Hornby Railroad Black 5 tender.

[Mr Pilcher]

I bought a railroad black 5 recently, thinking it would be a budget version of the superdetailed item.

 

I was a bit disappointed when I received it. It's very inaccurate and it wouldn't pull a boy scout off yer grannie.

 

Somehow I still like this model and so I've resisted reselling it. As long as I keep it away from my other black 5s, it looks OK.

 

But that tender has to go.

 

It weighs a massive 182 g and is less well free running then an old triang wagon with non pinpoint bearings. It's a disgrace really. In fact it operates as one big brake. I know it's a relic from the old days of ringfield, but surely Hornby have better chassis available?

 

So rather than mess with the mess, I bought a cheap mainline LMS stanier tender. Their version weighs in at 82 g, is much better detailed, and is a very free runner. I have to repaint it in early BR as well as fit wipers and a drawbar pin. Nothing tricky.

 

Just wondering if someone else has done this and maybe the best finish/ shade of black to match the Hornby body?

 

My aim is to get this loco to be able to handle 8 coaches rather than the current 2-3 on level track. I will also add some extra weight to the loco body.

 

All help gladly appreciated.

 

Craig 

 

 

[cypherman]

Hi.

I would be very interested in finding out what happens here. All my black 5's are Hornby Ringfield models except one. The one I experimented with by putting and XO4 motor in the body. That needed a lot of weight putting in the body to pull anything, and like you I used a black Mainline tender. But to me the Mainline tender looks a little flimsy compared to the loco body. As I do not have a newer Black 5 engine I do not if the dimensions are different from the original Ringfiled one. I suspect they are so the difference in size may not be as noticeable. That engine even with the extra weight only managed to pull 5 coaches or about 10 wagons. I looked into this modification because there was a thread here by some else who had done it and I had a spare none running Black 5. They said that the original Black 5 had the Hall chassis. When I checked the chassis of my loco. Not only did it look like the Hall chassis, But it still had the final drive gear on the driving wheel and all the mounting points for the engine. The only thing I had to do was put a thread in the hole for screwing the back of the motor to the chassis. I did consider buying a complete hall chassis and fitting that as all my Halls pull better than the conversion. But like all things I got distracted with other projects. I painted mine all over satin black the used a matt varnish to tone it down. 

As I said I will be looking forwards to seeing how your engine turns out 

Edited August 19, 2019 by cypherman

[Dunsignalling]

9 hours ago, Mr Pilcher said:

I bought a railroad black 5 recently, thinking it would be a budget version of the superdetailed item.

 

I was a bit disappointed when I received it. It's very inaccurate and it wouldn't pull a boy scout off yer grannie.

 

Somehow I still like this model and so I've resisted reselling it. As long as I keep it away from my other black 5s, it looks OK.

 

But that tender has to go.

 

It weighs a massive 182 g and is less well free running then an old triang wagon with non pinpoint bearings. It's a disgrace really. In fact it operates as one big brake. I know it's a relic from the old days of ringfield, but surely Hornby have better chassis available?

 

So rather than mess with the mess, I bought a cheap mainline LMS stanier tender. Their version weighs in at 82 g, is much better detailed, and is a very free runner. I have to repaint it in early BR as well as fit wipers and a drawbar pin. Nothing tricky.

 

Just wondering if someone else has done this and maybe the best finish/ shade of black to match the Hornby body?

 

My aim is to get this loco to be able to handle 8 coaches rather than the current 2-3 on level track. I will also add some extra weight to the loco body.

 

All help gladly appreciated.

 

Craig 

 

 

The Railroad Black Five is essentially the old tender-drive one, dating from the 1970s (minus the tender drive) and has nothing at all in common with the main range model. The weight and rolling resistance of the formerly driven tender is easily equivalent to three coaches.

 

Binning it is a no-brainer and the Mainline tender is about the best possible solution at modest cost. With a little work, the loco can be made "passable" even alongside the "full fat" model so long as one doesn't look too closely. 

 

Are you intending to weather the model? If so it will probably be fairly easy to get acceptably matching finishes. Otherwise the best plan is to repaint both loco and tender. You really wouldn't believe how many variations of "black" paint exist!

 

John

Edited August 19, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[GWR-fan]

Another alternative is scrap the dragging original wipers and if you wish to go further then reduce the weight of the mazak ex-motor housing to barely a chassis to retain the wheels.  Just removing the wipers will increase the haulage power.  It is not simply the total weight of the tender impeding the haulage of the loco.  I have several later Hornby Railroad A3 and A4 with the earlier ex-ringfield de-motored tender chassis and the tenders,  even with pickups,  are as free rolling as a wagon.

[GeraldH]

I managed to improve things significantly by cutting away the excess metal and then replacing the tender wheels with a set that were insulated on one side only.  I then only had to add pickups to the outer two wheels on one side only.  I used long pickups, so that they were not pressing too hard on the wheels.  Haulage improved dramatically and it ran well.