Trains from the mid-to-late-20th century

[Vilhelm22]

Hi,,and welcome to the world of model railways ,,,anyway to answer some of your questions ,,track,,,you will be ok with let's say hornbys OO gauge track ,,,the Locos you mention are all probably Ho gauge but will run on OO gauge track and the new track of today is Nickle silver which is a lot better than the old steel stuff ,,,, decoders ,,I don't see why you would not be able to fit decoders to these older trains ,having said that ,some of the older trains do draw more current than some decoders can supply ,so will cut out / not work etc so you should seek some proper advice before spending money on them ,,,fitting decoders aren't difficult once you know which wire goes where and providing you can solder ,,,anyway I hope this has helped and I'm sure others will come along and give advice ,,,,,Martin 

[Vilhelm22]

As my cousin's other grandfather recently died, my cousin suddenly came into owning 24 HO scale trains that his grandfather had collected for no apparent reason.  The trains consist of an assortment of diesel, electric and steam locomotives from five different companies: Rivarossi, Jouef, Fleischmann, Roco, and Lilliput.  As Hornby now owns Rivarossi and Jouef which make up 13 out of 24 trains (more than half) we want to use Hornby track and digital control.  We were just wondering if it was possible to fit DCC decoders in the trains, and if so how difficult it would be and how to do it. The list of these trains is below.

Rivarossi

1200, 1230, 1252, 1285, 1341, 1527, 2889

Jouef

8249, 8255, 8269, 8273, 8282, 8445

Fleischmann

1302G, 1321, 1333, 1336, 1339, 1361, 4246

Roco

04120a, 4149a, 04191b

Lilliput

106 02

[ellocoloco]

Hi Vilhelm,

 

Thats quite a varied selection your cousin has inherited!  German, French, American and...........British!

 

As mjb suggests, fitting decoders should be a simple enough exercise, however, make sure the locomotives run well on straight DC before any attempt is made to convert them to DCC.

 

I have looked a few of the references and they appear to mid 1970s running into the early 1980s, however, locomotives tended to remain in the catalogue longer then than they do now. The Roco locomotives should have decent motors and be no problem to convert but some of the Fleischmann ones might be a bit tricky if they have 'pancake' style motors - Hornby adopted this style in the early 70s with the Evening Star - and there maybe info on this forum about those.

 

Best of luck and let us know how you get on.