Hornby Class 423 4-VEP

[metadyneman]

The one thing that turns me off about traction tyres is they don't pick up current or DCC signals from the rails, so Why do Hornby insist on putting pickups on rubber tyred and therfore effectively, insulated wheels?... Hornby please ditch the rubber and put decent mechanisms in your trains!

[iL Dottore]

The one thing that turns me off about traction tyres is they don't pick up current or DCC signals from the rails, so Why do Hornby insist on putting pickups on rubber tyred and therfore effectively, insulated wheels?... Hornby please ditch the rubber and put decent mechanisms in your trains!

When I recently spoke with Simon Kohler about the traction tyre issue (in general, not specifically regarding the 4-VEP), he informed me (if I understood him correctly) that adding traction tyres isn't something Hornby likes doing as it is a cost (and presumably time and resource expense), but it's the compromise alternative to providing a heavy metal chassis that would add significantly to the RRP, (especially for something like the 4-VEP) And my impression is (looking from the outside in) there is an awful lot of emphasis in British railway modelling on cost of models.(that, and an innate conservatism, may explain why the hobby in the UK is late to adopt technology well established in Europe, US and Japan).

 

I've said this many times before, and I still maintain, you get what you are willing to pay for. And in comparison with many other hobbies, railway modelling as a hobby is still relatively inexpensive and models for the UK market are frequently much cheaper than the European equivalents (try costing the expense of building a Rhatische Bahn layout with Bemo or other European RTR stock...).

 

Perfection (or as near as one can ever achieve it) can be had - but at a price. When I visited the Tenshodo model railway shop when I was in Tokyo I saw an exquisite HO model of a Japanese steam locomotive. Made in brass, it came with lights, DCC chip and sound already fitted and I was assured by one of the shop staff it was a faithful replica. The price? a few pennies short of £3000...

 

I for one would like to see the back of traction tyres, but there again I am also happy to pay more for the better chassis.

 

F

Edited December 3, 2011 by iL Dottore

[Pennine MC]

 

... Better than filling the body full of lead which puts extra weight on bearings and gears.

 

[idealism mode]

 

One would think that RTR locos or units should really be designed as a cohesive whole, i.e the chassis should be heavy enough to do what it needs to do and in turn, the drivetrain and peripherals should be strong enough to handle that.

 

From experience particularly with Lima diesels, I'm of the firm opinion that adding weight helps with electrical pickup; tyres obviously do the opposite.

[kintbury jon]

Just incase people hadn't realised, spares for the VEP are now available.

 

Have just received an order from abbiegails. 1 pack of 'Wheel set for drive unit vep' (X6310) and 2 packs of 'coach bogie vep r2947' (X6323)

 

I've tinkered around with the trailer bogies so thought i'd buy a few spare ones and plan is to have no traction tyres on the motor coach. Interestingly the axles have one traction tyre on each set as opposed to my VEP that has both tyres on one axle.

 

Price wise the axles were £3.50 for the pair and the trailer bogies were about £1.50 for a pair of them which I decided was worth a punt.

 

Other spares are listed on their website.

 

Right, my VEP now runs with no traction tyres. I have three small weights fitted around the motor bogie and the only wheel spin occurs when you crank the controller up to full speed in a short space of time (which i'm sure other things would do to!)

 

I have also drilled theough the axle boxes of the trailer bogies from one coach and fitted bearings. Interestingly the trailer coach doesn't appear to roll much more than it did before (maybe the alignment isn't good enough) so i'll probably leave the trailer bogies as they are.

 

Happy with it and am keeping my eyes open for a second one as i'd like to run it an 8 car unit. The work that i've done on mine was fun to do and the results have been satisfying.

[Ceptic]

Going back over old ground, l know, but it's 'Spot the difference' time.

 

l've dug out this old, reasonably head on shot of the real thing, to compare with.

 

l'm still trying to suss out how to overlay the plan onto Hornby's front end, using Corel Paint Shop Pro, but, l'm afraid l'm going to have to 'phone a friend'.

 

Regards.

[Welly]

^^^

Good grief! Putting all 4 comparisons together - the MJT front looks the worst of all the models!

[S.A.C Martin]

Not sure about that. Bear in mind that's both unpainted and unmodified. The gangway is better, but the top of the cab needs filing back to remove the strange 3 panelled effect. Both Hirnby and MJT very wrong with window placement.

 

I do think a decent looking compromise can be made but it will mean removing the Hornby cab whatever happens.

 

Regarding the traction, I have fitted point to point bearings on all of mine and the performance has been significantly improved.

