How long should model railway stuff last?

[railroadbill]

7 hours ago, PatB said:

 

I think Hornby are being a bit conservative there. I have a J52 (same chassis) whose instructions reckon a 50 hour motor life. Due to some use in a shop window display, I reckon it's done at least 300 (actually moving) and still works reliably, although I suspect the brushes are a bit thin now. Whilst I'm not keen on something so throwaway, as motors were about 6-7 quid last time I looked, I'm finding it hard to get upset about it in practice. I'm not sure what the going rate is for X04 brushes, but here in Oz, once postage has been added, I doubt if there's really that much in it.

I've read that the  Airfix tender drive was designed to have a life of 400 hours or so. If they had used metal wheels instead of plastic, so current collectors could have been fitted, they could have been more usable imho. What I've found going back to dig out older models  and run them, is that the more running they get, the better they are and can now be run (reasonably!) satisfactorily, compared to how I remember them not running too well years ago when I first got them. While current models, say a Hornby pacific  with quiet motor and transmission,  pickups on most wheels, run smoothly, very slowly, and have better detail, and current locos have raised the bar considerably, there is something satisfying I find in an occasional "oldies" running session round the layout.   

 

I vaguely remember there was a promotional run of an Airfix loco over a long distance or several days, and Hornby Dublo did a long run with a Cardiff  Castle around a track until it had covered an actual distance greater than London to Cardiff.

Edited October 27, 2020 by railroadbill

[RJS1977]

2 hours ago, railroadbill said:

 

This leads back to signalling,  I do use vintage Hornby Dublo signals on my layout, originally as place holders to work out where fine scale signals should be placed, but they don't look bad from a distance and so they are still there... yet another project to do!

 

 

And I use the Crescent cast-metal signals. Easy to motorise, and the spectacle plates can be drilled out with care (although I'll admit I've broken a few!) but a lot cheaper than Dapol!

[Paul H Vigor]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The full-on nasal experience is only available when they are lubricated with traditional mineral oils and greases, which unfortunately are usually “shot”, no good as lubricants, and have to be cleaned away.

 

I wonder if you can buy an “essential oil” made from these things, with a bit of powdered graphite and paxolin in it, to go in those fancy oil-warmer thingies.

'Scratch and sniff' technology for model railways?  

[Paul H Vigor]

23 hours ago, Paul H Vigor said:

Must say, having been raised on it, I like earlier electric motor 'noise'! These modern locos remind me of that moment in classic westerns when someone says: "It's TOO quiet!"  

I have a c.1953 Stewart Riedpath LMS 4F 0-6-0. It growls like a tiger!

[PaulRhB]

20 minutes ago, Paul H Vigor said:

'Scratch and sniff' technology for model railways?  

Ah another person missing the scratch n sniff show experience . . .
 

Oh of the motors not the people? 

[Paul H Vigor]

6 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Ah another person missing the scratch n sniff show experience . . .
 

Oh of the motors not the people? 

When shows start up again, will it be like riding a bike - we will remember what to do!?

[railroadbill]

On 27/10/2020 at 18:08, RJS1977 said:

 

And I use the Crescent cast-metal signals. Easy to motorise, and the spectacle plates can be drilled out with care (although I'll admit I've broken a few!) but a lot cheaper than Dapol!

Just found a Crescent signal (distant) in the loft, now on layout....

[cessna152towser]

I run a mix of vintage and modern model trains on my fiddle yard to branch terminus layout with an HM2000.     The feeds from each controller go to opposite ends of the layout and depending how the points are set either two trains could be driven independently or there could be a cross feed of power to feed in power from both controllers to compensate for voltage drop.   My original Hornby-Dublo 2-6-4T, 80054, from my first train set new at Christmas 1958 has been 2-railed and has been overhauled a few years ago and still gets a run on the layout occasionally.  Still capable of pulling its three tinplate suburbans which nowadays have Wrenn wheels and Ratio interiors.   I also have other vintage Hornby-Dublo and Tri-ang locos purchased second hand which can still be made to run nicely once cleaned up, including several which I bought as "non-runners".     There's a vintage Tri-ang 46205 Princess Victoria in black which runs very smoothly and is every bit as good a runnr as the more modern 46201 Princess Elizabeth Pete Waterman edition, yet its only concession to modernity is replacing the rolling pin wheeled tender with a later tender from a Tri-ang 43775 3F 0-6-0.   Who needs digital sound when even the Lord Westwood with its sandpaper generated "chuff-chuff" sound effect in the tender, at nearly fifty years old, still sounds convincing?

