metadyneman

It is similar but mine glides to a stop silently as though someone has just shut the power off and all the lights then dim and flicker. No amount of turning the power down to zero makes it move again. the only thing that will get any movement out of it is if I physically remove it from the track for 10 minutes and do it all over again. I have e-mailed Kernow saying there definitely is a problem and it seems something, somewhere is drawing too much power. The decoder also gets very warm almost too hot when it stops no matter what decoder I put in it.. I've tried 4 different ones now.

Oh dear, I seem to be encountering the same DCC problem as a few on here. I am using the Bachmann 36-557 ( ESU Lokpilot standard) in mine and have configured all the CVs as mentioned above (apart from CV5 which only goes up to 64). Loco runs fine with 8 Bachmann coaches for about 10 minutes then slows to a grinding halt with all lights dimmed and will only move a little when pushed! Anyone else have this problem?

Invaluable information, thank you for posting.. and investigating.

8 Mk 2f Dcc fitted coaches are on their way to my garden railway. (2 x Intercity exec FO 5 x TSO and 1 BSO). As we now are in the land of dark evenings I'm looking forward to seeing them run round the garden with lights ablaze! In other news, my credit card has now been put inside the freezer to cool off!

I have a new (blue pcb) 36-557 in my 122 and it doesn't control the interior lighting. All the other functions are switchable but the saloon lights are permanently on.

Purely out of curiosity I purchased two Intercity liveried SO's recently to evaluate them and see whether I liked them or not. Both coaches arrived with at least 3 of the 4 steps having fallen off but once I'd managed to locate them, a tiny drop of glue was applied once they had been returned to their correct place. I won't go on about livery accuracy as that is still being done to death in the discussions but I am completely dissatisfied with the NEM coupling mechanism when running the coaches. The sprung "cam" extends out fully under tension with the net result of having the couplings protruding at an odd angle from the end of the coach. The distance between the coaches is therefore extended to an appallingly unacceptable gap. I tried using Kadees to see if that made any difference and whilst it was a little better, the gap was still unacceptably wide. It was after this that I experienced more serious problems with the whole coupling mechanism. When removing the Kadees there was an audible "ping" and the sound of something loose rattling inside the coach. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the coupling mechanism spring had detached itself from the chassis and the whole coupling assembly was unattached to anything in particular and very loose. The ratting inside was a tiny screw which held the seats to the chassis. It was clear when I re attached the spring and reinserted the screw that it was woefully too small to hold the assembly together and immediately "pinged" out again when I re attached the chassis to the body. Suffice to say, until I have worked out a much more substantial coupling mechanism, these coaches are going in the "for a bored rainy day" box and Sorry to say I won't be buying any more of these. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced the same problems. I'm not sending them back because I now have a challenge on my hands to work out a more robust coupling than the flimsy ones so fitted. Apologies if this has been mentioned before but I'm not poughing through 60 plus pages about liveries to find out

To be quite honest, I really couldn't be bothered with wrapping it all up again and traipsing down to the post office to have it re fettled by Hornby and sent back to me . The modifications I performed were successful and I'm happy with the result. Whilst I appreciate you may find it astonishing, there are people out there with modelling skills - and I include myself in that - who are willing and prefer to seek their own solution and accept the challenge of doing so. I am sure they are more than outweighed by the number of people who aren't willing to do what I have and will send theirs back to Hornby thus keeping Hornby on their toes over the issue. A lot of people have blamed it as a QC issue but in all honesty if it was tested by Hornby on their test track without any problems then any subsequent problems arising are only going surface once the model is out on the shelves. I'm pretty sure Hornby would not put a whole batch of models on the market with these faults deliberately. i would imagine there is considerable embarrassment at Hornby because of the problems and now that a solution has been found they will do all they can to help once affected models have been identified to them.

Just stumbled across this topic. I took delivery of my 800 several weeks ago and experienced all the derailment problems described above. I had no idea that Hornby have acknowledged the problem and have found a "fix". Unfortunately I have already made a few "modifications" myself which has involved a needle file, a few well chosen swear words and a lot of patience! never mind eh... still looks nice and runs like a dream! Incidentally the couplings between the coaches don't allow for any vertical track undulation and this exacerbates the aforementioned derailing problem by physically lifting the following coach off the track due to the length of the coaches. Loosening the coupling screw does alleviate the problem a little bit but if your track isn't completely flat then you are going to experience problems.

33114 is now pre-ordered. A welcome re-run which will go nicely with my two 4-TCs in NSE livery.( I suspect this is why it is being re-issued being the only 33/1 that made it into NSE livery) I refused to pay the stupid prices this model was fetching on the thiefbay!

The light functions are also independently "dim-able" I have dimmed the interior lights on mine so it looks less like there is a floodlight in each coach!

