Hornby R1038 Boxed Set - looking to convert to DCC

[Glen-1217782]

Good afternoon, I have a 2004 R1038 Boxed Set, Venice Simplon Orient Express British Pullman. My question is, can this set be converted to a DCC set? If so what will I need to make this conversion. Thank you in advance for any recommendations. yum

[96RAF]

I started with this excellent set and the Merchant Navy loco was DCC - Ready, so all I had to do was take out the DC header plug, fit a suitable decoder (I used a basic R8249, then later swapped it for a TTS MN sound decoder and speaker). I simply swapped my HM2000 analogue controller for a DCC controller (I used a Hornby Elite, but you can use any DCC controller). Finally I installed point clips to make the whole layout live and away I went.

Earlier version of the loco were not DCC - Ready and if so will take a bit more work to instal a decoder.

[RDS]

@Glen

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[ColinB]

On some of these rebuilt Merchant Navy locos, there is very little room for mounting the electronics in the loco, plus these locos have very fine valve gear which can easily get broken when you try squeezing the decoder in. What I did was buy a spare X6113 lead and the corresponding socket and mount the electronics in the tender. On the Duchess you can buy the latest tender bottom which makes it easier, unfortunately I think Hornby changed the tender body mounting locations, so you cannot do the same. I just cut a hole in the tender bottom to accept the 4 pin socket and put the 8 pin DCC socket in the tender. You will also find that in the tender there is lots of room to mount a speaker if you want to use TTS. The motor on these is very similar to the latestone Hornby make so wiring the 4 pin wire is relatively easy.

[Fishmanoz]

This set seems to have only been produced from 2004 - 2006 so most likely all are the same loco and so all DCC Ready as per Rob’s.

Rob, did you find as per Colin’s on the amount of room and delicacy?

PS. I used the Hornby Collector Club as my source. It says the MN loco is United States Line. However, I’ve also seen Clan Line mentioned so the set may also have been produced with a different loco and different catalogue number. And as with all sets, they do not publish a catalogue number for the loco as part of the set info.

[96RAF]

@Fishy

R1038 set loco is the US Lines. The earlier Clan Line non DCC-Ready set was R1073.

My delicate valve gear dropped to bits but the replacement set was stronger and insulated sided to side. Marvellous representations as these valve gear and motions are I would rather do without them as they have been nothing but trouble on all my large locos.

The smoke box weight had to be cut in half to allow the decoder to go in there as I planted a cube speaker on the shelf of the chassis where the decoder would normally sit. From memory I also had to trim the body to go over the speaker.

[Fishmanoz]

So you need to be either a good cobbler (Rob) or a good wirer (Colin) to convert this one successfully. Personally, I’d go with Colin and install the wiring to put it in the tender.

But then in my brand of engineering in its purest form, the only things that move are the electrons.

[Flashbang]

Unsure if you have other DCC items? But if this is your first venture and the set was sold as DC then ensure the supplied track power clip or track power section has the internal capacitor removed for DCC operation. If left in place the capacitor will cause issues. Flip open the cover and snip out the capacitor inside and reseal.