

Sorry Ian, but I do now have to point out that the coupling rods from a Tri-ang Railways Princess are totally different from the coupling rods from a Tri-ang Railways R.52 type 0-6-0.

 

The Pacific rods are shorter, with a closer axle spacing, than the 0-6-0 type.

 

The B12/Hall type rods are also different from the 0-6-0 rods, I think the B12 type are longer still. (From memory!)

 

Yes, there are a lot of common parts, just not these rods. ;)

 

 

 

 

Not me! That must have been someone else's post.  My original post spoke about the common knowledge  that we know, about the deficiencies of the Hornby 2721 chassis. The point I tried to make is that's it's pretty non-productive when people come along and say "Oh, this is wrong, and that is wrong".  What they might say is:- " Back in the past, Hornby used to turn out a generic chassis, but nowadays, Hornby are capable of producing high-fidelity models". 

 

As far as coupling rods are concerned, I've taken down lots of the old R52 chassis, but never taken down the rods on a Princess. I think the last one I handled would have been 1965-ish. 

 

Cheers,

Ian

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56 minutes ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:

The B12/Hall type rods are also different from the 0-6-0 rods, I think the B12 type are longer still. (From memory!)

 

Yes, there are a lot of common parts, just not these rods. ;)
 

Your main point about the chassis not being correct for the GWR locos though, I certainly agree with. 

 

The B12 and Hall shared a common chassis with an equal driving wheel spacing of 7'3"+7'3" (29mm+29mm).

Totally wrong for the Hall. I'm not sure about the B12?

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11 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Not me! That must have been someone else's post.  My original post spoke about the common knowledge  that we know, about the deficiencies of the Hornby 2721 chassis. The point I tried to make is that's it's pretty non-productive when people come along and say "Oh, this is wrong, and that is wrong".  What they might say is:- " Back in the past, Hornby used to turn out a generic chassis, but nowadays, Hornby are capable of producing high-fidelity models". 

 

As far as coupling rods are concerned, I've taken down lots of the old R52 chassis, but never taken down the rods on a Princess. I think the last one I handled would have been 1965-ish. 

 

Cheers,

Ian


 

Sorry Ian. :blush_mini:

 

It was late, and I got mixed up a bit.

 

it was The Johnster’s post that I was commenting on...

 

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11 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

 

The B12 and Hall shared a common chassis with an equal driving wheel spacing of 7'3"+7'3" (29mm+29mm).

Totally wrong for the Hall. I'm not sure about the B12?


The B12 was the first loco to use this chassis block. Followed by the Hall, after modifications to take a motion bracket, LNER A3 “Flying Scotsman”, LMS Streamline Duchess, with further modifications the Black 5, and even the version of the Diesel Shunter with the automatic uncoupler function!

 

And that’s just off the top off my head! There probably are others.

 

Edited by Ruffnut Thorston
Clarification...modifications
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3 minutes ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:


 

Sorry Ian. :blush_mini:

 

It was late, and I got mixed up a bit.

 

it was The Johnster’s post that I was commenting on...

 

 

That's quite alright, don't worry about it. I think Johnster is getting worked up about this 94 pannier business. 

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As a point of interest here is the comparison between the 2 Prairies and the dinky Austrian shunter before finding the problem:

 

If the point is dead frog the centre wheel could be shorting the two rails of the frog together. I had this problem with 6 coupled as the centre wheel rides out further on a curve. I discovered this was the issue, when I put a piece of thin tap on the v end and it ran sweet and the engine no,longer stalled. . I used live frog wherever possible from then onwards.

 

Mike Wiltshire

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Having acquired one from South Devon Rly as per posting two up noted not many comments re what decoder actually fits so tried a Gaugemaster DCC92 (aka Digitrax DZ126PS). Turned out to be too short in cable to reach the provided decoder socket whilst it would reach into the bunker area that is intended for a speaker but the cables were too taught for the body to refit. Solution was a lump of blu-tac on the pin 1 end underside end of the socket and the decoder turned back and pushed into the blu-tac.

