TT:120 Easterner

[spamcan61]

My set turned up this morning, set number 107 out of 888 according to the box. First impressions are more positive than I was expecting, the A4 and Mk1s do look nicely detailed to the naked eye. OK I suspect if I photograph them and then view the images at several times life size on a computer screen they'll not look that 'finescale', but that's not the view I'd get when they're actually in use, if you see what I mean.

 

Roof ribs on the Mk1s are quite prominent <rolls eyes> but nevermind; glazing is good with only a little prismatic effect.

 

The A4 looks like an A4 to me, I don't really study locos to the level of individual build standards so I'm fairly easily pleased in that respect ;-)

 

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this set in the medium term, given my primary train set interests are Withered Arm 1950s, but we'll see what pans out. Looks good value for money by 2023 standards anyway, I'll try and find time to get it up and running this afternoon.

 

minor update: found the instruction leaflets lurking under the tray with the goodies in, think they could do with a sticker on the main tray pointing out their location. In a break with long standing tradition I actually read them, no great surprises but they are well written IMHO given their target market  as they assume the user knows diddly about toy trains.

 

Update 2: the fine printing on the coaches is seriously impressive. Probably not my best composed toy train image ever.

 

Update 3: decided to go the whole way, assemble the track and try out the loco. The track is a bit fiddly to connect, for this 61 year old with average dexterity anyway, but not too bad. I rapidly found that giving each track joint in turn a slight, gentle twist after joing quickly shows up any half joined track. 

Plonked the A4 on the track, by some miracle all wheels on the rails first go. Assembled the 'wall wart' PSU plus controller, which floats about in the breeze and feels very cheaply made.

Twiddled the knob and the loco moved off, for sure it's quite noisy at low settings but nowhere near as bad as I was expecting based on some internet comments. Seems quite smooth and controllable in the first instance. Connected up my 25 quid eBay oscilloscope to the track to look at the waveform, no great surprise it's pule width modulated. I'm not 100% convinced by the peak voltages in the screenshot below, I'll see if I can borrow a proper 'scope from work. I'll try my normal DC controller -actually a 0-20V variable DC PSU - later to see how it does on nice flat DC.

 

Update 4 - blimey I should do a blog. 

Changed from the supplied controller to my nice flat DC one; the humming at low speed has gone, loco nicely controllable down to a low speed, a sign the motor is pretty good as not all types will run smoothly down to a crawl on flat DC supply. FWIW current consumption at 12V was just over 100mA.

Ran the entire train a few laps at various speeds, as noted elsewhere on the internets there's a nasty scraping sound from the MK1 coaches on the (R3 I think) curves. Sounds like the tops of the wheels are scraping the inside of the solebars. Looks like we'll need at least R4 curves or some carving to avoid this.

Uncoupling the coaches is a right ballache, least worst method I've found so far is to gently poke a flat bladed screwdriver underneath the coupled pair and lift.

Edited February 6, 2023 by spamcan61

[Porfuera]

4 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

Uncoupling the coaches is a right ballache, least worst method I've found so far is to gently poke a flat bladed screwdriver underneath the coupled pair and lift.

 

I made my uncoupler out of an expired CAMRA membership card (I'm sure other membership cards are available) - there is no chip or magnetic strip to potentially short the rails and the plastic is a good bit thinner than your average credit card, although one of those would probably do, as would a scrap of plasticard.

 

Just cut as shown and bend the end bit up to about 45 degrees. Hold the big end between index finger and thumb (or however you want, really) - works for me, anyway.

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Porfuera

[Stefen1988]

Does the A4 come with a spare axle without flat wheels?

Edited February 6, 2023 by Stefen1988

[spamcan61]

1 minute ago, Stefen1988 said:

Does the A4 come with a spare axe without flat wheels?

Don't think so, mine didn't.

[JohnR]

Well, the usually reliable DPD have let me down. 

 

After all weekend promising my set would be delivered today, and it arriving at my local depot yesterday, it's now suddenly change to delivery tomorrow. Grrrr!!!

[Jeff Smith]

Just received an email from DHL informing of delivery this Thursday.......

[jonnyuk]

Well my set arrived, like a little kid at Christmas. However my excitement ended when I opened the loco box and looked at the detail, part floating around in the box and also a missing cab door, clearly broken off somewhere, can’t find it anywhere, phone call to Hornby tomorrow for a replacement set, be another 2 weeks until I get play trains then.

damage aside, lovely detail on the Loco and coaches, not surprised though as I’ve seen and handle them at a few shows.

 

[GernBlanstonShow]

5 hours ago, jonnyuk said:

I opened the loco box and looked at the detail, part floating around in the box and also a missing cab door, clearly broken off somewhere

 

The cab doors on the OO A4 models are so delicate and such a pain, you would think they would sacrifice a little detail to make them a bit more sturdy!

[andrewshimmin]

4 hours ago, GernBlanstonShow said:

 

The cab doors on the OO A4 models are so delicate and such a pain, you would think they would sacrifice a little detail to make them a bit more sturdy!

 

I suspect that will be part of the learning process for Hornby over the first twelve months or so, working out what detail is too fragile for delivery/basic use.

In my experience they are very good about replacing and repairing if customers have any issues so well worth getting in touch.

[JohnR]

It's here....

[JohnR]

I think this may have been mentioned before, but there seems to be a rubbing noise coming from the coaches, especially in the curves.

 

Any ideas what's causing this as I can't see what the problem is. Also difficult to stop the boys from running Willie Whitelaw at top speed!

