Ailing “Arthur” - Remedy

[Right Away]

“British Railways regrets to inform that the eleven o’clock fast service to xxxxxxxx will be delayed.”

 

And so it was this morning as the rostered N15 failed whilst running light from the depot. (The aforementioned service eventually departed 40 minutes late behind a hastily prepared “Nelson” which had recently arrived off an Up “Boat”)

 

Back to the problem.
The loco, decoder fitted Hornby R3456 N15 King Arthur No 30792 suddenly stopped whist running ; raising the loco from the rails and then replacing it, she would run for a few yards then stop again. Now I had identical symptoms a year or so back with a Hornby unmodified Bullied Light Pacific which after much tracing with multimeter eventually pointed to a loose top motor connection. This was fixed with a small dab of solder.

 

So, with this latest issue I went straight to the motor and found that this connection was indeed loose giving intermittent contact. This was again rectified with solder. Please see photos

 

Hopefully this might be of use to others in the future.

 

As an aside, would anyone know how these parts are secured on the motor during manufacture?