Hornby dublo

[sagaguy]

A much sought after Hornby Dublo locomotive.It`s running under Trix catenary collecting current through the pantographs.I know it should 25kv catenary but there we are.Enjoy the short video of an AL1 operating as it should.

 

                          Ray.

 

                             

 

[SR71]

Can anyone clarify the wiring on a 3 rail turntable please. I remember it was odd to someone brought up on 80's steel track 2 rail but not why!

 

Mainly where the power should be fed in and how / if turning the table powers the selected roads.

[sagaguy]

Which turntable?Dublo or Marklin?.If Dublo ,the feed will be to the centre rail on the entry road and,yes,it only energises the road its set to.

 

                     Ray.

[SR71]

Thanks Sagaguy. The Dublo turntable is the one I'm thinking of. Window shopping track plans so don't have one to look at currently.

 

So is there one of the roads that is defined as the entry road? I e. That power on that one will always power the turntable itself and whichever road it is turned to?

[sagaguy]

It's the one on its own.

 

     Ray.

[SR71]

That seems very logical. My memory must be going.

 

Thank you Sagaguy.

[cctransuk]

3 hours ago, SR71 said:

 

 

DELETED

Edited November 17, 2021 by cctransuk
Misunderstanding of OP

[Pak75]

HI there

I was inspired by projects on this site to convert a HD 2 rail Castle to 3 rail using a conversion kit for tender plunger pickups.

Strange thing was that plungers with supplied insulating material would not fit into tender metal sockets no matter how i tried and in the end i used so much force that one socket broke; I was saved by Araldite. Did HD let QC go on tender casting when they converted to 2 rail or is this normal?

As insulation was needed i used plumbers teflon tape with success.

Now have a locomotive that tears around the track at speed and has to be watched or it will derail itself.

 

The older Gresleys that i have do have problems with wheel wobble and on one Gresley a drive wheel on gear axle is loose, causing lateral movement of whole axle and gear wheel to disengage from worm drive.

From a search of this site my options would seem to be:

1. Araldite

2.New axle

3. Insulating bush

 

Anyone any preferences?

Cheers

[sagaguy]

Two things,the HD 2 rail tender chassis were not finished completly as the 3 rail castings,the holes for the plungers were not drilled out to the final size.It`s a common problem on vertical motor chassis,the casting wears and you have two options,if you have a vertical drill and a lathe,it can be drilled out oversize and bushed,the other is to look for a replacement chassis on ebay.There are repairers such as the dublo surgeon,he supplies a service to repair and rebush dublo chassis.

 

                          Hope this helps,Ray.

[Il Grifone]

I doubt that they expected their products to last sixty plus years.

I have reamed out worn bearings successfully by hand and fitted Romford 1/8" bushes.

[sagaguy]

Depends how badly worn,the hole must be vertical and central to the original.If its worn oval,then maybe a drill with a pilot pin or an end mill in a vertical mill but for these,you would machine tools.

 

       Ray.

[Pak75]

HI SR71

This pic shows power to exit rails

[Pak75]

Thanks Ray and Dave for advice.

Ray has confirmed what i finally came to suspect about tender - and people said conversions were simple! 

There is actually very little 'meat' in the plunger socket for machining so HD must have been taking 1/32nds or smaller fractions off.

 

RE loose wheel 

Problem is that wheel is slipping off axle, suggesting one or both are worn. However solutions suggested involve rebushing - a snug fitting axle will contribute to resolving problem of wheel coming off?

It is not economical to send chassis back to UK for rebushing, so options are buy another chassis (no guarantee not worn either) or attempt Dodds fix with copper tube.

This morning test ran loco with Araldite fix and so far so good.... another Gresley saved!

New brushes, magnet  and rewound armature - good for another 60 years (i hope)!

 

 

[sagaguy]

I rebushed a Dublo Atholl some years ago using 1/8" id brass tube and running a reamer through to line them up.I suspect though that if you can get a replacement chassis,that may the best way to go.

 

 

                                Ray.

[sagaguy]

Latest addition to the EM2 fleet,a Heljan model fitted with Trix EM1 pantographs to operate under the Trix catenary.The pantographs are from the TTRCA spares shop.

 

                          Ray.

Edited December 15, 2021 by sagaguy

[sagaguy]

Link to a video.

 

                   

 

[MikeCW]

On 22/11/2021 at 11:01, Pak75 said:

Thanks Ray and Dave for advice.

Ray has confirmed what i finally came to suspect about tender - and people said conversions were simple! 

There is actually very little 'meat' in the plunger socket for machining so HD must have been taking 1/32nds or smaller fractions off.

 

 

 

 

 

That's a nice conversion.

 

Like you I was puzzled why I couldn't force the reproduction plunger pick-ups into the holes in the tender chassis in my two "Castle" conversions to 3-rail.  (There is a third one in the erecting shop at the moment,) My instinct was to blame the quality of the pick-ups but they had garnered excellent reviews and were otherwise very well finished. I opened the holes out, first with a drill, about 1/64th of an inch larger than the diameter of the hole as I recall, then reamed them, very carefully, with a taper reamer, alternating the entry of the reamer between top and bottom of the hole, constantly checking the fit.  My solution to insulation, rather than use the wrapping material that came with the plungers, was electrical shrink wrap.  It all worked out well.

