Wear Valley Wanderer

Thanks for the replies. That's a lot of food for thought. I'm playing with the idea of lowering the incline to the bridge which is lift-out section. It'll be a pain to do, so I'm in two minds. Yesterday I did have it running around the track without too much trouble, but that light pony truck does not like my points and it will derail every so often. Not always, but now and again it'll do it. I'm going to have to do a lot of hard thinking about this, especially as Hatton's don't have any replacements. They've offered a full refund, so I'll have a think.

I just got a Hornby P2, the 'Prince of Wales'. It cost an arm and a leg compared to my usual purchases, but boy, what a beautiful loco! It really does look the part and I was super happy when I opened it's smart new Hornby Box. So, in went the decoder and on to the track with this bad boy. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that there's a problem, and one which has meant I will probably need to send it back. The problem is derailing - a lot of derailing. The loco box says you need a minimum of second radius. I've got third and fourth and even then you can see the front driving wheels lifting up as it takes the corners. If you carefully watch Sam's Trains video on his P2, you can see this happening on his second radius curves. Is this a problem? To a degree, yes, especially if you have non-express points on a curve. The P2 derails every time on mine. I tried it on another line with better results, but the biggest problem manifested here. My P2 hates gradients. I've got other large locos, but I've never encountered a problem going up a 1:4 gradient. That said, I've never had a loco with eight large drivers before. I have some with six driver and a 9F with ten, but no problems there. What seems to be happening is when the loco is going up the slope, the front drivers are lifting up and out of alignment with the track when it reaches the top. It's barely anything, but just enough to cause it to hop the track when it 'comes back down'. The front pony truck is useless in guiding the drivers (And I don't mean to be flippant here) as there's no spring or anything to help keep the loco from 'wandering' off the track - it just hangs from a single screw, with no spring to hold it down or anything as I've seen on other locos, and its very light too. I've checked everything I can think of and the derailing problem is just so persistent it takes any enjoyment out of owning this amazing looking model. Honestly, I really don't want to send it back. I've waited years for a new P2 to come out, so sending it back seems like sacrilege. It's probably the best looking model I own, and I've got way too many already (Or so I'm told!). Unfortunately unless I can resolve this soon it'll have to got back. I don't think a replacement is going to cut it either as I don't think there's a problem with my model specifically, more that it doesn't like my track. That being the case, there's probably nothing I can do. :( Any thoughts or suggestions are very welcome. Mark. Edit: Just been watching the Hornby 'Making of' the new P2 model (Youtube - Designer Phil Discusses P2 'Prince of Wales Locomotive'). At 2:15 you can see the front drivers are off the track. Bit of foreshadowing? 😆

Apparently the colour itself is called 'Cactus'. But as CJI said, I can't anyone who does an off-the-shelf match.

Thanks Charlie, that's very decent of you, and very good service too. I'll get it boxed up when I get back from work tonight. Mark :)

I need to find an exact match for the stripe that runs along the bottom of this Bachmann oo Class 24/1. Trying to get the body off I managed to scratch it. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Cheers, Mark

It does, yes.

I recently bought a sound chip, one of the ESU Hi-Fi versions, for my Class 31. When fitted I noticed the sound was working, but the lights weren't. What was really weird was that every time I tried to turn the lights on the motor went dead. And no, I hadn't checked it on DC first (!) more fool me. I thought that since this was an old model, that the wiring (Which looked a bit wonky anyway) was possibly shorting. So, off I went and stripped it out, re-wired it, and refitted the chip. Same result. Along comes a friend with an ESU chip tester, which we duly plugged in. No lights. Every time you turn them on (Or rather try to) the motor dies. Sound is okay though. Any thoughts on this? I have a feeling the chip may be knackered, and I doubt resetting the chip would do very much. The seller is away for another week or so, which means I can't contact them and I'm stuck with a workbench full of bits in the meantime! If anyone can give me any advice I'd be very grateful as I'm at my wits end with this blasted thing. Cheers, Mark

