ColinB

I think I have said it before, but it is a bit late in this case, Accurascale locos with sound prefitted are generally better value than retrofitting sound once you have bought the model. Unless you can get an icredibly cheap HM7000, like I did in Hattons closing down sale, by the time you have added a Powerbank (probably necessary on this loco with HM7000) there isn't much difference in price. The Accurscale fitted sound as someone mentioned earlier is also incredibly good.

They may have changed the part number but I am pretty sure they are the same gears. The Princess Royal though is a completely different story, the gears are completely different. I wonder what they modified to need to change the part number?

I didn't realise it was a split chassis, I just assumed it had an incredibly old motor. I haven't got one so I don't know if you could fit it in the loco or tender. Looking at a photo on Hattons website, is there not enough room under the tender. You only need four wires so you could use a x6113 cable. With a Zimo decoder and a Bachmann 6 pin socket it might fit.

I bought my 2024 catalogue in the deal from Tescos and was really surprised that a lot of the entries were the ones promised for 2023 and some 2022. Now I know the reality is that possibly they will appear this year and it is good you can find their specification in the new catalogue but it is a deviation on previous years. Not an issue just an observation.

I actually have this model and yes it is ready to go. The only thing you might want to do is update the sound to the latest level. The give away is the price, 9Fs are expensive but not that much without sound. In fact the 9F with sound is really good value for money, the 9Fs retail price is £252.99, so you are getting the sound option that retails for over £60 for less than £30. The only thing that isn't included is the Powerbank but because the 9F has so many pickups, you don't need it.

Yes 96RAF, I agree. I have one of those really old Dapol terriers where there is virtually no room to fit a decoder. Talked to YouChoos and they suggested their smallest decoder, I can't remember which one, but it works perfectly. I imagine it should be ok for the old Hornby Stephensons Rocket, the current consumption I assume is about the same.

You only need the motor, the drive unit unclips. The worm drive should be the same, so take the bogie apart unsolder the old motor wires and fit the new one. I use those motors in all my Railroad Diesels and steam locos. There is a YouTube video explaining how to do it but with yours it should be easier as you don't have to remove the worm drives. I think the motors from New Modellers are about £8 to £9, they might be cheaper from Lendons.

Great, thanks for the information.

Well I suspect one of the reasons was they released a significant number of locos before Christmas as compared with 2022. I think at least 5 of my preorders arrived during that period. In 2022 they released very few.

Actually that idler gear is the same one used in a Duchess and I can't be 100% sure but I think it is the same gear as used on the axle. I am sure that when I was looking for an axle gear that was what I replaced it with. When you are talking about locos costing £200 plus, there is a lot of scope for a decent spare parts service.

Here you will find the axle gear:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196192021332 Check Lendons you may be able to get a complete wheelset cheaper.

I have been moaning about it for ages. I search EBay to find them, as I said you can get most parts if you know what other models they are shared with. I think the Schools axle drive is the same as the Merchant Navy's. I must admit I used to get annoyed, now I see it as a challenge to find the right bit. People on here keep telling me it is uneconomic for Hornby to make replacements although Bachmann do. The only one I had issues with is Royal Scot/Patriot valve gear, Hornby made it so flimsy that it is impossible to get replacements. In the end I found Black Five valve gear was nearly the same so I modified the Black Five valve gear to fit.

It is normally the driving wheel on the wheel axle that splits. Sometimes the others do but it is not so common. Fortunately as 96RAF says they use the same gears in most of their Pacifics, generally the newer models where they have retooled them, they deviate. The even better news is there is a guy on EBay that sells the gear. I found Brittanias are the worse, I often wonder if it is because it is the end wheel that is driven as opposed to the centre gear on most other models.

Well if a certain manufacturer doesn't learn by their mistakes who knows. The packing on the W1 locos was very suspect so a lot got damaged. Next set of loco packaging improved dramatically, so no issues. Reading reports on RmWeb of Hornby Dublos being damaged, mine was ok but the packaging had reverted to that of W1 plus the "ice pack" won't let you fit the brake rodding and fit the loco back into it. Go back to previous release of Hornby Dublo Sir Nigel Gresley and "ice pack", this allows you to fit the rodding. So basically Hornby has gone backwards and on their maximum revenue loco, where its retail price is £300 plus. Those are not the types of mistakes you make in this current economic climate.

