It doesn't help that Hornby's D49 based version of Edward hardly even looks like him in either book or tv form, so now its a poor representation that can only run on one line of my layout. I got a Hornby thomas for Christmas too (second hand off hattons) that never worked because the holes to hold the crank pins in just wouldn't. Hornby's standard 0-6-0 chassis must be ageing or something. OR they really did cheap out on the last run of Thomas stuff, hence the issues with both my Thomas and Edward from those batches.Bufferstop wrote:4-4-0s are a troublesome design to model as the fixed wheelbase is so far back beneath the chassis, even if you can get some support from the front bogie, there is bound to be a large overhang at the front on anything but the largest radius curves. I think the early Triang variants got away with it, by dint of small bogie wheels, a long bogie link arm, and wide treads on the driving wheels, allowing the drivers to slide sideways across the railhead. They had the formula about right, they would even take first radius curves, but you had to accept the compromises in wheel profile and back to back dimensions.
Alex.