I'm trying to rebuild my Class 31 which is one of the Hornby Super Detail models. I've bought a replacement circuit board for it, but I don't have a wiring diagram. Can anyone help me? Cheers, Mark

I've got a Super detail class 31 which had a faulty circuit board. Rather than try to replace the board I took it out and tried to hard wire in an ESU sound chip. Admittedly not the best idea, but as I've done this kind of thing before I didn't think I'd have too much of a problem. The motor works just fine. Unfortunately the lights aren't. I've wired the LED's red wires to the blue (common) and the black to the coloured yellow / white wires respectively for direction of travel. On the common I wired in a resistor board, however I'm not sure whether the Hornby LED's are 12v or 3v. I couldn't find any info online so opted to take the safe route. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as I really want this loco running! Cheers, Mark

Can anyone help me find a sound chip for a Rivarossi Gr. 741 205 loco? I've had this model for years and never found a chip for it, although I believe Rivarossi sold one that was ESU sound equipped. Any help/advice very much appreciated. Cheers, Mark

Hi Folks, Just throwing this out there. I've got nice little Hornby J50 RTR model which is pretty much brand new. I've installed a Zen black decoder and a Kungfu stay alive. The motor is quite noisy, and I noticed it's one of those 'Open frame' designs which I found on some other models of mine are make a loud buzzing as they run. I know it's a long shot, but does anyone know if there's anything out there on the market that can be used as a replacement? Cheers, Mark

In a similar vein, I got a message back from TMC suggesting I alter the 'Starting voltage' as they said this would make a great deal of difference in the running of the loco. Does anyone have any idea how this works? Laymans terms please 😆

I'd read the information on the PDF file you can get from Rails, but there was no mention of switching from one type of motor to another that I could see. I didn't even know this was a thing, and I've been at this for a few years now! Closer inspection revealed that in the table of CV's, there is indeed a CV 66 for the motor like you said. Checking it on my Z21 showed that the default setting was 0. Changing it to 1, made all the difference in the world. Now the two bad boys run beautifully. Thank you so much for the help! And of course, thanks go to everyone else for offering suggestions and advice. For someone as new as me, it's always very welcome. Cheers, Mark

My whole set up is for DCC. I can get my hands on a DC controller, but it will take a little while to sort out. My old Clipper died on me a while ago, so I've been pure DCC since then. I can understand checking things on DC first - it makes sense - but in this case I bought two of the G5 models and have three Next18 chips. If just one of the locos was problematic then I could put that down to a manufacturing flaw, or perhaps one of the chips. I've tried a combination of three chips in two locos and the problems are identical across the board with the exception of the Rails Connect chips which do run much better, albeit at higher speeds. I'll get a couple of Zimo chips and try them. it's really frustrating when I've get thirty year old locos that run better than brand new ones! Thanks for the advice :)

I've just received a pair of lovely looking G5 loco's, courtesy of The Model Centre. They're Bachmann offerings and something I've had on pre-order for years. With the scarcity of northern locos, especially NER ones, I was over the moon to get these. I tried a Hattons NEXT18 DCC chip at first and the loco nearly shot off the track in a similar way to those dodgy Lais chips I had once. Slow speed running was nigh on impossible. I then bought a pair of Rails of Sheffield Next18's and tried them. Same result as before, and in both locos. Loco goes from stop, to sudden burst of of jerky power, then smooth (ish) acceleration. Mid to high speed is fine, and both are run in. Slowing down to a halt is the same result though (Except in reverse) - smooth enough as they draw to a near stop, and then a sudden halt like the power was abruptly cut off. These locos have coreless motors which I have mixed feelings about to be fair, and no flywheel. Honestly, in this day and age I'm surprised they didn't use a 5 x pole regular motor and flywheel, or put a flywheel on the coreless one. I've adjusted the acceleration speed on (CV 3, I think) but that does nothing for that initial surge of power, and the sudden jerking stop when you bring the loco to a halt. I don't think I can blame the chips as I've used Rails' chips before with little to no problems. Both locos are doing exactly the same thing too. Is this just a rubbish mechanism in the loco, the chip settings, or something else? Any help / advice would be very gratefully received. Mark