Hornby Railroad Plus Class 110

[Ken Shabby]

Has anyone here bought the new Railroad Plus Class 110 DMU ? . Over the last few weeks I've seen a few for sale with some of the big sellers on eBay, but I was surprised to see there's been no reviews on YouTube .
Ken

[stuartp]

There's a thread on RMweb about it, in which Andy York has mentioned that he's reviewing it for BRM. In short it's the old one with a newer motor (looks like the standard Ringfield-replacement one with the clip-in axles), all wheel pick up (including the traction tyred wheels, not sure how that works) and a decent paint job with all the small window labels normally missed off Railroad items.

The crease in the bodyside is still there as are the blunderbus coupling mounts.

[Bufferstop]

The Class 110 was always a good model let down only by it bogies, motor, dummy and trailer. I've had one for over twenty years, re wheeled and a Tenshodo SPUD substituted for the ring field is one of my best performers.
I don't have any experience of Hornby's replacement bogie but I haven't heard any complaints about it.

[centenary]

Has anyone here bought the new Railroad Plus Class 110 DMU ? . Over the last few weeks I've seen a few for sale with some of the big sellers on eBay, but I was surprised to see there's been no reviews on YouTube .
Ken

YT review here even though title says 101 DMU! It disappoints the reviewer who returned it after finding it has traction tyres. https://youtu.be/uYiB7GjOspQ?si=iJ2GwPUNzanE5dQo

[D605Eagle]

Last issue of the 110 with the 5 pole ringfield is as far as I can tell exactly the same, and I'm not convinced the limby motor is any better then the 5 pole ringfield. They can be had for about 100 quid less than these. The biggest bug bear of all of the 110s, no matter when they were made though are their pivotless bogies which are dreadful. Getting rid of them would be no mean feat.

[Bufferstop]

The pivotless bogies are a weak point in the design. There are two vertical tabs on each bogie which take the weight of the body. I smoothed down the tops of them and stuck a patch of PTFE tape where they made contact. On the motor bogie I added some weight. Don't add weight to the body as it adds friction to the supporting tabs. I must admit I only persevered with the model because it was the last present my father was able to go out and buy for my birthday. The total work I performed on it was.
Replace the Ringfield with a Tenshodo SPUD,
Modify the body supports as above,
remove all couplers and fit close coupling links,
replace the nylon wheels with pressed metal tyres with turned nickel silver wheels on pinpoint axles.
Only once I had done all of that was there any guarantee of it completing one full circuit of my layout. I did bend the ear of a certain gentleman when he was on the Hornby stand at Warley. He said that they had already addressed most of the issues and offered to swap it for a new one. I declined the offer as a new one might disappoint me when compared to what I'd achieved.

[Mountain]

Last issue of the 110 with the 5 pole ringfield is as far as I can tell exactly the same, and I'm not convinced the limby motor is any better then the 5 pole ringfield. They can be had for about 100 quid less than these. The biggest bug bear of all of the 110s, no matter when they were made though are their pivotless bogies which are dreadful. Getting rid of them would be no mean feat.

I have had old Margate types and the Chinese type (5pole) and the Chinese type were a world difference to the running capabilities. They looked the same but were worlds apart! I have one. It does not de-rail like the Margate ones did. Not sure that the Chinese did, but it works!

[Ken Shabby]

I ifully intended buying one, but the money I'd put aside had to go on household expenses.
I have the old eighties green 3 car 110, which I bought a few years back, simply because I'd really wanted one as a child. Last week I decided to modify it by repainting the cab front on one end with a small yellow warning panel and replacing the body shell of the other trailer with a blue one. This would give me a mid to late sixties era mixed green and rail blue set.
A body shell minus glazing set me back about a tenner, and it seemed to be a quick and easy project..
It wasn't . The glazing, which should be 2 long slightly flexible strips had become brittle and swollen with age and fell apart when removed.
Each window had to be separately glued in and was a very tight fit.
By coincidence the day I finished it, I watched a strange and obscure TV play on the BFI website from 1969 called The Watchers. It's was filmed in Yorkshire and you see a very brief shot of a mixed green and blue 110

Ken

[GeraldH]

My 3 pole 110 has always run fairly well by Ringfield standards, but there are some things to look out for. Although the bogie pivot is of a similar design to the Class 25/29 and probably the Class 35, the bogie sideframes and clips are made of a harder plastic. This makes the clips less flexible and if they are tapering out can create a lot of friction. If you've ever removed the sideframes you will notice that the clips don't automatically spring back to the vertical and benefit from being gently bent back in. I've also used silicone spray on the clips and the side supports clips to reduce friction. I've had two and they've never derailed.

The design of the glazing and it's clips is unfortunate and one has to try and figure out the correct sequence when disassembling, or it is very easy to get frustrated and damage it. There must have been a better way to design this. I quite like the 110, but one does wonder why Hornby chose such an obscure prototype when there were much more numerous and widespread DMUs around that had not been modelled.

[stuartp]

.
I quite like the 110, but one does wonder why Hornby chose such an obscure prototype when there were much more numerous and widespread DMUs around that had not been modelled.

Not that obscure, they were widespread across most of Yorkshire and the northwest at various times. The 101s and 105s might have been more widespread but a lot of other DMUs were more localised. They also didn't look like 'just another Derby unit'.

But then they were produced at the same time as Hornby was turning out the rather less than ubiquitous Class 29, GWR County and Caley pug so I doubt relative obscurity was a bar to production anyway.