Hornby Q1

[BobDM]

Is this one of their good ones or another piece of HornbyCrap?

I am getting wary of buying anything made by this company, especially bearing their financial woes. I'm not sure they will be around to honour any guarantees.

It's an ugly brute but it has something about it and I wouldn't mind adding to my Southern Railways stable, if it's OK.

[Bufferstop]

It's a China tooled and built model. Don't forget whatever Hornby promise is in addition to your purchasers rights from the retailer!

[Dad-1]

I have one and run it occasionally, never had any problems.
Mine has a DCC decoder added, I would say it's a good model.
You are reflecting the problem Hornby have in as much as their
quality varies so much between products, some are the equal to
the best the hobby can offer, others ..............

Geoff T.

[Bigmet]

For the longer term, this is the sort of question you have to gauge for yourself. I don't recall any flood of complaints about this model and it has been in their catalogue since about 2004 would be my guess, plenty of time for any significant bad news to have emerged (the T9 being the prime example among Hornby steamers of 'bad news later'...).

[RFS]

I have 2 of them, the first bought about 11 years ago. I use them extensively on my automated layout and they run extremely well. Just had a couple of minor problems with the earliest.

Firstly, it became a bit wobbly after about 5 years, but I found it any easy job to fit a replacement wheelset.
Secondly, after about 8 years I went to play trains one afternoon but when I switched on the DCC system I got an immediate short. I have a large layout and it took well over an hour to discover it was the Q1. Not the decoder - even replaced with a blanking plug and it didn't fix it. Couldn't find out what was wrong but Hornby said they would fix it, which they did FOC.

Since then it's been fine and so has the other one. The only problem I've seen people report is being mystified as to how to get the body off. You just need to stick a screwdriver down the chimney! Both my locos have Lenz Standard+ decoders for which there's plenty of internal space.

[Peterm]

I had to replace the drive wheels on 'my not run that much' Q1, because the plating wore through. Other than that it's been good.

[Bigglesof266]

Single example 33013. Possibly not as much running time on mine as some here, but seven years in mine's been a consistently good performer. Just need to watch that fragile body connection on the lubricator mech when handling is all. Lovely loco. Not in the same major or minor problems class as Hornby's T9 or M7.

[RFS]

Just need to watch that fragile body connection on the lubricator mech when handling is all.

In real life not all the Q1s had this lubricator and that's reflected in Hornby's models. My 33005 doesn't have one, but the one on 33017 failed and has been removed as it was far too fiddly to get back on.

[SRman]

The lubricator mechanism and linkage is available as a spare from Peter's Spares. However, when one of mine dropped off the pin on the lubricator 'box', I drilled a 0.5mm hole and superglued a piece of brass wire in, slipped the end of the linkage over the wire then bent the end of the wire to retain it; it has worked to this day like that.

[BobDM]

Thanks for all the replies. Looks like this might be one for the stable.

[rejrob]

Hi all,I know its late in the day but I have 4 *Uglies*?? on my layout which are used pretty often.The only problem i got round was the flimsy drive on the oil pump.It involved replacing the plastic pin with a Markits coupling rod pin with the threaded part removed.they all work.I didn,t fancy the idea of a sharp edged coupling rod constantly revolving on a plastic pin.Just an idea cheers Ron

[PanzerJohn]

I think it's one of Hornbys best, great detail, nice weight and a smooth and powerful motor. Not heard of any problems with them.

[Phat Controller]

just my 5 cents worth - I have 6 of these brutes with absolutely no problems!

I fell in love with them (the quirky "ugliness of them) the looks and the history behind them got to me.

To make it easier on me, I'm a southern railway admirer, and this is where they lived and worked. They also make it into my desired period I model, and were used for freight, and passenger services, right up until diesel took over, they were truly one of the last work horses of their era, they ticked all the boxes.

Why did I end up with 6? I have an eye for a bargain. Some people just didn't like the look of them I suppose, and threw then on flea bay, where I snapped them up! I can now pick and choose what running numbers I have on the layout, as 6 of them parked up in the yard looks a bit weird.

what can you NOT love about them?

[rejrob]

Hi all,fraid only just seen this thread.My over indulgence with locos is I think known, much to the chagrin of my missus.I have 4 of them,3 with the oil pump drive and one without as per the real one The only thing i changed was the pivot on the oil pump ,a metal edge continually rubbing on plastic will not last long so replaced plastic pivot with a markits corned pin with the threaded part cut off ,totally fine Cheers Come on England.

[Bigmet]

...what can you NOT love about them?

Oh that's easy, Hornby's use of the old Margate 'design' clumsy lump of a loco to tender connector. (That's how the model was launched back in 2004 - ? - don't know if they have revised it since.) This intrudes very badly into what should be airspace, and steals attention from a lovely piece of model detail that's right out of Hornby's top drawer, the open framing that supports the cab floor.

Rework it so there's a simple drawbar in the right place between the dragboxes, make wired connections to the tender arranged like hoses, and the appearance is much improved. This class is known to have reached Ferme Park on ER, so that's an extra 0-6-0 I can legitimately operate. (I like the 0-6-0 as a type.) It looks quite at home among WD austerity 8F and BR standard 9F found there that dominated the ER heavy freight up to town.

...when I switched on the DCC system I got an immediate short. I have a large layout and it took well over an hour to discover it was the Q1. Not the decoder - even replaced with a blanking plug and it didn't fix it. Couldn't find out what was wrong but Hornby said they would fix it, which they did...

It has a design weakness in the electrical circuit, along with all other newly tooled Hornby steam chassis brought out in their first six years with Sanda Kan. To be brief, the chassis block is used in the conduction path, acceptable for DC, too risky for DCC. What I do on all affected models that I have had to look at for DCC fitting is remove the cast pin on the chassis block underside that contacts one of the pick up strips, and replace with a soldered wire connection, and remove the wire that goes to the screw securing the worm cover/motor clamp, thus fully isolating the chassis block.

(The real problem with this live chassis block arrangement is that it will work when new, but is always at risk of throwing up a dead short at some later time. Thus my preference to never give it a chance! Hornby went 'all wired' connections in newly tooled steam loco introductions from the Britannia onwards thankfully, along with a mechanically superior motor mounting and other refinements. Although for some reason the all wire electrical connection to the tender was branded 'Satan's plug' in some quarters.)