Hornby 00 gauge Stephenson's "Rocket"

[RSR Engineer]

Good morining, gentlemen, hoping I find everyone in good health. My apologies for the endless radio silence - some people may even be pleased. ;o) ;o)

On a recent visit to the UK I treated myself to a Hornby Stephenson's Rocket, plus goods wagons. The chappie in the shop said the loco would have trouble pulling everything and would very likely feel a 1 in 68 gradient with just the coaches. But I bought her anyway.

Removing the train from the packaging was quite straightforward - if the shop have explained it in advance. You have to push the loco-plus-tender together and the three carriages separately from the underside of the foam insert. You need to be a bit careful, coz everything's very delicate, but it's doable.

With Mr Stephenson and Mr Stephenson on board (I assume it's them), this little engine is a delight to behold. In motion, however, she disappointed.

The loco ran very unevenly at first for two reasons. Firstly, because I'd been away and hadn't touched the layout for several weeks, the rails were dusty. Secondly, and this was a surprise after the successful demo in the shop, the loco trailing and all tender wheels were grubby. The first measure adopted was to clean the rail tops with the rubber and the second to send the rail-polishing ensemble around the test circuit a few times. When I started cleaning the wheels, I noticed an unattached end of a wire floating under the gap between engine and tender. The multimeter soon showed where this belonged and after it was reattached the loco ran faultlessly (as regards current collection, that is). The soldered connections did not look original, leading me to suspect that the train had already been sold once and taken back to the shop. It's a bit late now (and far away) for me to do that.

Another problem was the couplings. Trying to hook one onto the next carriage, when the slightest off-target approach sent the thing swinging this way and that, was a guaranteed one-way ticket to Colney Hatch. OK, I did finally get the train coupled up and set on the track (and two of those couplings into Mars orbit).

The test circuit uses the continuous headshunt of my layout (and is level all the way) and passes over a number of Peco Streamline double slips of 1970s vintage. On some of these (different ones each time around, naturally) the loco would treat the diamond like a pair of points and go the wrong way. Result: instant derailment and automatic uncoupling of one or more carriages. All this happened while running anticlockwise around the layout. Since the entire train will just fit onto the Fleischmann turntable, I was able to turn the whole ensemble around to run clockwise. Trackholding was now much improved.

There are a number of aspects of the design which inevitably contribute to the operational problems. The first, and most grievous, is that the drive is only to the engine's actual driving wheels, which severely limits the payload. When we consider that on the Trix Bavarian class D XI 0-6-2T, which was introduced before the 1997 takeover by Märklin, the trailing wheels are also driven, there is really no excuse for not managing this in 2024. The extent of the live wheelbase, which includes the tender, cannot be faulted. The second is those fiddly plastic couplings. It is not possible to run the train backwards without the couplings slipping off the hooks and flying everywhere. They are much too light and should be of metal (for weight's sake ideally gold - just joking). And they're not even supplied in a ziplock bag, just the kind that instant noodle makers use for their seasoning, so once you've opened it, there's no way to stop the remaining couplings from escaping. And just to be extra picky, they should be straight when going forwards and hang down slack when going backwards. The carriages are short enough to push buffer-to-buffer.

Coming back to the double slips, the wires between loco and tender seem to nudge the loco to the right when running chimney first, sending her onto the wrong leg of the crossing. This effect is not consistent, however. Also, the leading tender wheels don't sit properly on the rails; I put all this down to excessive stiffness of the wires. Going backwards, the tender also acted up on certain double slip crossings.

Whether this text counts as "bashing" only Admin can judge but I stand by what I say. For a couple of hundred quid the model is an expensive gag. Technically, she's not up to scratch; anyone who remembers Mike Sharman's models (and that Trix 0-6-2T) will know what can be done and what (in this case) ought to have been done. The problems I mention above were clearly not properly thought through.

Cheers,
Artur

[Mountain Goat]

I don't have one but I can see your frustration. Some protorypes in model form are not very forgiving when running on track that is not up to todays finescale standards, but my personal take is that models should ideally be designed with a little more "Give" to allow for this. Though the Rocket is a tough one to do this with. I don't like tender drives, BUT many modellers designing and building little locos like this do turn to tender drive to make them run better. (Not saying you need to do this with yours, but I can understand why some do this).

Anyway. Hope you have more success. I will say that newer track may help but not always...

