Hornby Mk 3 / Mk 3A Intercity coaches

[centenary]

Hornby sell mark 3 coaches. I know mark 3s were used with HSTs and had no buffers and electric supply on these was different to Mark 3A. Mark 3A intercity coaches were pulled by locos, not HSTs.

Does anyone know, overall, did \ do mark 3s differ in appearance to mark 3As apart from the missing buffers? Are the under body valances different?

If there is no difference in appearance, do Hornby include buffers for the Mark 3As in the Mark 3 carriage box (presuming Hornby dont make a separate Mark 3A in Intercity livery!)?

[Bigmet]

How 'deep end' do you want to go? There's a heap of more or less subtle differences beside the key buffing gear and coupler system you are aware of, and some of these are dependent on the time period...
Some discussion here
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/14 ... -trailers/

[centenary]

How 'deep end' do you want to go? There's a heap of more or less subtle differences beside the key buffing gear and coupler system you are aware of, and some of these are dependent on the time period...
Some discussion here
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/14 ... -trailers/

Thanks for that. Not very deep to answer your question. I just want to know if I bought the Mark 3s do Hornby include buffers to give them an appearance of 3As to run with a loco instead of Class 43 power units?

End of the day, I could still buy them even without buffers and just hook a loco up but thought it good to ask.

[aleopardstail]

having been part of projects to convert HST stock to loco-hauled, and the other way at various times (1:1 scale railway) most of the differences relate to the internal electrical system, I forget which way round it is but one is DC and the other 3-phase AC supply. the control cables end to end worked differently as well

from an external point of view the only things that were changed, certainly the only bits you would notice in model form are buffers, couplers and inter-car electrical jumpers, and of those only really the buffers stand out

[Bufferstop]

I traveled in a couple of those conversions, it was quite interesting, If they weren't coupled up right you either got powered vestibule doors and no lights, or had to struggle to push the doors open, they would then stay like that for some time before closing very slowly. The time to close seemed to be just long enough to make it to the buffet and get back to the vestibule just in time to see it close.

[aleopardstail]

I traveled in a couple of those conversions, it was quite interesting, If they weren't coupled up right you either got powered vestibule doors and no lights, or had to struggle to push the doors open, they would then stay like that for some time before closing very slowly. The time to close seemed to be just long enough to make it to the buffet and get back to the vestibule just in time to see it close.

*cries*

its not (entirely) my fault...

honest guv... I just helped sell the projects, it all "worked" when on the works before it left

well mostly

sometimes

the timing stuff is invariably some berk has installed the wrong control unit, and some other berk designed the two different ones with identical connectors and only a small hard to read serial number to tell them apart.

not helping that when say a relay rack gets "modified" it is seldom compatible with the old one so when the depot crews swap them about trying at random to fix faults they cause others.

legions of tales of such idiocy from my depot technician days and more from when I shifted to safety performance stuff

[Bigmet]

...it all "worked" when on the works before it left...

We should exchange 'war stories' some time: 'what the end user did next'. Perhaps not, bore everyone else rigid...

[Phred]

Bigmet wrote:
Perhaps not, bore everyone else rigid...

Rubbish! Start a thread and share your war stories so I can have a laugh.