Old loco bodies with new mechanisms.

[ColinB]

I don't know if a lot of people are aware of this, but just in case. Did you know that some of the old Hornby loco bodies fit the latest mechanisms. I dislike having the motor in the tender on my old locos, even with 5 pole motors you still get issues from the loco skating along the track, especially if you increased the friction by adding extra pickups to the loco. So anyway I was comparing my new Duchess and Flying Scotsman locos to the old ones. Surprisingly the mounting points are the same on both of these models with earlier models. In the case of the Duchess you have to choose the variant with the separate pony truck, but it fits. Again with my old Flying Scotsman I had to smooth off the raised part number lettering on the underside of the rear of the cab for the latest mechanism to fit. I know it is not that cheap an option but for me it was a lot cheaper than buying new locos, plus I enjoy doing it. It does still leave the issue of the tender, but worse case I just depopulate the ringfield motor, as Hornby did on their original versions.

[Going Spare]

Depends on what is "old". Hornby introduced the Duchess back in 1977 and Flying Scotsman in 1968. Anyone contemplating retro-fitting an "old" loco body on to a current chassis needs to carefully satisfy themselves that there is room within the body to take the motor, that the body will sit on the chassis correctly, that the body/chassis fixing points/methods are the same and perhaps even that the coupling between the loco and tender is still compatible.

[ColinB]

The Duchess is a 1980s variant with the front lights and yes there is enough room. Similarly the Flying Scotsman is the same although the motor is a tight fit. The tender to loco fitting is not that difficult either, if you stick with the brass pin, you either make your own or I have found the Royal Scot works well, as on the earlier chassis the drawbar is part of the pony truck. I have 3 versions of Duchess, Ringfield, and the two with the motor in the loco. That is why I said you need the one with the separate pony truck, the later one with the fixed pony truck you will have issues with the rear screw.

Update:

For the Duchess I did have to machine away about a 1 mm from the centre wheel cutout in the body, the new chassis has slightly bigger wheels.

[81F]

Hello everyone,

As I have posted before I have replaced several old mechanism with new ones (mostly from the Railroad range) although the swap often included the tender body. Some of these were as an easier way of changing duplicates identity and sometimes livery. Others were to keep original mechanisms in near mint condition while allowing me to use the body in a way that was reversible. These are as follows with comments:

GWR 38XX Churchward County 4-4-0 - 1980s tender drive with a Railroad chassis.

A very simple conversion, The 1980s tender body simply clips straight onto the railroad chassis. The body fixing screw at the front of the chassis needs opening out to take original 1980s screw railroad chassis There may also be a body weight stuck to the underside of the fire box of the Railroad model that is best transferred to help with weight distribution. I also obtained.

Black Five - Version with the small combined dome and top feed apparatus rather than te separate large dome and top feed of the Railroad (would also apply to the red version.

There are two round pegs at the front of the older tender body that needed removing to enable it to clip straight onto the Railroad Chassis. Two of the three I have swapped were a simple body swap, just try no9t to break the contact wires to the tender coupling. The third was/is a nightmare in that the tender coupling screw sheared in the chassis when I tried to remove it to get easier access to the body fixing screw.

Midland Compound - Fowler Tender Version.

Tender, simply clipped on. I think I had a slight problem with the body in that there is a slot on the underside of the boiler just before the front wheels that needed widening slightly to let a conglomeration of wires etc. on the chassis to pass into the boiler. Again the body fixing screw hole in the chassis needed enlarging to accept the larger body screw.

Midland Compound - Deeley(?) version - Midland Railway No 1000.

Generally the same as the fowler tender version except thye red paint on the tender chassis of the Railroad version does not match. The option I chose was to swap the metal tender frames but this required some additional holes to be drilled to fit it to the railroad Chassis. In hindsight I should have repainted the railroad tender frames!

LNER A1 Royal Lancer

I am not sure if this was a tender drive loco as I bought the body separately as a means of changing the identity of a spare Railroad Flying Scotsman but had to do a lot of work scraping , filing and sanding the inside of the body to get the chassis to fit.

Hope this is of interest

[Ruffnut Thorston]

The Hornby Tender Drive LNER Shire and Hunt 4-4-0 locos can also be upgraded using the Railroad Hunt chassis.

I have done this...

[81F]

@Ruffnut,

I also have a Railroad Shire/Hunt and have thought about buying an old body for it as the livery seems to look a bit better in the photos I've seen, but do you think it is worth it?

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Certainly the livery is simplified on the Railroad models.

There were only two Shire locos made by Hornby, before they changed the tooling to make the Hunt Class.

”Cheshire” in LNER green, and “Yorkshire” in BR lined black, early crest.

There have been more Hunt Class locos made.

So, if you want a Shire, then an older body is the only way to go, other than modifying a Hunt body.

The tender used came from the Footballer, 4-6-0.

It seems that most of the 4-4-0 tenders only had one vacuum tank on the back of the tender, rather than the two supplied by Hornby.

The tanks fit onto two lugs, which need to be removed from the tender body, from the tank that is removed...

Photos of the real locos help...

At the end of the day, if you want the more complete livery, then it’s worth while sourcing an older, Main Range loco, and swapping the loco and tender bodies.

You can always sell on the older chassis fitted with the Railroad bodies.

The Railroad tenders have a transverse bulkhead inside that needs to be removed to clear the tender drive motor. It’s not too difficult, but take care when using sharp tools!

[ColinB]

I am just finishing up the last of my tender driven loco conversions.

The Duchess fitted straight in the only thing I had to do was make the front and middle wheel arches slightly bigger on two out of the three..

One of the A3 fitted perfectly but the other using a replacement body from Peters spares, I had to remove some lugs from inside the body. On both I had to machine away the raised numerals on the back of the body to get the location piece of metal to fit.

The Princess Elizabeth fitted straight in.

The Britannia (Morning Star) fitted straight in.

The only one that needed a lot of work was the A4. On this I had to machine the back, make up a plate to hold the rear fitting in and because on my tender driven locos the front is held on by the cylinder block, make up a plastic mounting.

Comparing the old Hornby with new chassis against the new Hornby they weren't that much different. The newer bodies tend to have a lot of separately fitted parts, which if you could get them separately would probably make them the same. The other thing is the paint job is much more superior on the new ones.

[81F]

Just done another County 4-4-0 (actually bought a County of Denbigh to rename a spare County of Devon) which highlighted a minor issue I'd forgotten about. Their is a slot in the boiler just forward of the front driving wheels which is wider on the railroad version to clear a few electronic components.

If you do not want to modify your original 1980s body you can bend the components o9n the chassis upwards a bit and feed theses into the boiler first and weriggle the body around until the lugs on the back of the chassis engage with the body.