Replacement outer boxes for locos, coaches and wagons

[John-367699]

I have a few loose items I could do with boxes for as they came loose when I bought them on eBay and in toy fairs/model railway exhibitions, also some of the boxes I had have fallen apart due to damp in the place they're stored. Mostly I need outer boxes for two R751 Class 37s and three R157/8 two-car DMUs, then there's four R334 DMU centre cars and four Hornby 12t ventilated vans (double doors on each side) that need whole boxes with innards.

[atom3624]

Hi John, all manner of different types of empty / used boxes are advertised regularly on Ebay.

Some try to rip you off, others a fair bit more reasonable, but many are also in rough condition, so check the photos carefully, and if needed, contact the seller and clarify.

Al.

[Going Spare]

Check ebay for boxes, they do come up - but they may be expensive as they will enhance the value of the models.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

You could be creative, and make up some suitable boxes, maybe using Cereal Packet Card?

[ColinB]

I agree with atom3624 some do come up on EBay quite often. Some people charge exorbitant prices, but they they still have the same item several weeks later. Others than genuinely want to get rid of clutter they have accumulated over the years charge more reasonable prices. There are a couple of Sellers that charge the absolute maximum for spare parts, how they ever sell anything fascinates me, I don't buy off them on principle, no matter how desperate I am. One of them you can always tell because they use the same background, looks like a set of curtains.

[Rana Temporia]

The Tri-ang society was producing replacement boxes but I think they were for sale to members only.

If you have an original that you can scan you can do any changes you need to on your computer and ask a friendly printer to produce some for you. I have done this for Playcraft locos. I think it’s legal as long as they are for personal use only and I had mine printed on the wrong colour of card so they can never be passed off as original.

I fully agree on buying boxes/parts off eBay. Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy a damaged or badly painted loco to get the bits you want. EBay prices have gone up a lot recently, probably because we can’t get to swap meets and exhibitions, but people with silly prices will always be left with their items if there is a choice.

[Bulleidboy]

Hornby boxes on ebay can be expensive. I did recently paid £25 for a Hornby Merchant Navy box. It was complete with inner tray and loco instructions. In this case, the box was in absolutely mint condition - not a mark. Not all are like thisface_with_rolling_eyes

[ColinB]

Don't do what someone had done to a loco I bought recently. The loco was a Duchess of Sutherland repainted and numbered as a Duchess of Hamilton. It was of the later design with the loco in the loco and dummy pony moulding. Its previous owner had put it into an old "tender driven" box. It must have got sold to a toy dealer, who puts it on EBay thinking it is the old one. So does everyone else, including me, when with 5 minutes to go I noticed the later valve gear. I bought it for far less than I thought it was worth, admittedly it needed a bit of work, but it was still cheap especially when I opened it up and found a LokSound v4.0 sound decoder, which was set wrong so obviously the loco didn't run.

So the moral of the story is if you are going to put it into a box, either use the proper one or use a generic one, just in case you are not around when it gets sold.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Reproduction Tri-a good Railways boxes from the atrium-ang Society…

http://www.tri-angsociety.co.uk//boxorder.html

[ColinB]

It is a shame you cannot buy brand new "ice cube" boxes, but I can see the issues in making them being as there are so many types. It is just that on my Hornby locos with a tender, I locate the DCC socket to the tender and wire it with a four pin plug and socket, it gets rid of that drawbar connector that either gets broken or "shorts out". Trouble is the loco is now connected to the tender permanently, so I then have to "hack" the foam in the old box to make them fit.

[37lover]

ColinB

If it is a 4 pin plug & socket why is it connected permanently? Can you not unplug? That's how I fitted sound to one of my loco/tenders.

[96RAF]

I fitted a plug and socket to my Mallard and simply stripped the electrics off the standard powered drawbar. Unplug the electrics and the tender lifts off as usual.

[ColinB]

The issue with unplugging is that the more you plug and unplug it, the bigger the risk of a pin bending or the plastic disintegrating, which I have noticed has already happened to one I am using for development. The other more important thing is those connectors are usually only rated for about 10 connections, so not a good idea to plug and unplug them. As for using the pin, yes you can do that, some of my locos are like that, but you still have the issue of the wire not being long enough to have them spaced out separately in the foam. Alternatively you can make the wire extra long so you can separate them, then figure out what to do with the excess wire when the loco and tender are coupled together.

If you disconnect all the parts from the drawbar then you have the issue that there is nothing to stop the drawbar moving up and down. Those copper fingers do a sort of damping action on the drawbar stopping it "flopping" down. On mine I had to replace the drawbar screw with a different type to stop it doing that.

[atom3624]

Heavier gauge wire is mentioned somewhere else, but Bachmann use this for their 4-pin plugs, and I find the entire installation more robust than Hornby's.

Of course, the negative is it's more obvious and less flexible.

There are 'option' / replacement 4-pin plugs on Ebay - with multi-coloured for those who like to remember which goes where, or all-black, to limit visibility.

Al.

[ColinB]

This is going a bit off subject. I must admit I have found the Bachmann ones worse, the weight of the wire tends to pull the pins out of the connector. The Hornby ones are perfectly ok as long as you appreciate that you have to be careful with them. As I said in a previous this type of connector has a limited number of uses, even if they were gold plated there is a limit. I have used the ones on EBay on a couple of locos, the trouble is, the extra weight of wire means the tender doesn't move so easily round bends and of course you can see it.