 

Edited to add:- In 2007 I inherited a large collection of never converted Hornby Dublo three-rail from a friend who sadly died from cancer.   Up until the Covid struck I was displaying some of this collection at shows.  Before each show it just needed some loosening up and lubrication and away it went just like new.   Together we had visited Glassford's model shop in Cambridge Street, Glasgow one day in 1970 when he bought an old stock three-rail 2-EPB Power Car for £2 and ten shillings.    He never found the trailer car to go with it.   Post-2007 when the power car came into my possession I sourced one on eBay, had to bid to £249.50 to get it, most I ever paid for a non-powered item of rolling stock.    I sold a few of his more common items to fund it.  The 2-car EMU has had a few exhibition outings since then and is always a talking point with our visitors.  This  train would have been manufactured in 1962 so is now nearly 60 years old.

Edited November 1, 2020 by cessna152towser
afterthought

[cypherman]

Hi all,

I have 3 H+M Duette controllers and 2 H+M Clipper controllers, They all work flawlessly. Plus I have over 40 engines that are pre 1970's that work without any problems. Just serviced regularly.  Some of them are cracking on 60+ years old now. Can you tell me if you think  any of the new engines being produced to day will last the course as these have.  Out of curiosity I would be interested to see a list of modern engines that people think are robust enough to last this long.

[The Johnster]

I  am not surprised to hear this; pre 70s locos were crude. but effective and reliable, and H&M was bombproof.  i am in my late 60s and am hoping for another 20 years before I am weighed in for scrap, and have a fleet on modern 'hi-fi' locos on a DC layout powered and controlled by Gaugemaster which I expect to see me out.  You may be surprised at how long some last, but they are designed and built to a different philosophy than your Hornby Dublo or Triang beasts.  Again, regular servicing is the key to longetvity, along with sensible use, but your locos are probably still running with their original motors and  gearboxes.  Modern locos do not have replaceable carbon brushes, as it is cheaper to replace the motor, and often have nylon gears which wear more quickly, but again, can be replaced.  If, that is, the company is still trading and there is a supply of long obsolete parts, both of which are questionable.  The spares that are kept by Peter's or Lendon's that keep your old stagers in the game are not being made for modern models, and an increasing philosophy of 'no serviceable parts' and replacement of the loco when it reaches the  end of it's service life will I suspect be more prevalant in the future.

 

Why do the old models last so long?  Because they are built to low tolerances and are crude in terms of performance, motion, wheel profile, gear meshing.  What will be the  downfall of current hi-fi models?  They are built to finer tolerences so mechacical wear in mechanisms and motion will be a factor, as will the designed in 'floppiness' of the mechs; the amount of sideplay allowed to wheelsets cannot be good for gear meshing.  Gear meshing is to very fine tolerances indeed.

 

But mine, between about 10 and less than a year old, are all performing faultlessly and improving with age as they 'bed in' and the plated Bachmann driving wheels grip better over time.  Historically, my problem locos have been those built between 1970s and about the turn of the century; I delineate it for convenience to the fitting of NEM couplings, which have no direct bearing but seem to have appeared at about the time that RTR  steam outline models 'reverted' to the traditional format of a motor, admittedly now can and not open frame, longittudinally mounted and driving through a worm and gear transmission and picking up through wipers.  The era of split chassis (good idea poorly executied by Mainline), sprung plunger pickups (good idea poorly exectuted by Airfix), transverse mounted pancake motors, tender drives, traction tyres, nylon cog gear trains, pizza cutter LIma wheels on chassis even cruder than a Rovex Black Princess, plastic chassis (bad idea badly executed by Lima(, and a general laxness in production standards despite much better detail.

 

I am at this very moment having trouble with a 1990s (I think) vintage Hornby 2721, I should say more trouble as this loco is often upside down on the worktop.  This is a 'traditional' design mech, open frame motor driving through nylon worm and cog, but is very fussy about clean wheels and pickups, the wheels appearing to be plated brass of some sort that are very good at finding crud and picking it up.  It is crude and should be efffective, but... anyway, it has decided to throw it's front left wheel out of quarter and will not run, quite an achievement as I cannot shift the wheel on it's axle by hand!  It's temporarily running as an  0-5-0, and one of the wires to the brushes needs resoldering as well.  I'm about to have another go at it; wish me luck.   I'm just hoping that when the gears finally give up somebody will have tooled a modern hi-fi version. 

 

My other problem is another 70s era product, Trigger's Broom, an Airfix 61xx on it's 4th body and 3rd chassis.  This is not the worst designed model of it's era and can at least be evenutally replaced with the current Hornby, but experience shows that, not matter how delicately you handle it, the plastic goes brittle and the slide bars break, which is game over.  My first one, bought in 1979, lasted me 30 years, but any replacement now from the Bay is old and on borrowed time...

