ColinB

The other thing to check if they are electrofrog points, is that the little links to the frog aren't broken. Peco make them breakable so you can separately power the frog but I have found on my points they seem to break on their own, which means the frog is isolated. I must admit I would have thought it would show up on your other locos, but you never know. I have had a couple of points where they were working one day the following day the link has magically broke itself. The other issue is the Railroad Mallard has those stupid finger things on the coupling between loco and tender if it is like mine, are they working properly? If not you don't have any tender pickups.

Have you seen this? https://www.aldi.co.uk/hornby-intercity-express-train-set/p/700103424284601?gclid=CjwKCAiAnIT9BRAmEiwANaoE1RD34CFQJQtmfbJe7TGjfmcZ0ZZM2hYeL817FMpKOsa4egv7k3yEmxoCLtYQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds That has got to be a really good offer, the Javelin is worth more than that.

I just glanced at them as I don't need much, but I am glad Twintop you pointed it out. If you haven't much railway stuff these are normally good deals, normally they put a 0-4-0 loco in them, so I think a J15 is definitely a big improvement. Generally most Hornby sets are good value for money.

You might just as well get one of the controllers split from sets, I think Hattons sell them. They are pulse width modulated based which means your locos might buzz a bit at low speed but they are perfectly alright. I use one from a Pendulino set for testing my locos before I convert them to DCC. It might even be worth buying a cheap set, it quite often it works out you get the controller and track for free as the set is usually cheaper than the loco and carriages sold separately.

Do they quote axle lengths, I have never really noticed. I have recently bought some Dapol wagons as Rails were doing them cheap, I will measure the axles against the Horby ones. I have a ton of old Hornby coaches and wagons I want to change the wheels on so it will be quite useful. I think Hornby and Dapol generally are about the same as is Bachmann OO.

It does seem a bit weird that they offered the same loco in both packs but they must have their reasons. Both packs look good value for money. To be quite honest I would suspect they have a severe shortage of locos anyway, they have been working from home since March. The J15 is quite a nice loco, so why not have two of them.

Yes, I agree with Going Spare I was only saying that if you ever decide to use a 4 way for another loco, like I did when I moved the DCC socket from loco to tender, or add a DCC socket (in an old Merchant Navy, where the weight took up all the available spare room) then it is better to use the Hornby 4 way lead as it is thinner. The Hornby 2 way leads that they fitted to early Britannias, if you can get them, are stupidly expensive.

I must admit I have a few locos with those finger connections and I am seriously thinking of replacing them with JST two pin plugs and sockets. I bought a second hand Princess Elizabeth and after a couple of circuits of my layout it started to short out. What had happened the figures on the loco tender/loco connection had moved and touched the pin. A small connector will be much more reliable. That is what Hornby eventually did, firstly they used two pin and then when they put the DCC socket in the tender, 4 pin. If you are willing to wait you can get them really cheap from China and the quality is good. The two pin ones are not too bad as the wires are quite flexable, if you use 4 pin, I have found it is better to pay more for the Hornby ones as they use thinner wires.

I recently did a few of my coaches. I was surprised at the ten per pack and the price, but they do run a lot better with the newer wheels. When I was searching around the web, I found Dapol do replacement wheels, as do a couple of private vendors on EBay and they were slightly cheaper. They also do them in packs of four.

I think you will find the Lima class 55 will be a bit marginal on current for the TTS decoder. I thought the same for my Lima Class 37 and Class 47 until I started to do the calculations on motor current. The Lima motor's stall current is in excess of the 500 mA max current limit of the TTS.

@Chatlford To get information when we have to fix them, as you are beginning to realise from the subject you last posted is very relevant. Unless you are very lucky you are also going to find one of my bug bearers, getting replacement parts. Nobody is knocking Hornby, they are just being realistic, how are we to know that they didn't make that profit from the paints and Airfix kits they sell, or Scalextric. I would suspect it is a lot easier to make a can of paint than a highly detailed loco. Hornby doesn't only do trains, they do significantly more, they are a multidisciplined company. Incidentally I quite like Hornby steam locos and Skaledale buildings.

Ok, do the easy bit then. You see where the decoder is, then remove it. In the socket where you took the decoder from put a 8 pin DC header, there should be one with all your bits for the loco. Then run the loco on DC, NOT DCC. I suspect your DC controller will trip out. If your loco is less than 12 months old, contact Hornby Customers Services and ask for a return number. Send it back to Hornby for a repair under guarantee. If it is over 12 months old then it is going to be, contact your local model shop and ask them to repair it for you. Actually contact Hornby Customer Services anyway and ask them what to do, your loco shouldn't fail like that and if they have a duff set of capacitors/motors in locos they need to know about it.

The wires should be orange and grey, but it doesn't matter. It sounds like your motor has gone short circuit. I suspect the capacitor across the motor has gone short circuit or the actual motor has gone short circuit. My class 66's capacitor went the same way. Although it blew up the TTS decoder, I don't remember it melting the wires. If you have a multimeter check out the resistance between pins 1 and 5 of the decoder socket. You should get a reading of about 20 to 30 ohms, I suspect you will get 0 to 4 ohms. So check all the wiring, remove the capacitor across the motor and then test it on DC by removing the decoder (sadly it is probably dead) and putting a DC header into your DCC socket.

I think Peters Spares still had them. If not you could replace it with a two pin plug and socket. You can get some really small ones. I did that with all my tender driven locos.

