rob D2 Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Hi all and a happy new year, Having been impressed with the engineering that these utilised when they were released - are they still about ? Has anyone got one ? seem to have sunk without trace... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonB Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 The last time I was in Daniel's Store in Windsor (probably March2010) they had sets on the top shelf of their Hornby section (they don't sell Bachmann!) on offer a few pounds off RSP. Didn't seem to be "pushing" them. Might be worth a phone call if you really want one, they are not too far from you, and within the Windsor Royal(?) station complex. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave777 Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 At two large exhibitions last year there was a presence from some group or other promoting live steam. Despite the simple oval of track and lack of scenery there were a good few people watching it and chatting away. What caught my ear however (what is the ear equivalent of catching one's eye?!) was the chap saying to a husband & wife while pointing at an A4 'that will be £1,000 in 12 months time, the value of these is going to skyrocket'. I think he was asking £200 or so at the time. It'll be interesting to see if he was right. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted January 3, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3, 2012 ... the chap saying to a husband & wife while pointing at an A4 'that will be £1,000 in 12 months time, the value of these is going to skyrocket'. I think he was asking £200 or so at the time. It'll be interesting to see if he was right. Whilst a grand in 12 months sounds more than a little optimistic I wouldn't be surprised if the market price of these does increase over the years, Hornby have stated that they're not doing any more, even if they did the high hand assembly level of these locos would presumably lead to a much higher RRP than before. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Chris Chewter Posted January 3, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 3, 2012 The answer lays in this thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/632-Hornby-live-steam-in-4mm/page__fromsearch__1 Sadly it looks very unlikely that Hornby live Steam will happen again. However if they released the live steam rocket model in the late 70's, it looks like the models come around every 35 years. Looks like we have to wait until 2047 then! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted January 3, 2012 Author Share Posted January 3, 2012 ooh, don't get me wrong - I don't want one, I just thought it was clever and wondered if it had been a commercial success. Thanks for the link to the old topic - I guess it wasn't then ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJS1977 Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 I spoke to the guy with the Live Steam demo stand at Warley. He said that the recession was what had pretty much killed off Live Steam but seemed to think there was a chance it could be reintroduced in the future, despite Hornby's announcements to the contrary. In the meantime he and his colleagues are developing the system and have built a few locos themselves! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMJ Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 It would be interesting to elctronically re-engineer these to use DCC so that you could have one chuff along with your other locos. If anyone wants to bring one along to the Middleton Railway Gala in the summer we hope to have over 200 engines in steam on the site. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 A friend of mine bought this system (several locos) and I have seen it in action several times. Frankly I was unimpressed since all it ever seemed to do was a scale 200 mph around the track. The control is so imprecise that there is little or no hope of shunting or even stopping anywhere near a station. I expect that with practise an operator would be able to tame it. A very expensive gimmick in my opinion. Perhaps someone will show me the error of my ways. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted January 5, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 5, 2012 The control is so imprecise that there is little or no hope of shunting or even stopping anywhere near a station. I expect that with practise an operator would be able to tame it. A very expensive gimmick in my opinion. Perhaps someone will show me the error of my ways. John They do seem to need driving properly, unlike normal 12V stuff; they always did look like an expensive executive toy. Loads of free publicity for Hornby in the national press mind you. Probably good fun driving them on a big outdoor roundy roundy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dorset Wanderer Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Not impressed when next to a running layout. Failure rate was fairly high and as has been said , controllability was not possible. Full on or poor. Only my opinion based on what I have seen. Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJS1977 Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Again - back to the guy at Warley who told me that (as Spamcan said) they do need driving properly, but it can be learnt with time (if you don't give up!) but I think that applies equally to bigger steam (16mm, 5" etc as well). No, it might not work for a "shed" or terminus layout, but the "live steam society" are looking at building a Stoke Summit/Little Bytham type layout on which to run them, which I think could be good. Haulage power's pretty impressive too! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgmichel Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 There is someone who has managed to control the regulator of a Hornby Live Steam A4 with a dcc board, and also the two heaters, one in the tender, and the superheater in the loco. He made a youTube video of it at: The regulator control appeared to be very precise with the dcc controller. This all begs the question of whether or not you could run this on a dcc layout. However, it is clear that the loco can be controlled independently of other live steam locos this way. Normally, for each Hornby Live Steam loco you need a separate controller and isolated track circuit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 That overcomes the manifest defect in the product. Hornby produced it as 'stand alone' when the world and its wife were busy adopting DCC. And yet the high current supply capability of DCC, allied to the potentially very good control of the regulator motor looked a fairly natural marriage to me. Despite finding it an attractive product, no purchase was made: for the asking price I wanted a complete DCC compatible package, rather than have to muck around and do it myself. There's more than enough mucking around necessary in OO as things stand without adding another layer of complexity... