Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Yesterday, all Hornby's troubles seemed so far away...

 

Help! I need to change my loco lamp positions...

 

Imagine there's an effective loco/tender connection. It's easy if you try...

 

 

[jjb1970]

Such arrangements are very common, Tamiya had a similar arrangement, and entities like camera manufacturers and electronics manufacturers often have arrangements with magazines. 

[Sjcm]

21 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The mag has permission to use the Hornby name and that has been public knowledge for a good while.  Whether or not they pay to use it would be a commercial matter between the two organisations so we don;t know the answer to that and never will.  

 

But the big thing for Hornby is that the front page of the magazine is putting their name in front of tens of thousands of people who might otherwise think the company no longer exists or that it had gone the way of umpteen other British brands.  I suspect that far more people visit places like WHS, or other retailers selling magazines etc, than ever visit model railway retailers' premises so it's good advertising that creates brand awareness..

i'm not sure there are many people who don't know Hornby still exist, but I agree its good publicity if the magazine takes a reviewing style of not much more than just showing the model. Looking at that Turbomotive video posted they don't really judge the product at all in any detail so getting a fair viewpoint of whether its any good or not...well you don't.  they could have at least noticed the wonky front buffer😉

[daltonparva]

My loco turned up this afternoon, and I've just had a quick look to see what the state of it is after the various problems that have been highlighted by Sam's trains.

First off, it looks excellent. There were some small finger print marks on close examination at the bottom of the boiler behind the pipework/ fittings near the cab, but a rub with a cotton bud or cocktail stick  pushing a bit of cloth seem to dispel them, so that's not a worry, whatever they were I don't thinks its glue; maybe finger oils/sweat during assembly.

The ruler on the footplate did show a small variation from flat, but I wouldn't have noticed by eye and wouldn't have bothered measuring if it had't been brought up by Sam. I checked an older model Black 5 and it was the same, and that had never bothered me; this one doesn't.

The connector does show a small chamfering of the contacts as did Sam's, but it ran fine from the word go. I only have a 2 metre straight as a test track (I'll get the layout built one day, I've only been thinking about it for 40 odd years; no rush); but I thought I ought to test it on a curve as that seemed to be where the problems were. I have a few 2nd radius curves so I made a quarter circle with a straight at each end, and it ran perfectly round, forwards and back, in both directions. I'll take it as the running is fine.

The above means that as far as I am concerned the model is fine, but  there was one thing that I presume is a fault. The rear direction light illuminates white/red depending on direction. The front lights are white in both directions, so I presume this is a fault. (My Turbomotive's change colour). I may have a bit of an investigation tomorrow to see If I can see anything obvious, I wouldn't be bothered if the model didn't have lights, but as it does they should work correctly.

Once I am happy it is fine from the start I will proceed to ruin it by de-blinging, trying to close the tender gap, etc.

Further reports to follow, but probably not very quickly.

 

EDIT:-  I've just watched another couple of Youtube reviews, and both say the rear light is 2 coloured, but the front ones aren't; therefore it appears mine isn't a fault, just a Hornby idiosyncracy. Why make it right at the back and wrong at the front? They made it work with the Turbomotive. Things like that are a bit exasperating to me.

Edited May 1 by daltonparva

[Wheatley]

Headlights - 1 or 2, always white (excluding royal trains and weird Southern lamp arrangements).

 

Tail lights - always 1, always red (same caveat as above). 

 

Lock engaged in shunting (eg station pilot) 1 red and 1 white at each end. 

 

So your tail lamp is correct if the loco is running light and going forwards. If its going backwards it should be white, but it should be on the bottom centre lamp iron not the top centre. Top centre would indicate a stopping passenger train working tender first, in which case the smojebix end shouldn't have any lamps on at all.  

 

To be prototypically correct you would have to change the lamps so many times you'll eventually break something. Which suggests they're either a) not thought through by anyone who knows anything about engine lamp codes except what the lamps look like or b) it's a gimmick. 

 

If you really do want to be prototypically accurate it's so much easier with a cast or printed lamp with a 1mm hole drilled it it and a pair of tweezers. 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

And the lamps are just that; lamps not headlights. 

On the LMS the lamps were black. This continued on the LMR until c1961 when white ones became more common. This wasn't a hard or fast "rule"; white lamps could be seen earlier. 

It'll be interesting what colour they are on the BR versions of the Black Five. And will the earlier logo-liveried one be different from the ones with the later crest.

 

 

PS Thanks to daltonparva for his review. Anyone else want to tell us about their model?

Edited May 2 by Peter Kazmierczak

[adb968008]

If anyones keen, Hornby has 15% off the Black 5 this weekend.

Topcashback gives you another 5%

And you get points towards a future purchase.

 

 

[Black 5 Bear]

The Caprotti Black Five it seems is nearly with us according to Hornby on Facebook.

Very nice I must say!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/nWo9zsNkdST2Fy3e/

[7802]

I think the lamp on the top bracket looks even worse in white. At least on the black lamp the bit that plugs into the smoke box door blended in.

[Black 5 Bear]

2 hours ago, 7802 said:

I think the lamp on the top bracket looks even worse in white. At least on the black lamp the bit that plugs into the smoke box door blended in.

Overscale lamps aside, it really does look the part!

Looking forward to receiving my pre-order.