[spamcan61]

20 minutes ago, JohnR said:

I think this may have been mentioned before, but there seems to be a rubbing noise coming from the coaches, especially in the curves.

 

Any ideas what's causing this as I can't see what the problem is. Also difficult to stop the boys from running Willie Whitelaw at top speed!

Yes I noticed that, I suspect the tops of the wheels are rubbing on the inside of the solebars when cornering although I haven't had chance to investigate further (probably by carefully applying some tippex to the inside of the solebars and see if it gets rubbed off).

Edited February 7, 2023 by spamcan61

[VOYAGERBOI]

I tried out my new A4 and coaching stock and on the whole it’s very impressive.

Yes, the MK1’s do make a noise as they take the curves and occasionally at low speeds 60004 slips to a stand, as my example at least, seems to require the track to be perfectly level and stable. 

[jonnyuk]

be interesting to see your track plan, i'm messing around in anyrail at the min, single loop, with a passing loop for a single platform (5 coaches + a loco), some sort of goods yard off the passing loop and a 5 coach, 4 wagon fiddle yard. got this far and gave up for the night as its clearly not working!

[scouse889]

I've not pre-ordered this set as I've been disappointed with so many pre-ordered Hornby products in the past, so decided to wait for some reviews/opinions to appear on this set before doing so. Disappointing to read the comments about the coaches and see videos of the performance of this on YouTube - the coaches are noisy round the curves. How on earth was the fact that there is a design flaw in the set (the coaches aren't compatible with the track radius in the train set) not picked up at the design/review stage and corrected?

[JohnR]

36 minutes ago, scouse889 said:

I've not pre-ordered this set as I've been disappointed with so many pre-ordered Hornby products in the past, so decided to wait for some reviews/opinions to appear on this set before doing so. Disappointing to read the comments about the coaches and see videos of the performance of this on YouTube - the coaches are noisy round the curves. How on earth was the fact that there is a design flaw in the set (the coaches aren't compatible with the track radius in the train set) not picked up at the design/review stage and corrected?

 

The noise isn't a major issue. 

[Flying Pig]

Has anyone measured the buffer height of the coaches?  It should be a shade under 9mm above rail for 1:120 scale.  If the coaches are riding slightly low that would increase the chance of the flanges rubbing on curves.

[Les1952]

53 minutes ago, scouse889 said:

I've not pre-ordered this set as I've been disappointed with so many pre-ordered Hornby products in the past, so decided to wait for some reviews/opinions to appear on this set before doing so. Disappointing to read the comments about the coaches and see videos of the performance of this on YouTube - the coaches are noisy round the curves. How on earth was the fact that there is a design flaw in the set (the coaches aren't compatible with the track radius in the train set) not picked up at the design/review stage and corrected?

 

I've not noticed mine to be any noisier than my Tillig 4-wheelers.....

 

Les

 

[spamcan61]

12 minutes ago, JohnR said:

 

The noise isn't a major issue. 

It's indicative of extra drag being created though, not great for those wanting to run 10 coach expresses; the ability to do so being the point of moving to a smaller scale, for some at least. One would assume they weren't designed to deliberately  scrape the solebars.

[JohnR]

2 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

It's indicative of extra drag being created though, not great for those wanting to run 10 coach expresses; the ability to do so being the point of moving to a smaller scale, for some at least. One would assume they weren't designed to deliberately  scrape the solebars.

 

I havnt got any additional coaches to test that out, but I have seen reports that the locos are able to pull lengthy trains with no issue. 

[HExpressD]

I've seen a video called 'TT120 reversing 9 coaches' on YouTube

 

Seems to not be a problem with the included coaches plus a bunch of Pullmans

 

I did have a link, but something was going awry

Edited February 8, 2023 by HExpressD
Link or lack thereof

[spamcan61]

40 minutes ago, HExpressD said:

I've seen a video called 'TT120 reversing 9 coaches' on YouTube

 

Seems to not be a problem with the included coaches plus a bunch of Pullmans

 

I did have a link, but something was going awry

This'll be it:-

 

 

[HExpressD]

5 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

This'll be it:-

 

 

That it be. No idea why I couldn't get the link to paste/embed properly, senior moment?

[spamcan61]

Just now, HExpressD said:

That it be. No idea why I couldn't get the link to paste/embed properly, senior moment?

I don't have a great success rate with links when I'm on my phone, don't generally have problems when I'm on a PC (like now) and a simple 'share' from Youtube  then Ctrl V into the post works

[Les1952]

I've been running the Mark 1s again, far too fast to the extent the A4 was only just staying on the track on my R2 bends.  No issues at this point with the coaches.

 

Then I made a right bog up of uncoupling the coaches, and two of the coupler guides popped out of their slots, leaving the couplers a lot lower than they should be and stiffer.  I tried running one of these coaches round with the offending coupler trailing- and got a grinding noise on the curves.   It would not couple to a coupler that had not dropped out of its slot, but would couple to the other affected coach.  These ran with grinding on the bend but not on the straight.  They also jammed on a facing point, sticking in the Vee of the blade.

 

Clicking the coupler back into its guide cured the problem and the coaches ran with no other issue.

 

I'm wondering if grinding coaches just need their couplers checking and the self-centring mechanism pushing upwards into the guide?

 

The other problem could be missing washers.  Has anyone checked if there is a washer between the bogie and the coach underframe on a coach that doesn't grind? 

 

Les