Hornby Carriage wheels.

You've measured the check-gauge, which is 17.14mm minimum per NMRA standards, so the Hornby wheels are off by0.14mm. Peco's track gauge of

17.2mm is too wide: max. gauge is 17.1mm. The min. check gauge and max gauge allow for 0.04mm of tire to ride the rail, not much, but enough.

IMO, both the Hornby wheels and the Peco track are defective merchandise, and should be returned for replacement or refund. The alternative is to replace the Hornby wheels and the Peco track at your own expense. You could try regauging the Hornby wheels, I don't know how easy that would be. But they likely have a bad profile generally, not just off kilter check gauge.

In any case, your tale of woe illustrates why standards are needed.

Hornby wheel profiles in the past seemed to vary from model to model and year to year. Their standard seemed to consist of "round", "coned tyres" and "generous flange" with back to back set at "index finger width".

I don't know if they have improved with Chinese production.

Hi Peter, Down our club we get members frequently asking why their new hornby rolling stock keeps de-railing. Every time its because the hornby back to backs are too narrow. We've got a back to back gauge, so it only takes a couple of minutes to open them out and.. hey presto! they run fine. I therefore suggest you get yourself a back to back gauge (made of brass and quite cheap) instead of selling them our demanding a refund. Regards, Paul.

Sorry, I disagree about repairing defective merchandise yourself. Why put up with expensive trash? As long as you let Hornby (and others) get away with foisting substandard models on you, they will do it. They have no incentive to change. If only 5% of you start returning merchandise and demanding repair or refund, things will change pretty quickly. And a side effect will be that Hornby's market will increase outside the UK, where there are many who like myself would like to have a "visitor from overseas" on their layouts, even if slightly oversize, but have found that they can't run UK models on NMRA turnouts and track. A larger market means a greater variety of models, as well as better quality ones.

The reason the vast majority of North American and European outline models are so much better than British ones is simple: NMRA and MOROP. These are consumer organisations that promote standards designed for interoperability, so that any manufacturer's product will play nice with any other's.

Frankly, I can't understand an attitude that accepts shoddy merchandise on the grounds that it's easy to fix.

In message , Wolf writes

It's simple really - it's a decidedly British attitude! I hear what your saying though, Across the board Industry Standards would really be manna from heaven. The thing is, how many Model shops actually return the aforementioned items (if it's a gauge issue), rather than offering a refund/exchange and then putting the stock back on the shelves. As regards foreign visitors, I'm much the same, though in my case it's NZ stock (Sn35, as NZ gauge is 3'6''). My biggest model, a Kb, hates with a passion almost all UK made track, although Peco 75 is passable with a few modifications.

Yeah, I know, I have a fair bit of Brit in me, and it's caused a great accumulation of stuff that's too good to throw out....

I would send the items direct to the manufacturer - they guarantee the product, after all. (BTW, I have an Atlas N loco that developed a defect about a year after I bought it, which was when I first ran it. It was supposedly guaranteed for 90 days only. I had no sales bill anymore, either. Told them I'd had it waiting for a test run pending construction of a small N demo layout. They repaired it without a murmur.)

John Gardner didn't make the K/Kb 4-8-4 to run around curves. The wheels are of course made to NMRA RP25 standard. It's quite possible to remove metal that gets in the way down to about

3' radius and with rather more effort 2.5' radius. 2' radius really needs the chassis assembled from first principles to suit the radius. 15-18" radius requires rebuilding to 0-4-0 configuration. ;-)

Greg.P.

In message , Greg Procter writes

That's why the grand plan for my soon to be built Kiwi layout is 4 - 5 ft Radius curves (loft layout, so bags of room). Am still a bit undecided when it comes to Points however.

Peco 3' radius is the basic standard proprietry turnout here in NZ amongst those who don't lay their own track. The sleepers are a bit close, (2' spacing) but only the pernicity notice. :-)

Regards, Greg.P.

Sounds like it needs hand-laid track with gauge widening on the curves.

Got any pictures of it?

In message , Greg Procter writes

That's what I was thinking. Though a few of my contacts build their own NZ fine scale. I really don't have the patience for that however, so will be looking to proprietary stuff as much as possible, if it the sleeper spacing becomes too much of an issue then I can just nip out every second and do a bit of a respacing, though that's definitely a rainy day project. Btw Greg, what are you using Peco Code 60/75?

Err, I model German HO, a little British HO and G24 scale NZR. A Kb in G24 scale would be a formidible loco but it's on my list of things to build before I die. I do model railway repairs and just occassionally get asked to "adjust" such things as the Ks and Kbs. John Gardner makes beautiful locos with excellent quality mechanisims (way beyond my abilities) but I guess we disagree philosophically on curve radii. I do have the Railway society plans and the usual photos in my collection of books and mags, if you need anything. By only personal photos of Kbs were taken on a Arthurs Pass special around 1968 and tended to focus on a couple of nice birds. (my mate married his - I escaped)

I just sent in an article to the NZRJournal on chassis design for small radius curves, including comments on the Kb, perhaps they'll publish it if they are short of material!