Edited May 2 by Black 5 Bear

[zr2498]

 

Those lamps have got to go

[sjp23480]

1 hour ago, zr2498 said:

 

Those lamps have got to go

I like them

[MikeParkin65]

10 hours ago, zr2498 said:

 

Those lamps have got to go

Lamps look AWFUL. Just when you thought a loco couldnt get any uglier lol

[HExpressD]

3 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

Lamps look AWFUL. Just when you thought a loco couldnt get any uglier lol

Take them off, put the brackets on, job done! :)

[MikeParkin65]

50 minutes ago, HExpressD said:

Take them off, put the brackets on, job done! :)

I know - its just that they are so much the anthesis of what I expect from a scale model. And as we've seen, removal is not seamless. Otherwise apart from the fixed too wide gap between loco and tender which this photo cunningly masks its a fine model.

[IOW O2]

10 hours ago, MikeParkin65 said:

......Otherwise apart from the fixed too wide gap between loco and tender which this photo cunningly masks its a fine model.

Has anyone on here has measured the tender gap yet?

 

It looks pretty big in the photos, so got me thinking about my few tender locos so I measured with a vernier gauge. The largest was my 2006 Rebuilt W/Country at 7.38mm, which side-on in a photo appears smaller than the B5, and doesn't look to bad with a fallplate added, the smallest gap, Bach N class 4.74.

 

Two spamcans, one with same drop-in hook coupling, (as above R/WC), 5.50 and latest with 4 pin plug is 6.73!  Latest are two Accurascale manors at 5.04. With all locos off main layout and put on circular 2nd radius setrack testbed all could be coupled closer if the manufacturers chose to do so without fouling, 3mm closer from the largest, down to 1.5 closer for the manors and N class.

 

Accurascale are going the right way with their design, but it could be better in my opinion as there is only 1mm of stretch on the kinematic bit, unlike coaches which are 5mm and the same on a couple of diesels.

Edited May 3 by IOW O2
correction, clarity 20.20pm

[JhornG201]

The lamp bracket appears to be moulded as part of the lamp body so a bit of black paint should make the lamp bracket portion of the lamp less visible

[Sjcm]

Another reviewer with problems

 

 

[daltonparva]

This is a copy of an email I have just sent to Hornby, having spent a day playing with the tender of my model:-

 

Hello.

I took delivery of the above model this week and have a couple of questions about the lights.

On DC control I noticed the rear light is directional red/white, but the front lights are only white in both directions, which seems strange particularly as you made them both directional on your Turbomotive loco.

The second question I think may be regarding a problem. I have fitted a sound decoder (one of your own Loksound V4's from an earlier loco) and notice that the front lights are not switchable on/off on F0, but the rear one is. This is a pain as the front lights are therefore illuminated permanently under DCC control. I think the rear light did work red/white initially under DCC (I could be mistaken), but know that now only the white light works. The lighting board fixed to the rear of the tender is not faulty as the red/white works under DC if the blanking plug is replaced, but the red element doesn't work under DCC. I have tried 3 different decoders and I have the same result with all 3. Does this sound like a fault on the 21-pin PCB or is there a workaround I could try?

I look forward to your response.

Regards.

Neil.

 

I will report if/when I get a response.

[zr2498]

27 minutes ago, Sjcm said:

Another reviewer with problems

 

 

Just watched it. Entertaining, especially the songs 😀

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I thought "Little Wicket's" review was very fair. He seemed to have almost the exact same problems that Sam had on his second model.

[ColinB]

I watched "Little Wickets" review and it is pretty fair, the only thing that concerned me was he didn't try it on analogue once he had cleaned the connector. I run DCC all the time and I cannot see how adding DCC is going to fix a connector fault on its own. DCC especially if you add "stay alive" definitely with improve slow speed running but it is not going to fix the connector issue. It is correct that they have used the tender arrangement before but not on a Stanier  tender, they were all on Gresley 8 wheel tenders. So what part have they changed?

[zr2498]

12 minutes ago, ColinB said:

I watched "Little Wickets" review and it is pretty fair, the only thing that concerned me was he didn't try it on analogue once he had cleaned the connector. I run DCC all the time and I cannot see how adding DCC is going to fix a connector fault on its own. DCC especially if you add "stay alive" definitely with improve slow speed running but it is not going to fix the connector issue. It is correct that they have used the tender arrangement before but not on a Stanier  tender, they were all on Gresley 8 wheel tenders. So what part have they changed?

Agree. He should have cleaned the contact first and tested instead of changing two variables. I have made this remark on the U-tube video but no reply as yet.

[IOW O2]

3 minutes ago, zr2498 said:

Agree. He should have cleaned the contact first and tested instead of changing two variables. ...

 

I think he is more forgiving than a lot of us might be after talking with Hornby.  All the big boys I conversed with at shows (HBy, Bach, Accu.) with concerns, refused to discuss that their models may have issues, as posted on these forums and YT, they just gave politicians type answers, and dismissed RMweb.  The only one who were really concerned were Cavalex.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

1 hour ago, IOW O2 said:

 

... they just gave politicians type answers, and dismissed RMweb.  The only one who were really concerned were Cavalex.

 

Why would they just dismiss RMweb? Surely it's in their long-term interest to get to the bottom of any concerns.