Hornby Railroad Black 5

[APOLLO]

Went to Hattons friday, quick excellent service as usual, came home with a few wagons, cheap (??14) maroon gresley buffet car & a Railroad LMS black 5. Little dissapointed with the black 5 as it has not got sprung buffers like the Railroad 9F, but it is loco drive. Now it ran silky smooth straight from the box, but would only pull 5 bachman Mk 1's, slipping like buggery.

 

Right. Off with the body, 2 screws, 1 minute. Plenty of room at the front, in the smokebox, (about 1/2" length), into the garage for a bit of old lead flashing. 10 minutes later the boiler is full of lead, body back on. But before testing, boy the tender is heavy. Pull off the tender body, (pushfit, no screws), and you have the old cast frame tender with pancake motor frame. Can't do 'owt here, though wheels where stiff so I oiled them. Tender body back on, loco coupled & back onto a rake of 9 assorted Bachman / Hornby / Lima Mk 1's

 

Result !! No slipping, loco pulls this train superbly. Up to 11 coaches now before she protests. I'll keep her restricted to 8 or 9.

 

She won't look nice for long though, she gets the Springs Branch treatment tomorrow. (no need for numbers, totems or lining !!)

 

Brit15

[TW]

I bought one for my son (aged 5) and can confirm it runs silky smooth, has excellent pickup and because of the heavy loco and tender construction seems impossible to derail even on his rough and ready trackwork spread all over his rooms floor.

While it has not the abundance of detail we have come to expect from the latest Hornby offerings it certainly has an air of quality. Will buy the Railroad Patriot as soon as it is availalbe.

[ifitlooksright]

Hi,

I also found the pulling power little better than a Bachmann "Thomas" when coupled to nine Hornby 4w tanks. Trouble is my decoder is in the front half of the boiler. Any ideas?

My black 5 was also binding. Don't know why but seems ok now but beware these coupling rods are bendy not like the old days

 

APOLLO  I too wish to render my model non LMS. Can you let us see the result / process?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...I also found the pulling power little better than a Bachmann "Thomas" when coupled to nine Hornby 4w tanks. Trouble is my decoder is in the front half of the boiler. Any ideas?...

Give the body interior some more study. On many Hornby locos there's often ample space for a decoder standing between the rear of the motor mount and the rear of the boiler. May even be space above the motor inside the firebox. You can probe the space available with some small balls of blutack, well agitated so it's good and flexible Apart from adding weight inside the body it can also go in the cab which helps keep the loco well balanced. Both a fitted lump on the cab floor to below the level of the window line and a curved piece of sheet up in the roof. Painted black it disappears, especially so on a loco like this with a high sided tender.

 

Then there's that tender which was never designed to be a free rolling vehicle. Try the loco's traction on its own without the tender and appreciate just what a thief of traction that tender is. Options include: sawing off the redundant weight; even better dispensing with the rolling innards altogether and making a new rolling chassis; or easiest of all, replacing it with a spare tender. (The Mainline/Bachmann Stanier 9 ton type as found behind Jubes, Scots and Pates can sometimes be found cheap due to an old split chassis mechanism having failed.)