Large Prairie - opinion sought

[George Stein]

Within the limits of your strange English laws about saying negative things about people, companies, etc., I'm looking for your opinions/consensus on the new Hornby Large Prairie. Reviews have ranged from positive (e.g., Albion Yard) to fairly negative (e.g., Sam's Trains). The main issues seem to be too light and not sufficiently powerful. Any forum members with direct experience? Given the successful Dapol Mogul, should we wait for the Dapol Large Prairie? Again,what's your direct experience - not hearsay. Thanks

George
North Carolina

[Mike Parkes]

I would not place that much weight (pun not intended) on Sam Trains reviews as he has plainly has no clue what the prototype of a model he is reviewing hauled and is overly obsessed with how much of the body is metal; maybe some should give a shed full of 1950s Hornby Dublo models. The jury is in recess until Dapols turns up; the Hornby model visually looks right - the Dapol Mogul has visual issues with the plainly push fitted chimney and overly splayed cylinder sidebars and mechanically with a ridiculous gearing that Dapol are saying will be corrected on the Prairie and future releases of the Mogul. The main issue with the Hornby model is that the chassis is very rigid and it will play up on imperfectly laid track.

[Bigmet]

...what's your direct experience ...

Absolutely nil,
Don't own one,
And never will,
N2, N7 and L1,
Fully fit the bill.

But the 'general overview' on this thread (from page 30) https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index ... e-prairie/ tells me it is adequate in respect of performance, and there is space in the side tanks for anyone wishing to add ballast weight, which so positioned will maintain centre of gravity above the centre of the coupled wheelbase. There's nothing like an overview from a range of owners, many with long term experience in model railway.

My observation would be that Hornby would have done better in forming perceptions by putting at least an extra 50g in it. Hornby's L1, a very similar size tank engine, is that much heavier and traction is more than adequate, and then there's Bachmann's Fairburn tank which is in the 'pull the side out of a house' category, proportionate to its size... 'We' do tend to like 'a little extra'

[Mike Parkes]

Mine has only so far run around a running in oval which is a temporary Kato Untrack oval set up as needed on a hard floor but having decoder fitted it I thought there was room for some added weight of the "liquid lead" ball bearing variety if necessary.

[Steamingon]

I recently bought a new Hornby model. I guess it was the last model made. It ran around my oval track with no problems at all. I only have a small track at the moment but it pulled 5 carriages with no problem. Unfortunately it just stopped after a week or so, & just made a low noise. So it went back. I am now on the wait for whatever is recommended.

[Bigmet]

Mine has only so far run around a running in oval which is a temporary Kato Untrack oval set up as needed on a hard floor but having decoder fitted it I thought there was room for some added weight of the "liquid lead" ball bearing variety if necessary.

What I would do is use some lead sheet (readily available) cut into two matching suitably shaped pieces, and stuck within the side tanks using Evostick. This is way cheaper than using commercial weighting products, and typically simpler too, (it would take me about fifteen minutes to perform what is described) and delivers a lot of mass in the least volume for the lowest cost.

Nearly all my large steam models have a 'lead boost', (the honourable exceptions being Bachmann's 9F, Hornby's Britannia and Heljan's O2; on all of which the designer had exploited the roomy interiors properly making them well filled with mazac ballast) and this has been trouble free since I started doing it over thirty years ago, initially for an OO garden operation.

(If worried about the toxicity and potential future owners do as H-D did, overpaint it a bright colour, and label it if so inclined. I had no idea until recently that H-D weighted their product with lead, but there it was inside a ringfield 8F body, painted bright yellow with 'LEAD' cast into the screw attached block.)

[Bigmet]

And now I have actually seen one running on a layout! The owner had added weight so that it would deal with the gradients on his layout, Everything to like about in on track performance, and it looks so very much like the prototype loco I saw down West last year.