The Black Tape Mystery

[Clement Matchett]

Like many others, I have received, later than those who pre-ordered, the William Whitelaw set, and I duly installed the HM7K decoder. No persistent problems with that.

But the loco kept derailing on R3.

I had read that I should remove some black tape which had been attached to the underside of the chassis, above the front bogie, unbeknown to Margate, and I duly did so. But the derailment continued.

After some thought and a lot of dismantling, I decided that I had made matters worse by removing the tape, so I replaced it with a tiny rectangle of T-Rex tape (quite thick, but dinosaurs were!). I thought that since the front bogie was lifting on the curves, it would be a good thing to restrict its ability to do so by installing a bump stop.

This evening WW did 20 circuits of my layout, but at that point, I turned it off, and poured a G&T.

I may not have solved my problem, but I certainly haven’t made it worse.

And I thought this:- Are Chinese people so dull or controlled, that they don’t want to to see the beautiful models that they make running round a track? And if they aren’t, and my Chinese acquaintances are spectacularly better than I am intellectually, and if they notice that there are teething problems with the design, why wouldn’t they try to improve it in a cost effective manner before shipping their product Felixstowe?

Hence the Black Tape?

[Railbob]

Clement,

I recently sent my WW to be checked over as the controller kept cutting out, anyway I received it back from Hornby and on the return note that they had replaced the front bogie under warranty. I wonder if there’s a problem with early release models?

Railbob

[Clement Matchett]

Thanks RA,

I have Falcon in addition to WW, and I notice that the clearance between the forward wheels of the front bogie of WW and what I take to be some species of safety guards attached to it, is infinitesimal on WW in comparison with that on Falcon. Even with a large magnifying glass, I can’t be sure that there is any clearance, though I haven’t noticed the front wheels binding. But it is obvious that the rear wheels lift completely off.

I haven’t noticed any persistent derailing with my two A1/3s, though they are not perfect.

And, the faster WW goes, the less the wheels lift! Weight transfer, perhaps?

All sortable, I expect

Peter