 

Did you reverse the magnet so that the engine would run "right way" i.e. not run in reverse when all the other original 3-rail engines ran forward?

 

With the 2-rail Castles having plastic bogie and tender wheels, and driving wheels insulated on one side, when converted to 3-rail and without further modification, pick-up from the outside rails will be from the uninsulated driving wheels on one side only. That may well be enough - after all the wiper pick-ups for 2-rail running bear only on two driving wheels.  In my conversions I have replaced the bogie and/or tender wheels with metal, uninsulated wheelsets, adding more paths for keeping the chassis live to the outside rails.  Another dodge is to keep the 2-rail nickel-silver wipers in place but connect the plastic coated wire from the pick-ups to a convenient spot on the chassis.

 

Mike

[sagaguy]

Because of the plastic wheel problem,when i 3 railed my Cardiff Castle,i swapped the tender from my 3 rail Bristol Castle onto Cardiff Castle and vice versa.The metal wheels on the tender feed the motor through the metal drawbar.The other way is to swap the plastic wheeled front bogie for a 3 rail one with metal wheels.

 

This is how i fit my original 2 rail collectors to the chassis.

 

 

                                  Ray.

[MikeCW]

Here are a couple of photos of the use of heat shrink insulation for plunger pick-ups in a Castle conversion to 3-rail. In the first photo the insulation has been shrunk on to one of the plunger tubes.  The other is ready to fit.  In the second photo, the insulated tubes have been pressed into the holes in the tender chassis.

 

 

 

  Mike

[Il Grifone]

i have found that only one of the insulated drivers requires a pickup*. I provided this with a thin strip of phosphor-bronze fixed to the top of the chassis block (convenient screw or drill and tap for one). The original insulation for the tender pickups was  a piece of paper - the sort used for transformer layer insulation and the insulating tabs. Heat shrink is probably better.

Way back and converting 3 rail to 2 rail, my solution to the wrong direction running was to insulate the left hand side drivers which saved touching the magnet.

 

* The offending dead section on the points is quite short. I did consider the possibility of converting isolating point switching or using the point blades to energise these sections depending on the point setting or, but dropped the idea.

Trix standards are coarse enough to use the point blades as the centre conductor.

[Pak75]

Hi Mike

Thanks for info, will use it next time i do this. I did notice one of my plungers is looser than the other...

Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Cheers 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Pak75
Typo

[Pak75]

Hi

Contemplating next project after converting HD 0-6-0 to three rail - (pls excuse crude soldering but runs beautifully). Pick up contacts are brass paper fasteners.

I want to repair some HD 4315 horse boxes which are either missing some or all of the doors or are extremely expensive when complete on Ebay. I am proposing to make the doors out of white styrene sheet. Does anyone have any advice on the appropriate paint to use to match HD maroon wagons?

There is plenty info on maroon colours for locos (Duchess of Atholl etc) here and on www but nothing i can find on wagons...

Thanks

[DCB]

The Horsebox colours vary.  I rebuilt a red horse box with a couple of spare doors from a donor and the colours were noticeably different.  (it went on ebay and fetched less tan a green one woith doors missing.  Its going to be difficult to get away with anything short of a full repaint, and even then covering the white with suitable undercoat won't be easy.

[SR71]

4 hours ago, Pak75 said:

...

I want to repair some HD 4315 horse boxes which are either missing some or all of the doors or are extremely expensive when complete on Ebay. I am proposing to make the doors out of white styrene sheet. Does anyone have any advice on the appropriate paint to use to match HD maroon wagons?

There is plenty info on maroon colours for locos (Duchess of Atholl etc) here and on www but nothing i can find on wagons...

 

I've not bought any of these yet but had noted these as a possibility to repair one I have with no doors;

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/SJMSVC4X3/Hornby-dublo-doors-for-br-standard-horsebox

[Il Grifone]

I believe Steve Flowers does these doors (he does the horses) - I'll report back.

 

The original finish is rather plasticy so a repaint is not a bad idea (unless originality is important of course!).

 

BR maroon and SR green are the colours required and apparently the ends should be black. The underframe is the same as the tinplate MINK D and OPEN C and the SD6 FRUIT D* so is not 100% correct for the horse box.

 

* GWR codes - see below!

 

EDIT 1

SR green doors £2.80 + p&p

Horse (choice of 4 colours) £1.45 + p&p

 

The horses are the same as supplied with the 073 Dublo Dinky Land Rover and pony trailer for which a spare door is available For £1.60 (must order one!). The horses are priced £1.60 here?????

 

http://model-supplies.co.uk/hornby_dublo_repro_figures.htm

 

EDIT 2

Looking on eBay to update horse box prices I found £40-£60 for boxed examples and this optimist:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265103702111?hash=item3db969785f:g:wKMAAOSwP3dgX8gj

 

(Definitely not 'Grifone friendly'!)

 

There's also an 'export version' for completists. (AFAIK the difference is screws securing the couplings rather than rivets).

Edited December 27, 2021 by Il Grifone
extra info