Greg.P.

I cut the spacers between sleepers in situ (upside down) with a chisel, and a bit of brass shim to protect the rail, and then space the sleepers using a suitable drill bit shank as I lay. With extra rail I can get 3 yards from 2.

My NZR is G 24:1 scale on assorted track as I've moved from LGB to scale(ish) NZR. As it's in the garden the track is less noticable than on a tabletop close up.

For HO I use Peco code 75 and ME code 70 as I still have assorted Euro/NMRA wheels. Code 60/55 just won't work until I turn down _all_ those wheels and there are a lot of them. The compromise with scale track comes because I build locos/rolling stock and a railway and I feel the difference between scale and adequate track is too small to warrent the time involved.

Greg.P.

In message , Jane Sullivan writes

I could post a couple of pics to alt.binaries.pictures.rail if you like. There's also a couple of links on the net:

(top picture)

It's a real beast of a model, just over a foot in length and circa 4 inches high. (That sound about right Greg? My layout is all shut up for the night so going on memory). Really stands tall over and British outline stuff. I've also got a Ww (4-6-4T) which is another great little model. Next project is a Ja.

"Wolf" wrote

The purchaser's contract is not with the manufacturer but with the retailer under English law. In actual fact the manufacturer can totally refuse to have anything at all to do with the end-user, although they would be rather foolish to do so.

Hornby will always claim that their locos & stock work with their track and if that proves to be the case then there is no case against them. Hornby make no promise that their products will work with those of any other manuacturer. The seems to be the case with their recent DCC offerings too.

There is NO industry standards at all in the UK despite attempts to create same in the 50s and 60s by the BRMSB. Tri-ang & later Tri-ang/Hornby were not at all interested at the time, and the attempt failed abysmally in the mass commercial market.

I've always claimed that railway modelling has survived in the UK despite Hornby and not because of them. This is just another example of why that is.

John.

"Wolf" wrote

You cannot apply NMRA standards to British products. No British manufacturer has ever claimed to produce models to dimensions laid down in the USA.

Peco 83-line track may of course be an exception.

John.

Prototype: length 69'8" (64th scale = 13 1/8") h 11'6" w 8'6" Drivers 4'6"d Weight: 145t 5.5cwt. TE 30,815lb+6,000lb booster.

Rated maximum on Midland line 600t. (across Southern Alps line) These were very free running locos and with a lightish (300t) train regularly maintained 70mph uphill across the Canterbury plains and

100mph+ downhill.

Early general purpose/suburban tank.

The lightweight (11 ton axleload) 4-8-2 capable of traversing most branchlines as well as mainlines. I used to race the "Limited" (Dunedin-Christchurch) every Friday night (1969) on the last open stretch on my much modified BSA C12. It would do

75mph (polished ports, full racing fairing, regeared) with me flat on the tank and the train would still walk away from me. They used to slow around Templeton and I'd just catch them at Islington where the road 30 mph speed limit began.

In 1988 a preserved one hauled a train Chch-Ashburton - a group of us were in my Renault R8 chasing with the speedo on 85mph and passing a flat-out Toyota Land-Cruiser when a front tyre blew. (a tricky moment!) I understand the Ja cab moves a bit much for firing around 90mph!

Greg.P.

Ah, I didn't know that. It's quite different here: the manufacturer guarantees the product, but the retailer may act as agent for the manufacturer (eg, the car dealer does a warranty repair, but the manufacturer pays.) If the retailer has housebrands, they are of course responsible for the warranty.

It seems to me that British law as it stands is not exactly an incentive for a manufacturer to produce a good product.

I agree with you. Mind you, my brother and I inherited a lovely Hornby O gauge clockwork railway from our uncles. We set it up in the garden, using the flower beds as "lakes", which Grampa tolerated, bless his heart. I don't know what happened to all the bits and pieces. There were two GWR 0-4-0s, and a 4-6-0, plus a number of chocolate and cream carriages, along with a slew of goods wagons. There was enough track that the smaller engines couldn't make the circuit, and had to be rewound about 3/4 of the way round. Nigel from across the street also had Hornby trains, and we often put our sets together. Grampa's garden was a wonderful place in other ways too, as he had a couple of pear trees, and three apple trees espaliered against the wall, which yielded very tasty fruit in season.

Sigh.

"John Turner" wrote

And of course some recently introduced Btitish DCC products claim to be NMRA compatible/compliant. Some also claim to be, but the reality is not necessarily the same.

John.