Hornby Class 87 - Confirmed Newly Tooled Version for 2017 !

[Great Waterton]

Not to mention the constant use of the cab doors which would arguably make the marking/chipping worse than the bodysides from things like bags, keys and boots from drivers and possibly tools from fitters etc.

 😂

[cairnsroadworks]

53 minutes ago, 97406 said:

 

I bet they got repainted black as they didn’t prepare the surfaces too well and the new paintwork chipped off. I also suppose Executive dark grey was not widely available whilst BR was still experimenting with liveries. 87006 is on my wishlist, but with grey doors as I believe the original scheme to be. I may end up respraying one myself if one becomes available cheap!

I know I’m being a door bore but I don’t think it got them repainted, given it was released into traffic in grey in May 1984 and in Intercity by February 1985. It was a very short lived experimental livery indeed. 

[cairnsroadworks]

2 hours ago, ThaneofFife said:

And fwiw I think everyone is right on the door colours for 87 006!.....all photos ive now seen on 87 006 with black doors are on the corridor side. The grey doors seem to be on the opposite side....... 

I think Hornby have gone down the right route on this model.

I’d also originally suspected this but this picture disproves that theory. I’ll shut up now 🤣

 

 

[97406]

28 minutes ago, cairnsroadworks said:

I know I’m being a door bore but I don’t think it got them repainted, given it was released into traffic in grey in May 1984 and in Intercity by February 1985. It was a very short lived experimental livery indeed. 

It’s a shame I never actually saw it at the time, just pics in Rail Enthusiast magazine. The first new liveried AC electric I saw was 86231 at Oxenholme station, with the grey band around the front. Late 84, I think.

[cairnsroadworks]

42 minutes ago, 97406 said:

It’s a shame I never actually saw it at the time, just pics in Rail Enthusiast magazine. The first new liveried AC electric I saw was 86231 at Oxenholme station, with the grey band around the front. Late 84, I think.

I was at the Crewe works open day in 84, as an 8 year old!

[97406]

12 minutes ago, cairnsroadworks said:

I was at the Crewe works open day in 84, as an 8 year old!

I was just getting back into railways in my teens, grabbing the last of the 40s through Navi Road station and Skelton Junction in glorious Timperley!

[scouse889]

9 hours ago, ThaneofFife said:

Moving along from the adamancy over the doors black or grey on 87 006......

 

On 02/04/2023 at 10:52, cairnsroadworks said:

There were issues with the width of the stripes on that one. I had a shocker of one where the red stripe was narrower than the white one 🤣

Typical. You wait ages for an 87, and then two slightly dodgy ones come along at once……. 😂

[ThaneofFife]

thats what my 87 006 needs......silver painted buffer heads with a splash of black for the grease marks and a dummy screw link hanging the buffer beam which Hornby dont supply in the accesory bag but think ive got a Bachmann 37 as a spare coupling.

[Pete the Elaner]

Copied from a post on the Heljan class 86 thread...

 

Quote

I acquired one of Hornby's latest 87s, 87006 City of Glasgow which is now fitted with the 21 pin DCC socket. However as per their 2017 releases you can't fit a standard sized decoder in it. The new decoder position is under the circuit board above the drive shaft which is too narrow for a standard sized decoder. I had to put the chassis block through my milling machine to remove about 1mm from each side to depth of 3mm to fit a decoder. The pantograph is as the 2017 version which is still not good enough but on the whole it's still a pretty good model of a class 87. The positive to take from the 21 pin version is that you can now turn off the lighting at each end individually so you won't have tail lights on when pulling a train. I've enquired with Hornby's technical dept. to see if I can retro fit the 21 pin board to the earlier 8 pin models as according to the service sheet they share the same lighting circuit boards but the same service sheet says they have the same main DCC board, which they obviously don't. I'll post their reply as soon as I get one.

 

So Hornby have converted the chassis to take a 21 pin decoder but not left enough space for it to fit properly without attacking it with a milling machine?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

I am not surprised they have kept the pan. I found it disappointing but it was newly tooled for the class 87, so I would have been surprised if they changed it.

[GordonC]

3 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Copied from a post on the Heljan class 86 thread...

 

 

So Hornby have converted the chassis to take a 21 pin decoder but not left enough space for it to fit properly without attacking it with a milling machine?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

I am not surprised they have kept the pan. I found it disappointing but it was newly tooled for the class 87, so I would have been surprised if they changed it.

 

Is that meant to be a decoder space under the PCB or is that not the space meant to be left for a speaker? I thought it was marked as that on the sheet

[WolfofBadenoch]

I have just tried fitting chips to my new  87s. I had Rails 21 pin decoders and found as above they're too wide to fit between the chassis sides. Luckily the PCB doesn't sit up too much and i was able get the screw in at each end, just not fully engaged at the chip end. Image below. The body went back on ok.

That was the 1st loco, for the 2nd (87009) i just can't part the body from the chassis. I can ease them apart in places, stick in slithers of card but they just wont slide apart! Having managed to open 6 other 87s i'm happy with my technique so have contacted the retailer and am awaiting a reply.

 

I also fitted decoders to a couple of 8 pin 87s. unfortunately i misread info earlier in this topic and bought Hattons 8 pin decoders but not the direct fitting 8pin decoders. I've managed to fit these under the PCB using black tac but again the decoders are a touch too wide. It was a bit tight getting the bodies back on but i think this was the wiring harness rather than the slightly rasied PCB.

