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Older triang and Hornby locomotives


Robert -348404

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I’ve got 2 older gwr pannier tank engines that I’ve converted to dcc what I’d like to know is what year did they change from the x03/4 motor to the Johnson motor as I’ve been looking for service sheets but can’t find anything with the Johnson motor late 80’s I thought but nothing found it’s the same chassis but theve put a bracket inTo hold the Johnson motor instead of the x03/04

I’ve got both types can any one help solve this

also I have an old triang/mechano A4 Golden Fleece with the vertical motor that I’ve converted to dcc

how I did it was to carefully drill out the chassis brush side and fit a small copper tube that holds the brush with shrink wrap to insulate it from the chassis and also put pickups in the tender it’s a good hauler for what must be now a 60 year old loco as it’s dicast and I’ve got spare brushes for it and a remagnitiser that does the magnets on that and the old x03/4 motors aswell

it runs as good as my modern railroad mallard with the 5 pole motor

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It's complicated. The X.04 was phased out starting in 1974, being replaced by the short lived budget cutting X.03. The X.03 was phased out from 1978 onwards, the tooling that made the brush diaphragm (brush holder) was worn out and it was getting an expensive motor to make, the X.03 continued for a little while longer in the SSPP chassis and the then new 4P 2-6-4 tank loco, turntable, and a few other models used the motor into 1982 to use up stocks, but X.03 motor production had ceased in late 1978.


1982 saw the start of the type 7 cheapo motors coming in.


The Johnson style motor came into cheap 0-4-0 models in 1974 to replace the X.04. There had been a previous attempt with can motors in the 1970-1972 short lived play series models, this experience was no doubt filed away for future use in 1974.


First real failure of the new cheapo type 7 style motors was the early class 58's, the motor in them couldn't pull a skin of a bowl of rice pudding and many modellers fitted a second power bogie to overcome this issue. The motors were soon uprated with stronger magnets.

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Yes, what I call an 'open can' motor - a can-type body but with apertures on both flat surfaces to view the commutator. Also, I seem to remember, used for Scalextric, hence the speed as with the later fully-enclosed 0-4-0 can motor in the Smokey Joe et al "pocket rockets".

Edit: with thanks to R3 for the illustration below, the apertures exposed the armature of course, not the commutator.

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