Hush Hush

[Bigmet]

It's now had the usual extended test running, and is both decoder fitted and has been fiddled with to suit my requirements, and is now all good for running on my layout; just a replacement rear truck to be produced 'when I get around to it'.

Traction was potentially good as supplied, and there is plenty of room for extra weight inside, well balanced about the centre of the coupled wheelbase, for anyone needing heroic haulage. My layout has gradients, and on the (gentle) transitions from level to gradient the front bogie lifted weight off the driving wheels. Adding the flanged wheels at the rear lifted the driving wheels sufficiently off the rails on the transitions to cause slipping to standstill!

To be fair to Hornby they clearly don't see the optional flanged rear wheels as anything but display case items, but I want 'all flanged' on my locos, so have to find my own solution, and not just for the traction issue. When running with the rear flanged wheels installed there was good and bad news. The good first, unlike the Hornby Gresley A 1/3/4 mechanism with which this model has much in common, the rear truck frame arrangement is way better, and the loco can manage 30" radius with the optional flanged wheels fitted, good for the absolute minimum radius for large passenger locos on my layout. The bad news: the noise when running, even after clearance arches were cut above the flanges to prevent short circuits, rattle, rattle, rumble, rumble. Going to fix that by cutting away the fixed locations and making a bogie for the rear carrying wheels, still scouting around for a fold up etched metal kit bogie as a simple solution.

The leading bogie wasn't trouble free either, despite a spring, (good!) it had next to no upward travel. Bogie off, centre boss filed down leaving just enough of the boss for the neat spring to be located on, and the bogie can now lift just over 0.5mm, which is enough to avoid taking weight off the drivers. (Very awkward job replacing the bogie, don't take it off unless essential would be my suggestion.)

Took the (excessive) weight out of the tender while decoder fitting, eased the very draggy pick ups to just scraping the wheelbacks. Made a new drawbar to position the tender closer than the Hornby item can go, making the overall wheelbase just 0.5mm longer than true scale. That's as close as it will go for my 30" minimum radius requirement, the cab doors neatly fill the gap between cab and tender sides, and the fall plate rests on the tender step, looks very good overall with this adjustment.

Although it will be getting a Kadee coupler mounted in the tender bufferbeam, I thought the NEM coupler pocket position was a little far inboard, and it needed the longest NEM fitting Kadee #20 to ensure reliable magnetic uncoupling 'as is', although by retracting the buffers fully a #19 would be fine, and possibly a #18, depending on the stock it is coupling with. Coupling up was fully reliable, it's just the auto uncoupling that's slightly compromised. Unusual for Hornby, typically the NEM coupler pocket positioning is 'bob on'. Also Hornby haven't got a parts assembly diagram online. That's a rare omission, so while I cannot be sure, the motor appears to be the standard X4026 'black can' 5 pole skew wound type (now with a flywheel in the drive line) that was first seen on the MN back in 2000, and running is all it should be, smooth and quiet, with a 'creep' in and out of motion, and able to make full express speed. Given that I have had zero trouble with these motors in over twenty years use in multiple mechanisms, that will do nicely.

Finally the flange depths on the wheels are finer than previous Hornby products I own, down to 0.75mm. Now there's a step in the right direction. Overall, its 'good bones' mean much more to like than to criticise, and easy enough to improve to meet personal requirements for layout operation.