hucknall byron

A few people have suggested that fitting a stay live may be the answer to this so has anybody done this? If so which one and is it a big job. I am fast running out of patience with this otherwise good model which Bachmann to their credit have had a go at for free despite it being out of warranty.

Thanks for your help Charlie i will have a good look.

Thanks Richard, Charlie sent me an email and suggested that as well. Ive given it a go but had no joy.

During a recent running session the model derailed and a crackling sound came out of the speaker. Now the model will run but i cant get the sound to function. Has anyone any ideas on what might have happened and is there a remedy? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry if this has been asked before but was any BR mark 1 passenger stock converted into non passenger use? I am thinking by plating over the windows and removing seating etc? If so I would be very interested in any details.

Yes, I followed the thread as the layout progressed and it give me more than a few ideas for my next attempt. Lovely layout which I hope to see in the flesh sometime.

The black country blues backscene. Now that is one backscene I would just love to incorporate in my next layout. Fantastic in every respect. Can you buy copies?

Having never had the confidence before to look at and hopefully cure a poor running locomotive I have now cleaned the wheels on two previously poor runners which to my eyes had clean wheels to start with before going any further and seeking advice. The results have been quite remarkable. The point of a post on a subject that has been done to death is just that I now believe " clean" means far more than I previously thought necessary , especially as I run dcc. With regard to track cleanliness the same now applies but here I still have a problem. Why does a track that was " clean" two days ago and has had no running on it now have a black residue which shows up on a white cloth? Does nickle silver track degrade constantly or is there some other cause?

Looks like a great layout in the making with the space to achieve those lovely sweeping curves. I am a Nottingham lad as well and that whole area is fascinating. Just as a matter of interest someone on You tube has done a computer simulation of Bulwell common that you may find helpful.

Nigel the motor is Hornbys 5 pole skew ( whatever that is). I don't know if that qualifies as crap? but I do know that there as possibly better ones out there as you say. Can this one be improved in some way?

Stiction. Yes that sounds very logical. I have spent a few hours this weekend cleaning the wheel sets and contacts on a Hornby 101 dmu that previously ran like a bag of nails and now its as smooth as silk right down to almost a crawl, but it refuses to start from stationary without a gentle push. It is dcc fitted so any suggestions for the CV setting to help with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Anybody have the technical reason why a loco sometimes needs a gentle push to start it? Is it something to do with the motor just not getting the electrical jolt it needs to start working or something else? As this must be one of the most common annoyances I just thought it was worth asking the question. Not strictly DCC related I know but relevant just the same.

In the interest of fairness I am thinking that the lais decoder may not have been the cause of the trouble now. I have posted on another Hornby 101 trouble thread and I think I may have found another reason which wont surprise many people on here,

Having nothing else better to do I have spent a couple of hours at least polishing the wheels. I have used brasso on cotton buds and have achieved close to a mirror finish. The improvement in running is remarkable. The loco is pretty much faultless now apart from a tendency ( not always) to require a push from a standing start. Am I right in saying that the wipers are only on the non motor bogey end? I don't have the confidence to strip it down. Any suggestions to get rid of the "push" start.

I have the same problem, I have a thread on here asking the same questions and I decided to change the decoder which I did this morning. I am starting to invest a fair amount into this relatively old model but I have a soft spot for it having detailed it and got it looking decent. I will be very interested to know if a new motor solves the problem before I think about doing the same.

Good advice as always on here. Thanks everyone. Cost of this particular lesson £9.

Thanks Ian, I knew this would smoke you out.

Thanks Iain I will have another look round.

Zimo seems to be about double the price of a Lenz standard? Are they that much better running quality wise or is there something else? Not very good when it comes to this part of our hobby I'm afraid.

Well I have had a go with altering CV8 to 8 but my powercab wont even read the chip. I am assuming the chip is the problem and needs replacing? I hadn't much faith in it at the outset to be honest but I thought I would give it a go. Any suggestions for a replacement? the model is very basic no lights and all I want it to do is smoothly go backwards and forwards. It is 8 pin dcc ready.

I have had fitted a Lais decoder into my Hornby 101 DMU. All was well and I put it away for a while during urgent engineering work on the layout. It now runs very badly, jerky and almost running backwards at times but not quite. Any suggestions?

Personally I love the backscene created for the Black country blues layout. Wish they would release it to us mere mortals.

Very nice indeed. I am not entirely happy with my current backscene for Bulwell Market and none of the off the shelf offerings are what I am looking for. I don't have any photographic or computer skills to be honest so a bit stuck at the moment.

An update on this chaps. This morning I thought I would give it one more go and hey presto the light on the front panel illuminated ( it was as dead as a doornail before despite all my efforts) this encouraged me to look into things further and I have eventually through a process of elimination and much wiggling about of wires tracked the problem to one of the connections on the little plug socket that plugs into the back of the panel. I have a new one coming from Digitrains and I am confident that it will be problem solved. Thanks John, Ian and everyone else who has been helpful.