According to the web this is a Crosti boilered one. I have the earlier version R3356 but on mine the tender body is clipped on. You are supposed to put pressure on both ends and then it unclips. If not you might need to use a knife and credit cards. I have just tried it, it actually works. On mine I bought one of those big bass speakers and fitted it under the tender lid.

It is not beyond the realms of someone to come up with a system to pull the magnetic couplings apart electrically, perhaps by holding one truck solid and pushing the other apart by a lift up ramp, or possibly a lift up ramp that pushes both trucks apart. As for electronic couplings I do remember seeing an article on them somewhere, but when you consider I have issues finding space for DCC decoders in some locos and some tenders, where would you put the electronics, added to that is the cost. I must admit I find pulling a pair of Hunt couplings apart, a lot easier than tension lock ones. The biggest issue I have is fitting them to old Hornby coaches with old tension lock couplings without damaging the coach.

You are very lucky yelrow, I too have many TTS locos and a lot of them have had issues, as have many members on this site. Have you not read the one about my TTS loco bought from new, that loses sound after about two circuits of my layout. Yes it is an exception, but from what I gather there are lots of others that do the same. In the last year I must have bought ten or more locos off Hornby plus many more TTS decoders, so I can't think that they are so bad. I just try to be realistic. I am sorry you are not interested in Rails, but I am sure there are are other people that are.I personally bought a lot of Hornby locos from them. I suspect there are other reasons people are leaving this site.

I don't know if you ever got round to isolating the frogs on the electrofrog points but I had a similar issue. What happens is when the loco traverses the points if it has a long wheelbase the back of the wheel can touch the moveable part of the blade that is not in contact with the rail. If you haven't isolated the frog then the supply from the other side of the blade that is touching the rail makes the whole of the blade live, basically both sides, so if the back of the loco on the non switched rail touches it, you get a short. If you cut the links and power the frog separately, this doesn't happen. Unfortunately, Peco don't explain the reason you need to isolate the frog in their instructions. I hope that explains it, is a bit difficult without a diagram. I spent a good hour trying to analyse what was going wrong with mine.

Nop, just being practical. I would have said it is a medium sized company.

I hate to put a "downer" on things, although Hornby made a profit £200,000 it is not a lot for a company the size of Hornby. It is great that they are making a profit but for them this is probably a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. As for Angry man's comments, I too agree with the issue of quality and lack of spares. We should all now know how much a motor actually costs if you look at EBay and Sam's trains, so why Hornby cannot source them, is a lost opportunity. Looking at EBay we can see that they are charging at least 10 times what the Chinese are selling them for on EBay and by all accounts they are the same motor, I did the same as Sam. Just remember if they have a decent buyer they are paying a fraction of that price advertised on EBay.

Funny on one of mine the magnet pulled out, I superglued it back. I agree they need a bit more development. Funny on a lot of the model railway stuff I buy, I find it fails for lack of decent detail engineering. It is a shame because with a bit more effort some of the stuff could be really good. I only have two packs of them which is probably why I haven't seen more issues, I just think it is a good idea.

I bought some Hunt couplings because I got fed up with the modern type of tension lock uncoupling themselves. I think they are great, the only issue I found was what atom3634 found, that they sometimes pull out. I then found out that the supposedly standard NEM pockets vary in width. On one of the Hornby Mansell coaches the NEM pocket is quite thin so they work ok, on some Backmann coaches the NEM pocket is quite wide so they pull out. In the end I put them in hot water and bent out the ends slightly so that are a better fit. The close coupled ones work really well. Hopefully if they take off, the plastic will get better.

As a final part to my Duke of Gloucester TTS Decoder issue, I put the offending TTS decoder into a Princess Elizabeth (older style with socket in loco) that I purchased off EBay. It works perfectly not losing sound. So it appears RAF96 is probably right, there must be some overcurrent trip on these things that if the motor takes too much current, it turns off the sound, but forgets to switch it back on again if the current becomes in range. The original Duke of Gloucester has a Zimo sound decoder in it now, which is rated at much higher current and works perfectly.

You aren't using an old DC controller by chance? Some of these especially the old H & M ones, don't smooth the DC supply like the new ones do, so you get peaks of voltage, this tends to kill DCC decoders, not always immediately, but eventually. The same happened to me using my old H & M DC supply. If you are using one of the new Hornby PWM DC supplies, then these are usually ok to use with DCC.

I have done a load of ringfields, they seem to be about 30 ohms so you should see some resistance. That was on my Fluke. I had issues with my Hornby class 66, the capacitor across the motor went short circuit whilst it was running, took out the TTS decoder, so perhaps Hornby had a duff batch of capacitors when they built these. If you are really worried there is a guy on EBay that sells decoders with short circuit protection on the decoder, if the motor current goes above the decoder max it cuts out and if they are fitted, flashes the front and back lights. He charges £15.00 for them, so they are worth a try. They are rated at between 1 and 2 amps, you set the max value on a CV. I bought one for my Triang because I knew it drew a lot of current. They are Taiwanese according to Manufacturer ID, but who cares if you are just using it for testing. The same guy does decent 8 pin DCC sockets, not like Hornby's, decent PCB with big gaps between pins, and they are about £1.00 (Hornby charge about £4.50). You say the loco works fine with DC, so perhaps you could measure the current when it is running on DC, that will give you a rough idea of motor impedance. The other thing is most multimeters are not that good on low resistance values, so measure the resistance of the motor a couple of times just in case.