[railroadbill]

On 03/11/2020 at 11:18, cypherman said:

Hi all,

I have 3 H+M Duette controllers and 2 H+M Clipper controllers, They all work flawlessly. Plus I have over 40 engines that are pre 1970's that work without any problems. Just serviced regularly.  Some of them are cracking on 60+ years old now. Can you tell me if you think  any of the new engines being produced to day will last the course as these have.  Out of curiosity I would be interested to see a list of modern engines that people think are robust enough to last this long.

I'd suggest Heljan diesels, like the 47s and the bo-bo ones like Hymeks and 33s that have the same big motor and are heavily built. 

 

Also the more recent re-vamps of older models like the Hornby 14xx that's straightforward to overhaul.  An interesting exercise....

[railroadbill]

I'd also suggest Bachmann 45 and similar, they seem to just go on and on.

[railroadbill]

After all that my H&M commander controller has packed up!!  And I bought it in 1974 or so!  Only 46 years, surely it should last longer than that!

It just puts out full voltage and doesn't now control the output at all. Just suddenly failed.  Running Hornby West Country (xo4 version) when it  shot off at full speed! (Well it is a Bulleid pacific).  Rats, just as lockdown begins.

 

Now do I look on e-bay for a probably dodgy replacement or more sensibly look at the Gaugemaster web site....

 

 

[brianusa]

42 minutes ago, railroadbill said:

Only 46 years, surely it should last longer than that!

It sure should!  I have a Lionel transformer from the late forties that still works including the original AC cord.  Admittedly now it controls the lights and points which means there are over fifty bulbs to light plus operate the switch.  A more modern  MTH Z4k runs the trains but this one is over twenty years old already!

     Brian.

[railroadbill]

Got an old Hornby Dublo 16v ac transformer that's still fine for point motor supply.

 

One thing I have found is that the gaugemaster combi dc controller I bought recently has the edge over the H&M ones with slow speed running, I suspect the start voltage is lower with that one. The combi has been available for quite a while anyway.  So maybe it's time for an upgrade. (The layout can go into dcc mode for another link of locos, after unplugging the dc stuff and plugging the dcc stuff in. But that's quite another story).

 

Some years ago I knew someone with a coarse scale 3 rail o gauge layout, Bassett lowke locos and so on, which had original controllers.  Really vintage stuff, but they did the job ok with the large high amp motors they were designed for. 

[PaulRhB]

Between my Father and I we have various old models still running but they all need regular care and lubrication at the very least and several have needed more significant repairs. Hornby Dublo from the 50’s used to need remagnetising fairly frequently until specific neodymium magnets came along. We’ve replaced crankpins and valve gear from damaged ones bought from swapmeets. A few have needed repainting too. 

 Hornby pre and post war O gauge clockwork, springs go, bodywork damaged can be reshaped although we don’t redo the paint. 
Billerbahn Oe tinplate, broken plastic bodies and crushed tinplate corners are common but all have been resurrected and the electric ones have needed battery contacts replacing due to corrosion. 
Bing 1922-25 OO gauge, broken springs are most common and also the chimneys and domes missing as the lead castings have been knocked off, I’ve cast a mould to make resin replacements from a battered bodyshell beyond repair. 
So all these models from 50-90 years old have survived and apart from the Dublo magnets most failed due to rough handling so I don’t see that going back to simpler detail would stop damage as it happened to these held up by many to be the ideal of robustness!

I know from chatting to friends in the trade that they consider many returns today to be down to poor handling too but as it’s difficult to prove Bert squished the valve gear and knocked off the fine detail with his fingers it’s usually replaced under warranty. 
My Dad admits he’s less dexterous now he’s in his 80’s and I’ve repaired several locos he’s accidentally damaged in handling but he accepts it’s him even if he doesn’t realise until later it’s done. This from a man who could repair to a very high standard into his 60’s.  I’ve not yet found anything we can’t repair and indeed when it comes to the electrical side Dad is still happy to keep his old Dublo and H&M controllers going with repairs with bits salvaged from binned ones picked up free. 
I think many are holding a rose tinted view of how robust these older items were and there haven’t been spares for years so we do dismantle motors to clean them or replace with ones from chassis collected as a source of spares. Much the same is true of some more modern models, there are locos I’ve picked up cheap to store for spares and I have the remains of several Hornby and Bachmann chassis to provide bits for favourite locos if they do fail. With motors 3D printing offers great potential for making mounts to hold newer motors, Tramfabriek has made a successful line of products from remotoring kits for older 009 and HOe models. A mate of mine is experimenting successfully so far with replacement Farish gears as so many of his Poole era ones have split, 3D printing is now getting that good to work straight off the printer.