No.62 8Fs – Heavy goods engines - the Hornby O1

The new Hornby O1 seems to have been well received.  With my roots in the north east of England I would have preferred a Q6 or maybe a Q7.  However they are not as yet available so I have invested in an O1 to complement my WD 8F.  My Ian Allan Shed Book confirms that I ‘spotted’ two of the four O1s allocated to Tyne Dock.  I am guessing that I would have seen these engines passing around the outside of Newcastle Central I can imagine heading north on a freight bound for Edinburgh.

First impressions of the Hornby O1 were very positive.  Out of the box it looked good and it performed well on the layout.  I have posted a number of short videos on YouTube comparing the performance of the O1 with Bachmann’s O4 and WD 8F.  These are obviously personal views and highly dependent on my particular models.  In summary using the same Controller setting (DC) and same train load, the Bachmann WD is the most sedate.  The Bachmann O4 comes in the middle while the Hornby O1 is quite the fastest - almost racing round the layout.  With the Controller setting lowered the Hornby O1 will crawl nicely on the level but uphill pulling a load the running becomes slightly less confident than the Bachmann locomotives.  In conclusion my Hornby O1 would not need any additional ballast.


Whilst I might have been happy with the performance of the Hornby O1 I did have an issue with the appearance!  I had intended to use the view above in my previous Post.   However when I came to publish I noticed that the footplate was not level (the camera never lies!) and I had to investigate.

Hornby O1 Chassis with flywheel in smoke box and motor driving in ‘reverse’.

Close up of Motion Bracket

In contrast to Bachmann who tend to make their ‘motion’ from individual castings (and which I prefer) the main parts of the Hornby motion are preformed from sheet metal.  On my model one side of the Motion Bracket was sitting too high and required some gentle persuasion to get it to a more suitable level.  With the Motion Bracket lowered I had then expected the footplate to return to a nice straight profile.  However nothing is quite that straightforward.

Hornby O1 Footplate

The plastic moulded footplate is very thin and after being forced up by the incorrectly positioned Motion Bracket it had no intention of taking up a straight profile!

Underside of Footplate

An inspection of the underside of the footplate is quite revealing.  Removing the body shell from the chassis had been straightforward but I had noticed some reluctance when parting the footplate from the Motion Brackets.  The view of the underside of the footplate suggests that during assembly Hornby have lightly glued the footplate down to the Motion Bracket – probably to prevent damage to the relatively delicate footplate moulding when lifting the locomotive off the track?
 Use of Double Sided Tape.

There are probably numerous solutions but I applied a couple of pieces of double sided tape to the footplate above the Motion Brackets – success!

All straight

Well how do I rate the Hornby O1?  Well perhaps a smidgen below the 28xx.



For those of you who like numbers, the Hornby O1 weighs in at around 280gm while the Bachmann O4 is only a touch over 250gm. Both engines have complex tender couplings incorporating relatively stiff wiring harnesses which I suspect will confuse load transfer between engine and tender.

Addendum

I have just checked the Hornby instructions for removing the body - all about scews - nothing about glue.  Perhaps Hornby only noticed the problem with the footplate after they had the packaging designed?

 

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