 

prairie dcc92.jpg

Edited by Butler Henderson
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On 14/11/2020 at 11:45, Coach bogie said:

As a point of interest here is the comparison between the 2 Prairies and the dinky Austrian shunter before finding the problem:

 

If the point is dead frog the centre wheel could be shorting the two rails of the frog together. I had this problem with 6 coupled as the centre wheel rides out further on a curve. I discovered this was the issue, when I put a piece of thin tap on the v end and it ran sweet and the engine no,longer stalled. . I used live frog wherever possible from then onwards.

 

Mike Wiltshire

DCC. All live frog, everything powered correctly.

 

I've since also loosened the keeper plate on the bottom of the loco and the driving wheels now have a little vertical movement.

It has improved running.

IMHO Hornby have made this chassis a bit too rigid to the extent that if one wheel lifts for some reason, all wheels on that side lift.

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On 19/11/2020 at 20:32, Butler Henderson said:

Having acquired one from South Devon Rly as per posting two up noted not many comments re what decoder actually fits so tried a Gaugemaster DCC92 (aka Digitrax DZ126PS). Turned out to be too short in cable to reach the provided decoder socket whilst it would reach into the bunker area that is intended for a speaker but the cables were too taught for the body to refit. Solution was a lump of blu-tac on the pin 1 end underside end of the socket and the decoder turned back and pushed into the blu-tac.

 

 

(The DCC 92 has only 45mm of cabling according to GM)

 

I have one Prairie with a Lenz Standard + V2 whose body is a little too long and wont sit entirely in the receptacle at the front but will extend into the smokebox.

The other has a Zimo MX600R which is slightly shorter and does fit nicely in the place for it.

 

 

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Renumbered mine as 5199 as preserved using Railtec 3D waterslide plates. The cabside numberplates did work loose so in the absence of any pva which Railtec recommend I used a pin head drop or two of Woodland Scenics  Hob e Tac. The route restriction markings as supplied was removed by the acrylic thinners and Sharpie pen approach and a new ones located below the numberplates.

 

5199.jpg

Edited by Butler Henderson
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On 09/11/2020 at 16:52, melmerby said:

As a point of interest here is the comparison between the 2 Prairies and the dinky Austrian shunter before finding the problem:

 

Highlights just one of the reasons I moved to continental models. They are beautiful and always do what they are supposed to. There spec is still well advanced of most UK models.

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On 22/11/2020 at 11:38, duff man said:

Highlights just one of the reasons I moved to continental models. They are beautiful and always do what they are supposed to. There spec is still well advanced of most UK models.

Liliput, just another of Bachmann's (Kader's) products.

The detail is actually quite crude with (now broken) plastic handrails and very basic lighting.

Hardly an advert for the quality of Continental models.

The Mechanism's quite good though.

 

It was quite cheap to buy - £27:50 brand new, from Ian Allan Birmingham when they were closing.

It included a basic LokPilot decoder.

Edited by melmerby
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On 21/11/2020 at 16:32, Butler Henderson said:

Renumbered mine as 5199 as preserved using Railtec 3D waterslide plates. The cabside numberplates did work loose so in the absence of any pva which Railtec recommend I used a pin head drop or two of Woodland Scenics  Hob e Tac. The route restriction markings as supplied was removed by the acrylic thinners and Sharpie pen approach and a new ones located below the numberplates.

 

5199.jpg

Very nice, if you don't mind I copy yours and do the same.

Edited by adb968008
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My comment was of a general nature, Bought from Ian Allen is going back a bit, hardly state of the art which the Hornby 61xx is supposed to be. Like you say runs well, even though the tooling would now be 20years or so old.

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17 hours ago, melmerby said:

Liliput, just another of Bachmann's (Kader's) products.

The detail is actually quite crude with (now broken) plastic handrails and very basic lighting.