Sam of Sam's train has a short YouTube video where he was commenting on the demise of Warley. Basically he was saying it has just got too expensive to attend. Now if you are a football follower or go to shows often, the prices he was quoting were in the same ballpark as going to one of those events but perhaps your average railway modeller just doesn't want to pay that sort of money. Perhaps it is going the same way as my other hobby, classic motorcycles. That too is expensive and when I first started building bikes there was virtually a bike show or autojumble every other week during the summer. Fast forward twenty years and now there are just a select few available. Years ago I was looking for a tank for one of my bikes and the Dealer was commenting that a recession was coming because as he said, "when people are short of money the hobbies go first". He was dead right six months later we were in a big recession.

Probably Hornby is your best bet but if not, it is either an M2 or M2.5 nut. Generally I find it is easy to get these these off EBay, generally coming from China. Unfortunately I have found the Chinese are the only one willing to sell them in small quantities. If it is OO then Lendons keep replacement bogies, it TT then probably Hornby.

Probably Hornby is your best bet but if not, it is either an M2 or M2.5 nut. Generally I find it is easy to get these these off EBay, generally coming from China. Unfortunately I have found the Chinese are the only one willing to sell them in small quantities. If it is OO then Lendons keep replacement bogies, it TT then probably Hornby.

Actually Robin I have been complaining about this for a while, so I agree. The catalogue seems to be a vehicle for obtaining pre orders that might be available in a few years time. As to the arguments about remote production well most other businesses have a design cycle which includes slots for production that is what project management is all about. Most businesses don't announce the product before it is at least when what we called the job 1 date had been decided. Unfortunately model railways is different, sometimes they even cancel it between catalogue and production. Trouble is for Hornby, it is a nightmare. They take advance orders on their site which fixes the price, so if they have to increase it because of higher production costs, they have issues because most of their sales will be pre orders at the lower price.

Well done Hornby this was the issue I had with my West Country but nowhere near as bad. The P2 21 pin socket PCB would probably fix it. Hornby realised their mistake and on the the P2 they changed the orientation of the board so it is upside down. In your case I suspect it will miss the weight. I am not an advocate of removing weights the designer put them there for a reason. Anyway if you ever want to sell it on it is no longer mint and you can't buy the tender weight as a separate part. I suggest talking to Hornby technical. That socket I think is for the Powerbank which you will probably need, so you can't even remove it. Trouble is from what I remember Castle tenders don't have much headroom so lifting the board up may be an issue.

I figured long ago that machine crimping was the way to go.

If they want to go bluetooth why not make a box that takes bluetooth, supplies the 12 volt supply for the track and converts it to DCC. Basically a dongle with a powersupply. The smaller locos will always for the moment use DCC and the HM7000s are just too big. Without the display and switches it could also be very cheap.

I looked at this with my class 73s, other than illuminating the headcode, I came to the conclusion there was just not enough room to fit them. Electrically no issue, it was just fitting them was the issue.

If you don't have the Reset code just download a Bluetooth search tool off Play. Remove the colons from the code it finds and enter that. That is how I did it while waiting for Hornby to send me the Reset code. The HM7000 decided to have a funny five minutes. I think Daedalus gave me the information several posts ago.

If it is a 21 pin then if you look on the decoder socket PCB, there are PCB pads to solder to. Sadly not much you can do for 8 pin.

If you want a 5 pole motor then use one from the Pendolino they are relatively cheap and work well. I fit them to all my Railroad diesels. There is a slight issue with this motor though but it may be because they had a bad batch, hopefully gone now. On a couple of mine the magnets were not clipped in properly, so can easy check by spinning the motor by hand before you fit and check that is spins freely. I did take the motor apart and clip them in properly. Seeing as you have replaced the traction tyres have you checked you haven't disturbed the pickups? If lets say the pickups on the non driven bogie weren't working you would get this sort of effect.