(Makes me feel glad to be freelance modelling in 0-16.5 where I can get to chose the chassis I like to run. If something is problematic, I can rebuild it to run on a chassis I like such as those Hornby "Smokey Joe" style chassis which I know back to front. (The older ones can be tweeked up a bit if they need attention, and the newer improved ones are excellent!) But it is a different style of modelling where one is not trying to copy a specific prototype but rather one that look the part and one is happy with).

Anyway. Perservere if you can and I hope you have some success!

[RSR Engineer]

Thank you for your feedback, MG. I must admit my track is not up to the best standards; the station first went into operation in the late 1980s (it's still on the original boards) and sometimes the trains have a bumpy ride. Other vehicles have also gone the wrong way on the diamonds and double slips, mainly short-wheelbase wagons with kinematic close-couplers, which can tend to make a vehicle run a bit crabwise.

Further to what I said before, I would have fitted the loco trailing wheels, if powered, with traction tyres. I know these aren't popular in the Anglo-Saxon world but I swear by them. One loco I have is a Märklin-Hamo 2-10-0 which can waltz twenty Acho bogie wagons up a 1 in 68 gradient without turning a hair. I can't imagine that on only smooth metal driving wheels. Another example is my Trix Bavarian 2-6-0, which has a tender drive, also with tyres, and can pull virtually anything I hang behind her.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/188026976 ... 7994476728

I must also be honest and say that converting the "Rocket" to tender drive would be far beyond my mini-engineering abilities. No, MG, I'll be looking for ways to keep the couplings more stable in operation and perhaps replace those wires between loco and tender with some lighter and softer material.

Cheers,
Artur

[Mountain Goat]

Oh, those close coupling systems on coaches. Add nem couplings on top of that and one gets couplings that are so flexible they de-rail trains being pulled forwards, let alone even thinking about reversing the things! Was partly why I abandoned 00 as one could no longer tell which coaches had them and which had been left to older bogie mounted coupling designs, as one could not tell by looking from the outside of the box, and many retailers had a policy of not opening boxes to look... [I was also hit at the time with having given up my job at the same time when prices doubled which didn't help, which is why I found 0-16.5 to be the answer for me instead].

Not knocking the manufacturers, but I did and do find in general some of the modern designs to be a bit hit and miss when it comes to their running qualities. Though I do admit there were a few from the past which had issues BUT these were relitively rare and everyone knew which they were to avoid buying them. Today it is a lot more of a hit and miss, and I am wondering if this is due to them being made in China. No dissrespect to the Chinese, but one could have an immaculately running loco over there, but the distances it has to come to transport it, and the many hands that have to lift rhem from here to there along the way... Means that by the time they reach their customers they may have issues.
Another potential issue is the finer the scale one is making these models to, the more accurate they need to be made to to run right which doesn't help.

Traction tyres. I generally don't like them but I can see when they transform a model. And there is a very big difference in pulling power. There is also a great difference in pulling power with new tyres compared to old.
I am one who wants long trains. I have recently bought a fair few locos secondhand from a collection, and a few of these have Model Power chassis being just two wheel drive. Now they are lovely and simple and they should pull a few waggons due to the weight over their driven wheels, but I do prefer for all wheels to be driven on 4 wheeled locos. If they have an issue I could try traction tyres or just use a budget Hornby chassis if I can get them to fit. Should not be an issue if I go down that route, but they should be ok in their 2WD form... BUT I do prefer my locos to pull! Railcars do not need to pull and very small locos will natrually not pull so much. But locos designed to pull should pull!
I do have some really surprizing locos actually. One loco with a modified Triang 0-4-0 chassis with modern Hornby 0-4-0 parts and a Smallbrook Studio body with added extra weight (Weight added before I tried altering the heavier Triang chassis... Used to have a lighter Hornby chassis on there), and this loco can pull! I have to be careful as she just does not wheelspin. She is too heavy!
I also have other heavyweight locos despite their size. One is clever. Is a cast metal bodied version of a narrow gauge loco which looks like a Smokey Joe conversion but is not. As examine further and one finds a heavy cast metal body under there! And that thing should pull!
Also have a Peco tram loco which is heavy! Should pull a fair train behind that one when I get it ready!
But along with the heavy pullers, I have lighter weight locos for pulling small rakes of coaches instead. So just like a real railway that rosters certain locos to do certain tasks, my railway will be a lot like that!