Adding tender pickups to Bachmann N class

[ColinB]

I don't know if anyone is interested but I have two N class locos. One thing that annoyed me was that they don't have tender pickups, so I decided to fit them. The tender wheels on a Hornby Schools class are exactly the same distance apart as the N class, which makes sense. So I ordered the pickups and base plate for a Hornby Schools class. By gluing some pieces of plasticard on the bottom of the N2 tender, you can then mount the pickup plate onto it and by shortening the axles of the wheels so they now run in the Hornby baseplate rather than directly in the tender. You now have pickups in the tender. I added a 4 wire Hornby lead between loco and tender and added a DCC socket in the tender as the original loco was non DCC ready. I now have locos that run much much better.

[TRAILRAGE]

``are you able to post some pics?   this sounds interesting.

 

Cheers Trailrage

[ColinB]

2 hours ago, TRAILRAGE said:

``are you able to post some pics?   this sounds interesting.

 

Cheers Trailrage

I will see what I can do.

[ColinB]

Here are some photos. I have replace the drawbar with a more conventional type, changed the weight and added a 8 pin DCC socket.

Picture one is the top showing the wiring to the top, I used an old Hornby joiner pcb.

Picture 2 is the bottom, showing pickups without wheels.

Picture 3 is bottom with wheels..