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New Hornby Rocket


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2 hours ago, scumcat said:

Ok have received mine from trains 4u and it is a fantastic runner on my sons dc loop. I have tried to put a Hornby 6 pin Dcc decoder in it and it kept shorting out. The decoder was it the right way too. So my wife said put it in the other way. Last time I listen to her as there was a puff of smoke, a smell of fish and a new decoder in the bin. I have ordered another decoder in the hope the first one was faulty. Has anyone had this problem where it runs on dc but shorts out when a chip is put in it, help please if possible,

 

I had this with a Heljan ?05 if my memory serves me right.  Very  similar to how you described and it went the same way.   This was a guagemaster 6 pin.  Took it back to the shop and it promptly blew another chip in the shop.  I can't remember the brand i switched to (its in the Heljan 05 thread) and its been fine since.

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9 hours ago, Roddy Angus said:

A suggestion for those that have concerns about breaking the wires between the engine and the tender.  If you strip a bit of the insulation of an appropriately sized piece of wire , it can be pushed onto the pin to hold the coupling between the engine and tender in place.  This avoids the strain put on the wiring when the two unexpectedly separate while you are handling them.  The insulation can just be slipped off if you need to separate or want to return to original condition.

 

I hope this helps some people and I apologise if someone has already made this suggestion.

 

Best wishes

 

Roddy

 

That's a great idea, the wires are already vulnerable, due to size [well lack of strength] and it looked as if they were cable not flex [not sure about that due to how thin the wires are].  It never ran, out of the box, I looked at the underside, as it wouldn't move and one of the middle motor wires had detached from the solder on the Tender.  I will certainly be doing that collar on the drawbar  - when it's replacement gets back from Kernow.....   I'm very grateful to them, as they simply asked for it to be returned to them, for a replacement.  

 

When it was looked at, with magnifying specs, there was a gold coloured substance on the soldered connections to the Tender, which was the point at which, the plan to simply re-solder the connection was abandoned.  It would be a possibility that the substance might have been applied to support the solder joint.  Has the same substance been identified on any other person's Rocket?

 

I may well apply some Evo-Stick for support to the joint, as well as the insulation collar.....

 

Julian

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2 hours ago, Ouroborus said:

Hornby QC can have its moments.  To save you going through pages of the Heljan 05 thread, it was a Bachmann chip that ended up going in.  I don't know of this same chip will fit in a Rocket

 

The Bachmann decoder will not fit, I would check that there is no short between the pick up circuits and the motor circuits, reasonable easy to do with the probes of a multimeter and the model lying on its side touching the solder pads for the wires on the tender, obviously with no decoder or blanking plug in situ.

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3 hours ago, jcredfer said:

When it was looked at, with magnifying specs, there was a gold coloured substance on the soldered connections to the Tender, which was the point at which, the plan to simply re-solder the connection was abandoned.  It would be a possibility that the substance might have been applied to support the solder joint.  Has the same substance been identified on any other person's Rocket?

I've not seen anything like that on mine, did you take a photo of it?

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3 minutes ago, Nile said:

I've not seen anything like that on mine, did you take a photo of it?

 

Thank you for the information Nile.  Sadly, I didn't do so.  The substance looked like a mix of varnish and the old boiled horse hoof glue, honey in colour and was smeared over the solder joints and where, what appears to be, a plug / socket, to the rear.

 

Julian

 

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3 hours ago, Coppercap said:

Is there a reason for you wanting to do that?

For one, I believe in being able to repair and maintain all my models, two, if a rocket could be successfully opened I could replace the stiff factory wiring with more flexible decoder wire from ESU. 

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6 hours ago, aaron3820 said:

For one, I believe in being able to repair and maintain all my models, two, if a rocket could be successfully opened I could replace the stiff factory wiring with more flexible decoder wire from ESU. 

There is a service sheet on the Hornby web site, 451. As I posted earlier it looks like you need to either disconnect the coupling rods from the wheels which given the plastic pins that are used could be fatal to them or remove the cylinders from the body, if that can be do one without damaging them. There is then a single slotted head bolt on the underside which presumably actually holds the body in place. I would not attempt it before I knew that spare pins or cylinders were readily available.

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10 hours ago, aaron3820 said:

Has anyone been able to successfully remove the body off the loco at all yet?

 

10 hours ago, Coppercap said:

Is there a reason for you wanting to do that?

 

9 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

To find out what else may be snapped-twisted-broken-mashed-crunched-ruined, all too easily !

A day in the life of an N gauge modeller ?

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I've stripped mine right down to component parts. It was ok when it arrived, but sporadically showed signs of a gear going out of mesh. I also wanted to be rid of the maze of dcc wiring. So I started stripping it. Suffice to say, not a job for the faint hearted! It is still in bits awaiting a solution to the original problem.

If you turn the loco over, there is one FLAT headed screw; this basically hold the boiler/body down, though you do have to remove much more (other POZI screws, wheels, cyls, pipes etc. 

