Hornby Hawksworth county

[PM47079]

I have a Hornby County 1022 County of Northampton. It is a nice enough loco but the slide bars on the cylinder block are plastic and the piston rods pop off the slide bar really easily and the whole assembly seems to be really sloppy. Has anyone else come across this? Or have I picked up a dodgy loco.

[Silver Sidelines]

Hi PM, I am tempted to say 'pure Dapol' from 1984 or there abouts. Some of the Hornby models are almost good. Some others had lots of issues.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/880/entry-17922-the-Hornby-railroad-county-–-any-good/

 

The slide bars are an issue.  I sent this model back - in fact it was the 'Railroad' edition and I asked for a refund as it had so many failings.

 

Hornby County of Hants R3279

 

Buy a cheap version off EBay for spares. Failing that idea take the engine apart and remove the cylinders and and slide bars. Carefully massage the slidebars into the desired shape and put a drop of super glue on the point where the slide bar attaches to the cylinders. Hopefully that should reinforce / lock the bars in to position.

[88D]

I have a Hornby County 1022 County of Northampton. It is a nice enough loco but the slide bars on the cylinder block are plastic and the piston rods pop off the slide bar really easily and the whole assembly seems to be really sloppy. Has anyone else come across this? Or have I picked up a dodgy loco.

I’m not a fan of the plastic slide bars, so my cylinders and slide bars have been replaced with metal ones. I reckon you can get a new set of plastics from Peters Spares, or get metal ones from Comet/51L. Hope that helps.

[RosiesBoss]

G'day, all,

 

There are lots of alternatives. One that I used to motorise my GBL County was to make use of Hornby 28XX slidebars, crosshead and connecting rod, mated to an old Airfix/Hornby 61XX cylinder block that had lost its plastic slidebars. (Details here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119112-motorisation-of-gbl-county-4-6-0/)

 

 The 28XX parts are still listed on Peter's Spares (X8834). These could be grafted onto the damaged Hornby County cylinders in the same way as I did. Once painted black, they look fine.

 

 

Regards,

 

Rob

 

 

[PM47079]

That's really helpful thanks for that. I think ultimately the plastic will have to go. I will try having a fiddle with it but it seems so loose and bendy

[Il Grifone]

The real thing needed a substantial motion bracket to hold everything together. Without this, plastic doesn't stand a chance.

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p615284217/h26AE51CD#h26ae51cd (it's not very clear, but can be seen behind the slide bars.)

 

I'm afraid the only lasting cure is to make some new bars from metal.

[DCB]

The plastic slide bars are pretty poor really.  The real cure is to replicate the real thing with metal slide bars and a motion bracket to keep them together or is it apart.

All the big outside cylinder 2 cylinder GW locos had robust motion brackets attached to the slide bars.  On those with a 2 wheel pony truck this swept outside the slide bars to clear the driving wheels, 28XX, 51XX 43XX etc, while those with a bogie had them inside between the bars and the frame 29XX, 49XX and 10XX etc.

 

The worst thing about the Hornby County is the cab and tender are noticeably too narrow, the tender is the Modified Hall one, 8ft wide instead of 8' 6" and this makes the cab roof profile too rounded.