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted June 9, 2012 Share Posted June 9, 2012 That overcomes the manifest defect in the product. Hornby produced it as 'stand alone' when the world and its wife were busy adopting DCC. And yet the high current supply capability of DCC, allied to the potentially very good control of the regulator motor looked a fairly natural marriage to me. Despite finding it an attractive product, no purchase was made: for the asking price I wanted a complete DCC compatible package, rather than have to muck around and do it myself. There's more than enough mucking around necessary in OO as things stand without adding another layer of complexity... There is a photo of the OO live steam group's layout at the 16mm society show in Peterborough at the end of March, I didn't go but heard it was very popular. Once built in radio control becomes popular and therefore cheaper (with constant track voltage or on-board batteries), we may see a renaissance and better control and compatability, otherwise how else will proper steam models become popular..? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgmichel Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I find it very interesting that the value of Hornby's live steam OO locomotive and sets has held very well since they were discontinued. A recent sale on ebay fetched £850 for a Papyrus, which is many times its original price. Even the average prices on ebay are right at or above the original retail prices. Radio control of the Hornby regulator has been demonstrated by one enthusiast and shown on YouTube, although nobody has yet managed to figure out how to control these beasts on dcc track, which would mean new electronics and all sorts of other possible ideas. Despite all this, I still get an enormous kick out of running Hornby OO live steam on my layout. The power of these locomotives puts all electrically driven OO locomotives to shame, and the realism of the driving of them is just fantastic. However, if anyone ever does introduce another line of "improved" OO live steam, I wonder if that £850 will still hold! There is a photo of the OO live steam group's layout at the 16mm society show in Peterborough at the end of March, I didn't go but heard it was very popular.Once built in radio control becomes popular and therefore cheaper (with constant track voltage or on-board batteries), we may see a renaissance and better control and compatability, otherwise how else will proper steam models become popular..? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
the-gog Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I'd imagine it should be quite possible to shove high-capacity batteries and electronics in a Gresley full brake. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgmichel Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 There are so many ideas about how to run live steam in 4mm, so I could never provide value judgements on the particular merits of any one idea. Certainly, as the boiler only has 20-30 minutes-worth of water, then despite the current draw of the heaters it might be possible to have batteries heat the water, if that is what you mean. Batteries to run just electronic is not really necessesary I would have thought. Should be possible to draw the power from the track, as indeed the power is drawn now for the whole locomotive. From what i understand Hornby origianlly considered dcc, but decided it was too complicated, i.e. too expensive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
5050 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 The ones running at BRM Doncaster show were quite impressive especially the Duchess - which of course wasn't Hornby but scratchbuilt. If I had a large roundy-roundy GWR/Western Region layout then a steam powered King with a rake of Centenary coaches would be nice. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgmichel Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 I agree on the King, and coaches. I think it is on the wish list of almost all OOlivesteam enthusiasts! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold traction Posted May 19, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 19, 2017 Nothing quite like bringing an old thread from the grave!! One of the OO live Steam club members has converted the regulator to DCC, he has also manged to build his own DCC command station and run the complete loco from that. Haven't read all of the details but it's impressive, he had to do that as you need a 10amp system for the power required to heat the boiler, other ready made systems are available to deliver that type of current at a price! The club have also designed their own controller which uses the original Hornby controller, but gives much better control of the regulator. I sold my double tender Flying Scotsman as I have moved and just don't have the space....or so I thought. most of my modelling stuff has been in a lock up, but I was thinking what would be the minimum size a Live Steam loco could run on. I bought some 9mm ply and laid it down on the floor and put a small oval of track down, the boards make up to about 5ft by 3ft. I used 2nd radius curves to see what would happen, the loco hadn't been run for at least 6 months, although I did buy it second hand it did run very nicely the last time I used it. Apologies for the crap video, in the conservatory as its the only place I had the room to lay the boards., lighting not very good and holding the camera while operating the regulator makes for out of focus poor video, still it does prove it can be done and it ran like this for 30mins on a full boiler of water. It is possible to run these at a slowish speed, I have put a lot of liquid lead in the coaches to help slow it down, could really do with adding more weight still as it can still run very fast, although on these 2nd rad curves it will derail. To be on the safe side and run them at the speed they can easily go at I would suggest 3rd curves as a minimum. As I have very limited space now this is about the biggest I can go, it's just nice to be able to run it again! I really should make a full scenic layout for it, probably for DCC and Live Steam so it can be used for both.......but only have the option to connect one system up at a time! Cheers Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killian keane Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 I agree on the King, and coaches. I think it is on the wish list of almost all OOlivesteam enthusiasts!I thought steamcraft did a live steam king in 00 (?) in fact I'm fairly sure they did, but £850 or more for Hornby 00 live steam?! You could get yourself a decent 3 1/2" steamer for less than that!Edit: I now remenber there were live steam models of the rocket, sans pareil and a crampton in 00 gauge, in fact I saw on another forum there was the latter for sale a while ago, if anybodys intetested I could check if its still there I once did see a live steam wisbech upwell tram in 00 too Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF96 Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 Hornby forum has a Live Steam section with some interesting stuff on there, like radio control using the Hornby controller and an S69/B12. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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