The idler gearwheel rotates freely on a shaft which sits in slots in the frame. It appears that the boiler has a narrow projection pushing down in the slot at one side. This looks like it should push the shaft into position so that the gears mesh properly. The body is of course held by the flat screw. I've now broken my screw, it is very thin and easily over tightened. I'm looking at glueing the shaft in position, the gear can rotate ok on it. The body is a very tight fit on the underframe, so hopefully the screw will be redundant.

I've replaced all the wiring with thin flex as used in dcc, obtained I think from Eileens Emporium. The blanking plug etc in the tender has been thrown away to simplify matters. All the wires will come together on a piece of copper clad sleeper under the tender. Incidentally I found no single strand wire in the build.

 

Stewart

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On 04/07/2020 at 11:55, wainwright1 said:

Observations:

I only had a quick look, but I suspect that the models are moulded in yellow plastic rather than painted ? The loco seems to err towards egg and the coaches to lemon, not quite the same shade, but I do not think that anyone will want to repaint them.

 

I don't think anyone has commented on this further.

I got my latest edition of the Hornby Collector Magazine today. Inside their is an article on Rocket which includes a picture of the replica loco and coach taken at York and low and behold, the yellow of the loco and coach are different ! So Hornby have got this 100% correct.

For those who may not subscribe, there is also an article in the current (July) issue of Backtrack magazine on 'The First Train on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.' This includes a good selection of drawings of the early rolling stock, including four different types of roofed coach, including a mail coach, one open 2nd class coach, a road/rail coach, a private carriage on a carriage wagon, a double deck sheep wagon and a pig wagon !

I wonder why wagons for pigs were not perpetuated ?

 

All the best

Ray

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A short running session featuring the highly anticipated  Hornby Stephenson's Rocket Train Pack, edited with real sound. 
As you can imagine I had to get creative with sounds for this edit, using a number of small industrial locomotives from my sound collection, captured at various Gala and Preserved Railways over the past few years to bring the model to life.
Here we see "Rocket" in action hauling her immaculate rake of  Liverpool & Manchester Railway coaches.
Hope you enjoy!

 

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Hi All.

Unfortunately I can't get to my exhibition layout at the moment, locked up in our clubroom.

Can anyone advise if the chimney on Rocket will clear the Wills tunnel mouth ?

Also, has anyone fitted alternative couplings. Obviously if running on a layout you cannot do this using the couplings provided.

 

All the best

Ray

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1 hour ago, wainwright1 said:

Hi All.

Unfortunately I can't get to my exhibition layout at the moment, locked up in our clubroom.

Can anyone advise if the chimney on Rocket will clear the Wills tunnel mouth ?

Also, has anyone fitted alternative couplings. Obviously if running on a layout you cannot do this using the couplings provided.

 

All the best

Ray


Actually  you can run it on layout with these couplings . I ran it for quite a while with no uncoupling Issues . They are extremely frustrating getting them fitted in the first place but they do the job . I don’t think you are meant to be shunting with this loco. Taking it off the layout I ran it onto a spare section of track to avoid having to couple/uncouple again . The whole thing is now displayed in a bookcase still on the track! 

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23 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

has anyone fitted alternative couplings. Obviously if running round on a layout you cannot do this using the couplings provided.

I would suggest possibly trying the Greenwich coupling sold for 009 use - being etched it should be possible to bend the supporting part to fit closely to the underside of the tender and coaches, although you will need to rig up an electromagnet to undertake the actual uncoupling - has any version of Rocket ever been seen running tender first ?  If not then a small turntable will be required. Mine, when it returns from repair or is replaced, will spend its time shuttling back and forth much like the Replica does at York and when its out at depot open days etc

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5 minutes ago, Butler Henderson said:

has any version of Rocket ever been seen running tender first ?


I think you’ve answered your own question ;) 

 

5 minutes ago, Butler Henderson said:

shuttling back and forth much like the Replica does at York


As far as I can tell they turned them at the end of a journey. As far as I can see they only had one size of turntable initially, (from plans of Liverpool Rd Station), so I guess they turned loco and tender separately? As Rocket’s tender didn’t survive we don’t know what valves they had for shutting it off to split them. 

No doubt they had to shunt coaches etc to sidings so there probably was some propelling and shunting, as you’d expect later on, but more hand and horse shunting as the vehicles were smaller and lighter then. 

Modelling a terminus would certainly be a challenge if they did split them! 

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Track matters?

 

Does any manufacturer offer correct "period" track for the Hornby Rocket in 16.5mm gauge?

 

While my Rocket runs nicely on standard Hornby track, I intend to display it most of the time and it would be nice to have the correct track.  I also have an "Adler" and a couple of coaches, which will make a nice companion piece, but again some suitable track would be welcome.

 

It would be nice if there was running track in the right configuration, but a yard (or metre) of the right design would be great.

 

Thanks in advance

 

jh

 

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