I'm reliably informed that the Hornby generic 0-4-0 chassis has the nickname of 'Pocket Rocket'. If you look around on the interweb, lots of people have had a go at making it better, by regearing it, adding weight, or just building a new chassis altogether. I picked up a cheap one (brand new for £10) from a department store somewhere and then had to think of something to do with it (what do you mean, "impulse buy"?) so I decided to try making the pocket rocket into an ultra slow-speed shunter. On a budget, of course...

A quick look on ebay/amazon/slightly-dodgy-chinese-website came up with this motor (£1.20ea) and a pack of 50 different sorts of gear (£2), so I picked a few gears that end up with an approximately 90:1 ratio. The brass worm does not mesh with the gears, hence why the plastic one is fitted, although it has the wrong shaft diameter so is held on with filler... will be replaced with thin wall tube when I can get hold of some. The dual shaft motor means I will also be able to fit a flywheel, although I will probably try to pick one up at an exhibition rather than order online, as only Roxey seem to do them with a reasonable lead time and they are expensive for what they are.

The gearbox is made from some aluminium sheet I had lying around, no bearings but it spins pretty freely. The drive gear had to be drilled out to fit the original Hornby axle. Slow speed control is pretty good, much better than it was, and better than I'd expect from £13 worth of loco, even without the flywheel being fitted yet. The only video of it I have running is a test I did of some video editing software that I just took as I needed something to edit, so it's not great - the track was very dirty and the plastic chassis is so underweight I had to load it with some random items to make it run at all.

Which reminds me, I need to get a camera that will do more than 18 frames per second.

Next, I need to get hold of and fit a flywheel, and then find/make a body for it as the original steam one won't fit any more, so I might go for a diesel to make things simpler to build and easier to fit. Initial thoughts are kit-bashing a Dapol c60 0-6-0 shunter to shorten it to fit, but not sure yet. Any suggestions welcome...

EDIT: I have started on a 3D printed body to go with this chassis, thread here