[MikeTrice]

Going back over old ground, l know, but it's 'Spot the difference' time.

 

l've dug out this old, reasonably head on shot of the real thing, to compare with.

 

l'm still trying to suss out how to overlay the plan onto Hornby's front end, using Corel Paint Shop Pro, but, l'm afraid l'm going to have to 'phone a friend'.

 

Regards.

Interesting idea, so I have attempted just that. Of course just overlaying the drawing you would not see the lines so I have turned them red to make them stand out more. I have not resized any of the images but have shuffled the overlays up or down to give best fit. I will let you draw your own conclusions from these.

 

[phil gollin]

.

 

By showing all 4 from near-enough dead-ahead you flatter Hornby by not showing the false-depth of the door recess and the lack of shadow effect between the two pieces of the gangway

 

.

[S.A.C Martin]

Mike, that pretty much confirms my thoughts on the MJT front end. Can definitely scrub up better than the Hornby one if modified carefully.

[unravelled]

How close is the Hornby one photograped from? To get the fairest match to the drawing, the photo needs to be taken from as far away as possible. It might even be worth a try scanning the end on a flatbed scanner..

 

Dave

[gc4946]

Today I bought a NSE version (DCC ready) from a well known Sheffield boxshifter as a part-ex deal.

Part of one of the cab handrails snapped off though it was still in the box thank goodness and it was fixed using Humbrol liquid plastic glue with a fine brush.

One of the DTC's bogies at the cab end kept derailing and I traced that to the coupling in its cam being too stiff causing the bogie not turning easily when it approached bends. As I have no plans to work my EMU in multiple I removed both end couplings. Both bogies turned much more freely once the whole coupling assembly and springs were removed.

The same bogie also dislodged a shoe beam which I refixed with glue.

I rearranged the traction tyres on the motorised coach so both were on one side, having tried it diagonally, instead of one axle with two tyres and one axle without simply by carefully pulling off the wheels and swapping around. Once the motor bogie's pickups were adjusted the wheels were refitted.

Running was a bit noisy initially on DC especially when in full unit mode pushing two coaches but fitting a Bachmann 36-553 chip switching off CV49 (BEMF) to zero and CV2 (starting voltage) set to 1 improved running as the motor got bedded in around a R3-radius oval layout. At the moment, I don't see any more weight needed for improved running.

I found the orientation of the carriages important for the directional headcodes to work correctly. It has to be marshalled as 76923+62467+71146+76924 in that order.

There's more work to do before this EMU can be fully accepted, I've got to cut down the light bleed from the LEDs, decide whether to re-number and assign a route code.

Overall, I'm reasonably pleased with my purchase once I've tweaked the motor and some of the mechanics following other RMWebbers' initial experiences.

[Ceptic]

Thanks Mike T, ... Nice one .

That's precisely the effect that l was hoping to achieve. Well done.

 

.

By showing all 4 from near-enough dead-ahead you flatter Hornby by not showing the false-depth of the door recess and the lack of shadow effect between the two pieces of the gangway

 

.

 

How close is the Hornby one photograped from? To get the fairest match to the drawing, the photo needs to be taken from as far away as possible. It might even be worth a try scanning the end on a flatbed scanner..

 

Dave

 

Phil & Dave,

 

l do see where you're coming from, but please bear in mind that the photos, only, are subject to perspective, especially the prototype pic., which, as you can see, is not taken completely horizontally / vertically head-on. (lt's the best l've got)..... Whereas the drawing is devoid of vertical perspective.

 

The Hornby pic. was taken from approx. 305mm. / 1 ft. away, zoomed in and cropped. Here's the (Down-sized to fit) original.

 

 

l was hoping that the shadows around the gangway door, shown on the model, as against the lack of, in the prototype shot, would give an impression of the different depths..

 

Perhaps, not ?

 

Thanks all, for your thoughts

Edited December 3, 2011 by Ceptic

[Ian J.]

Well, those images basically show the story. Hornby got the corridor connection too narrow and pulled the windows and recesses in tighter to compensate, leaving the extra space to either side. MJT, on the other hand, have a slightly narrow corridor connection, but put their recesses too far apart, and the windows look a bit small. I knew neither seemed right to me.

 

That drawing/photograph overlay comparison is something all the manufacturers should be doing with their CAD before committing to cutting the tools.

Edited December 3, 2011 by Ian J.

