ColinB

Not that this is not a great deal of help. Have you tried using a different decoder. I have some of those cheap LaisDCC ones for testing. I have one of those locos, but mine is fitted with a Zimo with sound and it runs perfectly ok, I would have noticed if it went too fast.

No you don't get replies on this one, sadly I had issues with the other one. Yes, good idea and stick with what you have got at the moment. If you do want to change just try one for a start. As to where to get them, well virtually any train model shop. I am assuming you have got Hornby points which could be an issue, as the Electrofrog ones have totally different architecture.

Not if the fault is internal to the Select, which if what you are describing is correct, then that is not going to fix it. I may be wrong, but if it is what I suspect, then it just a component change, it will take longer to get the covers off than fix it.

The newer ones are a bit better although they are virtually double the price on recommended retail. I don't know if you can still get them, but you could buy the front bogie for the latest type as a spare. If you fit it to the older versions it cures the derailing issue. You may not have a derailing issue but on my layout I suffered a lot with it.

If it is too hot to touch it is fair to say it is probably broken. I am surprised it is not smoking, when my ones have failed that is what happens. In one case I thought I had fitted a smoke generator. Generally the next symptom is it puts a direct short across the track. As it did work initially it could be it didn't have an insulation on the decoder, with the moving around the PCB has moved and is now touching something metallic. The other issue I have had with them is cooling, sometimes if you "shrink wrap" them then there is not enough air to keep it cool, but from your description it was probably factory fitted. Finally it could just be a bad device, I think I remember reading somewhere that most electronic devices fail in the first 50 hours, which is about right for your loco. Unfortunately in my experience, TTS decoders are not the most reliable of things, the latest ones I have bought seem better.

To be fair the only real way to stop any loco stopping on points is to really fit electrofrog points. Generally with modern locos with a tender where the loco has pickups in the loco and tender, it isn't such an issue with normal points. Mind you electrofrog points bring a different set of issues mainly to do with the electrical wiring and possible issues with the loco when it transverses the frog area (easily fixed electrically, but you need to know about it). The other thing that can happen is with the heat the point distorts because of the mix of plastic and metal, and raises the frog area above the rails. I don't know if anyone has tried that conductive paint you used to able to get for fixing printed circuit boards.

For anyone that is interested R3855 Queen Maud is on offer at Amazon at the moment. I was tempted but I suddenly realised I had the exact loco when it was released previously. Be quick though we know how Amazon pricing works.

I did wonder if it had 12 and 5 volt regulators. The LCD probably comes off the 5 volt regulator, so that would be my favourite. Anyway sending it to Hornby is a wise choice.

I have heard that phrase so often. If it is any consolation, I bought the Hornby Dublo City of Leicester because I liked the look of it. When I came to fit sound, Production had fed all the wires through the hole where the speaker goes. Fortunately I had just bought a pre wired 8 pin socket off Lendons as I am always converting locos to DCC, so I had to rewire it to get the speaker to fit. There is not a lot of room under the coal bunker on those models, so you generally have to fit the speaker in the defined place, even though it was a Road and Rails one.

I either have them where they don't fit or they just drop out. I was even thinking of putting a long thin screw through, but I can't bring myself to damage a tender. Not that I am going to buy one but that is the worry with the HST on the program, my Bachmann EMU has those special coach connectors and they are always falling out of the slot. On my Oxford rail MkIII coaches the only way I could get them to stay in was to glue the end of the spring. The old Hornby couplings are really ugly but in my case they seem to be the most reliable.

If you look at a lot of the retooled Hornby locos putting the spring in, is exactly what they have done. My track is not entirely level so it is a must. On Peters Spares site it actually mentions that the spring is needed on the latest A1 chassis.

That seems weird, it is basically the same wheel arrangement as an A1 which in my case doesn't slow down. I will have to try my 2-6-4 4MT, I recently changed the chassis as the old one had an issue with its pickups so it was constantly stopping. Sadly I could not find any as spare. I wonder if it is the valve gear.