My 122 seems to run very slowly even at full "volume" until it has run round for a bit then seems to get a bit faster. Has anyone else encountered this? It literally crawls along at a scale 10mph even with the wick turned up on the controller. I did check the gears and they were lubricated with a really sticky clear lubricant, could this be the problem?

The keeper plate is removable and exposes not only the wheels but all of the final gear train as well.

I have a question regarding the lighting on this unit. I have just purchased a BR Blue grey 122 and with it a brand new 36-577 Bachmann decoder ( the new ESU version with 2 "logic" functions not the previous soundtraxx one). On the information printed on the reverse of the decoder packaging it says it is 21pin MTC compatible. On the 122 instructions it says if your decoder is 21 pin MTC then the interior lights are controllable and can be switched off/on by pressing F3. If it isn't MTC then they will be on permanently. Having fitted the decoder to the unit, the interior lights stay on permanently and F3 has no effect. All other lights work independently as they should. Does anyone have any idea why the interior lights won't switch off seeing as it is a 21Pin MTC decoder? I have tried other function buttons such as F5 just in case but nothing happens. I am using a Dynamis controller. Any help or suggestions would be great thanks.

The interior lights are probably a bit too bright on the TC so if anyone is looking for the right CV to dim them ( without affecting the theatre route light indicator lights) it is 118 on a Lenz decoder. I have adjusted mine down to value 100 which is about right in a darkened room.

Should do now If not I'll delete and go back to the garden shed

Short video of 4-TC hauled by 4-VEP https://www.dropbox.com/s/2eko23mjjejglih/20171022_140901.mp4?dl=0

Actually my Hornby VEP had no trouble at all pulling the TC. There was no wheelslip at all. I did do a short video of it so I'll see if I can upload it later.

Kadee #20s do work better. I tried #19s on mine and it kept fouling the buffer beam. I coupled mine up to a Hornby NSE VEP the other day. Even though not strictly prototypical it did look rather good.

Ok....i'll be frank...(although Jules is my real name) I was not getting at you personally but as you came in with the patronising comment about how terrible etc, I felt duty bound to defend those who are not in the minority with smaller wallets about spending lots of money just to be able to turn on and off a headcode light. We have agreed to disagree and that is that. I trust you have had a lovely day, I have been running my trains round the garden enjoying watching and running my 4-TC with my Heljan 33/1 (albeit temporarily without lights :-D ). I maintain my point that RMweb forums are a bit like entering a fire pit of opposing opinions which never reach common ground and frequently reach fever pitch keyboard rants. My piece has been said and I now retire smartly as they used to say on the side of a Sandard Fireworks Rocket! Have a good evening :-)

Sometimes it is better to agree to differ...it creates a focussed forum without resorting to a slanging match. Something which RMWeb seems to spawn C u m Laude

Indeed....It's why mine is currently running with a cheap old Laisdcc decoder in it so I can at least run it ECS without the lights on

We will have to agree to disagree here I think. My personal opinion is it's an overly expensive way of using (wasting) a fully functional locomotive decoder just to placate the minority who like to turn every individual light on and off in an already very expensive set of four coaches.

But the only function a standard 4 function decoder wouldn't be able to do is turn the theatre route indicator light on/off at one end? If you look at the thumper, all the functions bar turning on/off the aforementioned light are possible. I just feel that having to purchase a decent loco decoder just to control lights in what is effectively an expensive ( but lovely) rake of coaches is a)extortion and b) could have been avoided.

Thanks SR Man When I spoke to Kernow Models on Friday the gentleman quite clearly said a six function decoder and in the same breath said the Lenz 4 function one will work as well. So you can see how things can get very confusing if one takes one's eyes off the ball. Personally I'm a bit miffed that I have to put a really good and expensive decoder into a rake of 4 unpowered coaches to get the thing to do what it's supposed to do with its lights, adding expense to an already very expensive train! However, the unit is lovely and I do like night time running round my garden with lights on, so I suppose you get what you pay for! Edit:- PS.... Lenz 10321 decoder now ordered!

The thing that I find slightly irritating about all this is that nowhere on Kernow's website does it say that the unit requires at least a 6 function decoder to make all the lights work properly. Having spent the best part of £70 per coach - albeit highly detailed with working lights - I would have expected some guidance given the price of the unit as to precisely what decoder will and what won't work in it. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to fathom out why all the lights worked with the blanking plug in and only the theatre lights worked when I put a Bachmann 36-557 in!. It inevitably ended up with a phone call to Kernow Model Centre who advised me as to why it would not work with the 36-557. They also advised me NOT to run the unit on a DCC layout with the blanking plug in as they had received several units back because the lights had "blown" by being used on DCC fed track with just the blanking plate in. Given the amount of time & research that has gone into making this model, I find it a very poor show that proper DCC guidance has not been forthcoming prior to release of the model when there was so much attention given to the shape of the front ends at the design stage.