No.52 So – How much weight have you added? –Full Brakes mainly of the Hornby variety.
In an earlier Post I detailed the construction of some
corridor connectors for my Bachmann Collett coaches. I have now added a Hornby Hawksworth Full
Brake coach.
I like the look of the Hornby Hawksworth coaches, perhaps
with the exception of the corridor connectors, which could well be the subject
of a separate Post. I bought my first
Hornby Hawksworth Full Brake coach back in October 2010 for use with a rake of
‘express coaches’. Most recently I have
added a Full Brake to the local ‘semi fast’ set. Initially I had problems keeping the
Hawksworth Brake on the track. At one
particular location where there are both horizontal and vertical curves the
Hawksworth coach at the front of a seven coach train would jump the track.
In my opinion the Hornby Hawksworth coaches are very light
weight and I solved the derailment problems by adding some additional lead
ballast. I think the Table below might
be quite intuitive. This confirms the
low weight of the Hornby Hawksworth Brake relative to other commonly available
coaching stock and shows that I increased the weight by 35 gm to a level
comparable with Bachmann Mk1s.
Table of weights of
some commonly available coaching stock.
To add ballast, the coach has to be disassembled. The underframe of the Hornby Hawksworth coach
is fixed to the body shell by clips protruding from the glazing. These clips can be carefully ‘eased’ with a
small screwdriver to enable the coach to be pulled apart. The plastic used for the glazing is very
brittle and I broke one of the clips.
However not to worry, the brittle plastic is perfect for gluing back
together with a solvent such as MEK / Butanone.
Underside of Hornby
Hawksworth Brake
Finally a picture showing what 35 gm of lead looks like:
Moving on the view below shows the relatively new Hornby
Gresley Full Brake pictured here with its younger Bachmann Thompson
counterpart.
The Hornby brake is to replace ‘one that I made earlier’ from
an Ian Kirk kit bought at the Kings X Model shop for £8.25 back in October
1986.
Kirk kit (top) and
Hornby model (bottom)
The Kirk kit makes up into a very good model. The most obvious difference between my two
models is the lack of handrails for the Kirk kit. Presumably these were to be made and fitted
by the purchaser – something that I never got round to doing!
Kirk kit (left) and
Hornby model (right)
I might also say that the roof profile of the Kirk kit is
perhaps a touch too heavy as shown above in this end view.
As to the running qualities of the new Hornby model - it is
too early to tell. I have had occasional
problems with Bachmann GUVs at 120 gm, so the performance of the Hornby Gresley
at 127 gm will be interesting.
On that ‘merry‘ note something to look forward to for 2013. Best wishes to you all out there.
Addenda
A thought - after writing this Post. Hornby Full Brakes do not have internal plastic seating - this will account for say c20 gm difference in weight between coach and brake.
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