I know it is not the answer you wanted, but thank you for clarifying that NEM couplings seem to vary in size. I have tried fitting Bachmann NEM tails into Hornby locos tenders and as you say they are too big. I did buy a pack from the firm that makes Hunt couplings but I have found they vary a lot, coupled with the added issue that they look like they were 3D printed and not so flexible around the pivot point. Hornby have been out of them for ages.

Not surprised most of my electrical components I tend to have to get from China as well as all my small screws. I have just got thrown of the RMWEB site for making a comment as to why don't we make more stuff in the UK, so I will leave it that. Surprisingly the post wasn't abusive, perhaps the Admin guy is having a bad day. Usually the issue with UK suppliers is you have to buy 20, or they have a minimum order charge. Good you got some.

Sorry to hear that, hopefully they should at least be able to control some of that, have a Happy Christmas.

I was just going to say that is a standard electronic component.

Sadly edit button still doesn't work, I just noticed you are running DCC, so ignore my comment about running DCC. I am not an expert on these as I don't have one, the Hornby Prairie supposedly has an issue with bends according to reports, whether it is true I have no idea.

What loco is it? If if has six wheels and a solid con rod, as in the case of a lot of Railroad A3 locos it might be worth buying the A1 split con rods option. Someone on EBay even said that they were the same as Duchess ones (I must measure mine). With the single long con rod the centre wheel cannot move freely. When Sam tests locos he regularly has them slowing down on bends, but we need to know which one it is. I must admit I have never noticed it on mine but I do run DCC.

Not being an expert on Select, but from an electronics point of view it sounds like the internal power regulator is not working properly, as the device warms up it dies so provides no power. Usually the fault just happens intermittently but over time it happens more and more until the device dies completely. I don't know if the regulator has a heat sink that might have fell off, that would do the same.

I have been updating a A1 chassis that I bought second hand. The wheels on the chassis were maroon, whereas I wanted apple green ones as I am fitting it to an LNER A1. I had no issue getting the main wheels and the front bogie, in green, then it came to the pony truck. My chassis has the fixed pony truck frame with the unflanged wheels. I could only get the unflanged pony truck wheels in black or red. I thought probably Hornby doesn't do this as a spare. I then looked at my other A1s with the same arrangement and they all had black wheels, although all the other wheels were green. It doesn't matter that much as you can't see most of it anyway. My question is was the pony truck wheels on the original locos always black and Hornby have modelled it so, or are there pony truck wheels on different versions of Hornby A1s that are green.

I think you will find that all Hornby locos after a certain date have provision for the decoder in the the tender unless it is a Railroad version or obviously a tank engine. In your case you just need to buy a sugar cube speaker and use that instead of the standard one.

You can fit a socket and make it DCC ready there is lots of room. Anything with a ringfield motor doesn't seem to have a DCC socket, perhaps it is because some ringfields draw more stall current than a standard Hornby decoder can source. I will add I rewired mine and it works quite happily with a decoder.

I must admit I quite often think that way, when several of the separately fitted parts fall off in the box. I have got to admit the latest Hornby Duchess performs much better than my earlier ones, the latest Hornby Dublo one is a Rolls Royce. As to the older bogies working better, not so sure. I run DCC so I converted a couple of my tender driven locos to DCC, they still derailed. Replaced the chassis with a motor in loco one and in the case of the Duchess put on the latest Princess Elizabeth front bogie modified to fit. Works perfectly. The really expensive new ones I don't really want to touch, but I have to pull the tender apart to fit DCC which usually means some separately fitted part falling off.

Looking at the setup Hornby have for testing their locos on their program on the Yesterday channel, I can begin to understand why the newer models negotiate points better. Than is some evil test track, perhaps they didn't have that setup before. Looking at their staff, they all seem relatively young, so perhaps more open to change.

I have got to admit on all the "retooled" models I don't have these issues, it seems to be be all the older designed ones when the present management wasn't in place. In fact on both the Duchess and Princess Elizabeth you can see where Hornby have improved things, like as I said a better designed front bogie, better pickups. So I have to applaud the improvements they have made. The models I refer to are mainly the Railroad models and older Chinese made ones which I usually get secondhand probably because they had these faults. The post was to help out people that have issues, which as I said doesn't seem to happen with the newer "retooled" models. The only shame is that Hornby don't always sell the improved parts as spares.