Hardly an advert for the quality of Continental models.

The Mechanism's quite good though.

 

It was quite cheap to buy - £27:50 brand new, from Ian Allan Birmingham when they were closing.

It included a basic LokPilot decoder.

 

Now that’s an interesting observation. Lilliput HO has been manufactured in China virtually since the demise of the original Viennese company. Piko too ,since their days in the GDR,have followed the same trail with their own factory there. Of Gutzold a maker of state of the art models some twenty years ago,there appears to be no trace.Fleischmann hit the buffers ,the wreckage being swallowed by the evergreen Roco. 
 

Current Lilliput models in price terms are what you might describe as “high end” in terms of cost but good as they undoubtedly are don’t quite measure up to the quality and finesse of Trix and Roco both of European origin in manufacture.The latter celebrate their 60th Anniversary year now.They always were of top quality but their very latest models IMHO surpass earlier achievements which frankly equivalent Bachmann Lilliput models cannot match. Oh yes,each box contains the slip”checked by” which is in marked contrast to the qc issues suffered by our OO gauge output.

 

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1 hour ago, duff man said:

My comment was of a general nature, Bought from Ian Allen is going back a bit, hardly state of the art which the Hornby 61xx is supposed to be. Like you say runs well, even though the tooling would now be 20years or so old.

September 2019 :)

Agreed, it's quite an old model and IA had it in stock for some years with no takers at £75, then in 2019 they reduced it to £55, still no takers.

When they went to 50% off all marked prices in the last couple of weeks I grabbed it.

There was also a nice little 0-6-0T I was hankering over, but somebody bought that on the first reduction.

 

 

Back on topic:

Both my new 61XX have now settled down after a little tweaking and run quite smoothly although I would have liked Hornby to fill more of the void in the body with metal to increase the weight.

 

Anybody having problems with the sanding pipes under the cab?

Mine seem to keep up ending pointing in all directions, (probably my pigs trotters for hands;))

One snapped off when I tried to re-position it and I cant get the stub out of the casting. Looks like a drill job and some springy wire to fix.

Edited by melmerby
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On 24/11/2020 at 18:27, melmerby said:

September 2019 :)

Agreed, it's quite an old model and IA had it in stock for some years with no takers at £75, then in 2019 they reduced it to £55, still no takers.

When they went to 50% off all marked prices in the last couple of weeks I grabbed it.

There was also a nice little 0-6-0T I was hankering over, but somebody bought that on the first reduction.

 

 

Back on topic:

Both my new 61XX have now settled down after a little tweaking and run quite smoothly although I would have liked Hornby to fill more of the void in the body with metal to increase the weight.

 

Anybody having problems with the sanding pipes under the cab?

Mine seem to keep up ending pointing in all directions, (probably my pigs trotters for hands;))

One snapped off when I tried to re-position it and I cant get the stub out of the casting. Looks like a drill job and some springy wire to fix.

yep, i broke my sand pipes clean off, when trying to get the body back on, stupid design.
having other running issues but hopefully covered in previous posts so need to work my through them. i think it's a bit tight at a certain point in the rotation, makes a right thud noise as well at the same rotation point.
i think it's one of the flanges on the last wheel set catching the track, don't think the wheels are square on, it's this i think is causing it to stutter on a couple of points as it passes through the check rail bit 

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51 minutes ago, jonnyuk said:

yep, i broke my sand pipes clean off, when trying to get the body back on,

I've managed to go one further.

I noticed on my second 61XX one of the sandboxes at a crazy angle (wasn't like that from new), so I pushed it back to where it should be and it snapped clean off where it fits to the chassis.

It seems rather than being a substantial part of the chassis, they are just plastic and stick out from the chassis on a square plastic peg about 1.5mm square and 4 - 5mm long.

Glued it back on and shortly after managed to knock it off again!

Now repaired for a second time, lets hope it stays there.

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