[tomstaf]

Some detail measurements of the real thing;

 

 

HTH

[tomstaf]

A couple more;

[metadyneman]

OK... good work.... Can we now minimise that and see just how badly Hornby have got it wrong..? and perhaps invite them to say why they got it so badly wrong?

Edited December 4, 2011 by metadyneman

[tomstaf]

One more about size hidden away on the buffer beam ;-)

 

To be etched perhaps?

Edited December 5, 2011 by tomstaf

[darren01]

May I quote what was said in post 1178?

 

When I recently spoke with Simon Kohler about the traction tire issue (in general, not specifically regarding the 4-VEP), he informed me (if I understood him correctly) that adding traction tires isn't something Hornby likes doing as it is a cost (and presumably time and resource expense), but it's the compromise alternative to providing a heavy metal chassis that would add significantly to the RRP

 

What a load of old cod ,how come Bachmann can do it with their loco’s and still sell them a lot cheaper than Hornby , for a model costing over 160.00 pounds they should have put more weight in to the frames , sorry but IMHO they seem to have tried to slip this model out on the cheap

Look at the 3MT the whole chasse block is metal!

Paying that sort of money and finding the model is not fit, I would send it back!

[frobisher]

What a load of old cod ,how come Bachmann can do it with their loco’s and still sell them a lot cheaper than Hornby

 

You don't know the costs of the two companies involved (and to be clear I don't either). I suspect that Bachmann's manufacturer costs are lower than Hornby's due to the simple fact that they will probably get a preferential rate for certain aspects of production/tooling being owned by Kader. The whole point of owning your own manufacturing plant is to reduce your unit costs, and reduce dependency on external parties. Hornby are "merely" a client in relation to the factories they use.

[Bill]

Well then, perhaps Hornby should get a factory?

With all due respect I do not think that is the problem - since other models such as the Bulleids etc are quite weighty.

 

IMHO They have in their possession an el cheapo ex-lima motor solution which it seems that they can endlessly adapt to fit a mulitplicity of modelling situations. It makes them a ton of money by saving on production costs - and thus they are addicted to using it.

And as the majority of their punters don't seem to mind or even complain and even seem to quite like the idea of trains with rubber tyres, they have no reason to develop new solutions - "If its broke and nobody notices then why for Petes sake fix it?"

[Ron Ron Ron]

You don't know the costs of the two companies involved (and to be clear I don't either). I suspect that Bachmann's manufacturer costs are lower than Hornby's due to the simple fact that they will probably get a preferential rate for certain aspects of production/tooling being owned by Kader. The whole point of owning your own manufacturing plant is to reduce your unit costs, and reduce dependency on external parties. Hornby are "merely" a client in relation to the factories they use.

Do we know for sure that the 4-VEP has come from Kader's Sanda Kan factory?

Hornby are now taking delivery of models from at least one other Chinese manufacturer, according to their own reports.

 

 

.

[Removed a/c]

I know they have had staffing issues in China, many workers return home for the Chinese New Year and then do not come back. Also I know that one factory was damaged in a fire and this caused delay in production. Not sure if any of these are relative to Hornbys situation however.

Edited December 5, 2011 by thebritfarmer

[frobisher]

Do we know for sure that the 4-VEP has come from Kader's Sanda Kan factory?

Hornby are now taking delivery of models from at least one other Chinese manufacturer, according to their own reports.

 

We don't, but I'd say the suspicion is that the VEP came out of one of the alternatives and this might explain a lot of the issues with it being a "first product" and a rather ambitious one at that.

[frobisher]

Well then, perhaps Hornby should get a factory?

 

Though of course they'd have to absorb the cost of acquiring said factory into their costs, yup, that works...

 

With all due respect I do not think that is the problem - since other models such as the Bulleids etc are quite weighty.

 

An orange is also heavier than a lighter apple...

 

IMHO They have in their possession an el cheapo ex-lima motor solution which it seems that they can endlessly adapt to fit a mulitplicity of modelling situations.

 

The motor is pure, 100% Hornby. It was first applied to ex-Lima products as an upgrade, but that's the extent of it.

 

It makes them a ton of money by saving on production costs - and thus they are addicted to using it.

 

Or, perhaps they actually developed this motor bogie specifically for these kind of applications (just as Bachmann developed their MU motor bogie)?

 

And as the majority of their punters don't seem to mind or even complain and even seem to quite like the idea of trains with rubber tyres, they have no reason to develop new solutions - "If its broke and nobody notices then why for Petes sake fix it?"

 

Apart from the initial traction tyre less versions, the VEP is the first model on which this motor bogie appears to have failed badly.