Edited May 4, 2023 by WolfofBadenoch
Photo description

[wombatofludham]

We shouldn't be having to do this in this day and age.  I almost wish Bachmann had done an 87 using their 90 underpinnings modified.

[Pete the Elaner]

21 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

We shouldn't be having to do this in this day and age.  I almost wish Bachmann had done an 87 using their 90 underpinnings modified.

 

The 87 chassis is thoughtless.

The original had a small pocket for the decoder which only an extra small decoder would fit into. It had space for a speaker under the board, as long as your speaker didn't have a driver for the cone because it would foul the cardan shaft.

& the pantograph was only good for posing in a photo.

 

I heard that Bachmann were planning to re-use some of their 90 tooling for an 87, but changed plans when the Hornby one was announced. It is a shame because apart from the issues with the 1st batch (which they appear to have rectified) I really can't fault their 90.

[GordonC]

I think its really frustrating that the Hornby 87 really should be better for such a recently tooled model (and even updated now to 21 pin), but especially for a supposedly £220 model. The thought thats gone into DCC fitting is like something you'd expect from 15 years ago, but now you must expect a reasonable percentage of the models becoming DCC fitted and potentially sound fitted.

[dmu 156]

The pan is useless to me as I operate 'on the wire' as those of you who have seen the locos I've modified for use on the catenary system I installed on the 3 'Making Tracks' layouts so I will be changing mine asap, probably for a Heljan one, although I would like to see if its possible to fit a working Bachmann or Accurascale one.

[Waverley West]

This question has been asked a couple of times on this thread, but I can't see that it's been answered, so here goes...

 

How on earth do you get the cab insert out in order to fit a driver? As far as I can see it's screwed to the PCB in the cab roof, but I can't see how or whether that is secured to the cab roof itself in turn, or whether it's just secured to the cab insert which is a very snug fit in the cab.

 

All manner of jiggling, wriggling, twisting and pulling has so far proved fruitless. Very frustrating. I really don't want a 110mph loco running round my layout without a driver.

 

The only other alternative I can see at the moment is to put some glue on the base of the driver and attempt to squeeze it in somehow, but that risks getting glue on the cab windows.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Dave

[dmu 156]

Just had a look at the service sheet and the seating units are separate parts. They appear to have a shoulder/tab on the sides which suggests you might need to spread the body sides apart to remove them.

[Waverley West]

6 minutes ago, dmu 156 said:

Just had a look at the service sheet and the seating units are separate parts. They appear to have a shoulder/tab on the sides which suggests you might need to spread the body sides apart to remove them.

Yes, thanks tried that but to no avail. I can get it to loosen a little but not actually remove it.

[GRUNFOS]

If I remember rightly the light channels had to come out and there is a clip in the glazing behind door pillar. Took a lot of effort to remove.

 

 

 

[Waverley West]

40 minutes ago, GRUNFOS said:

If I remember rightly the light channels had to come out and there is a clip in the glazing behind door pillar. Took a lot of effort to remove.

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Grunfos. I actually managed to fit a driver without removing the insert last night, but I still have two others to do, so will have a look at that.

 

[G-BOAF]

Looking at pictures of the latest 87 batch, the bufferbeam angled plating (running up from the side of the bufferbeam to the loco body) seems to actually fit snuggly to the bottom of the bodyside. However on the front end, the buffer shanks now seem to be central on the bufferbeam, which is not quite correct. Are the buffers higher on this latest batch, or is the body lower? Can someone put a new and old one buffer to buffer, with shots of both cabs?

 

[ThaneofFife]

The latest Model Rail magazine has reviewed 87 009 this month.

Gave it a glowing report despite 

acknowledging the ropey paint application of the stripe on all the cab doors.....

[WolfofBadenoch]

On 12/05/2023 at 19:28, G-BOAF said:

Looking at pictures of the latest 87 batch, the bufferbeam angled plating (running up from the side of the bufferbeam to the loco body) seems to actually fit snuggly to the bottom of the bodyside. However on the front end, the buffer shanks now seem to be central on the bufferbeam, which is not quite correct. Are the buffers higher on this latest batch, or is the body lower? Can someone put a new and old one buffer to buffer, with shots of both cabs?

 

 

Here's some shots. Two cab to cab with 8pin on left and 21 pin on right. In the 4 head on photos L-R is 21pin, 8pin, 21 pin, 8pin

Edited May 16, 2023 by WolfofBadenoch
Looking closely at photos it would suggest at least 3 of locos haven't had the bodies fully refitted. I blame the lack of decoder space!!!

[G-BOAF]

1 hour ago, WolfofBadenoch said:

 

Here's some shots. Two cab to cab with 8pin on left and 21 pin on right. In the 4 head on photos L-R is 21pin, 8pin, 21 pin, 8pin

Thats very helpful. So chassis tooling on bufferbeam unchanged.  Whatever photos I saw online probably had a slightly skew body. Which also means I should check my 87001 properly as well.

On the plus side it means if/when Hornby release 87002 in Porterbrook Purple (please please please) it won't look off against an earlier 87001 release!

(dare I say given how popular a certain recent purple Class 55 was, I'm surprised Hornby have not gone down this route with their 87... even having just done the same loco in Caledonian sleeper condition)

Edited May 16, 2023 by G-BOAF

[dmu 156]

I've had response from Hornby in regards converting the 8 pin main boards on the 2017 Class 87 to the new 21 pin version. Their tech team has confirmed what I thought that it should be a straight swap, so I'm now waiting for the correct part number and price as the service sheet HS436B is wrong. I'll post a further update as soon as I get the info.