On the class 56, (and 31 and 50 for that matter - I do not have any other Hornby diesels), not only do the motor bearings get dry but also the bearings holding the shafts in the top of the gear towers. I find I need to give them a decent drop of oil once a year or so. Sorry about your APT, mine is fine on my relatively flattish layout, but I did have a capacitor blow and burn a hole through the roof of the powered NDM. Great Credit to Hornby, they did replace it. Overall reasonably happy with my APT, it could have been better in the photographs, the coach capacitors despite being huge, do not give the lighting units any seconds after power is turned off (those in their mk 3s and Mk 2Es stay alight for about 3 seconds). The headlights don't come on at low speed (unless I have the full 14 car going round). And - as seen in another video - the pickups on the coach wheels are picking up a squeak. The tilt mech between the Hornby APT and Rapido APT are entirely 2 different designs. Hornby's being the same crude system of the 1980s version causing the train to sharply tilt as soon as it hits a curve. Rapidos uses a pancake system giving a much more glided realistic tilt. Of course this comes at a price, the Rapido model is not easy to assemble on the track where as Hornby's could be done by a 5 year old. My Rapido model is full DCC sound but I feel that the Hornby one does not merit this conversion and will remain classic DC. Nice to have a full APT after all these years even if it was a missed opportunity in some areas.
I take it that the APT would work ok on a normal gradient. I think that the problem is the tilt mechanism, combined with the tilt on the pantograph and the curve! I am expecting that Hornby have not come up with a design that puts the weight through the chassis. Their Ringfield motor Class 43, 47, 37, 58, 86, 90 & 91all suffer with not being able to pull much up a gradient, or run away down hill - with poor weight transfer. In contrast, Lima managed it with their pancake.
I have managed to source one so hopefully it will be better ... I will do a video once I get it and once I get my electrics done as layout is unpowered at mo whilst doing a fiddle yard re build
Hmmm. That's a concern with the lifting first and last axle. I have gradients on curves on my layout too. I will have to see how mine behaves when it arrives.
Such a shame about the ApT. On the 56, have you tried slipping the fan drive belt off? This what caused me a similar issue, as a matter of course now I remove the drive belts, just cut them out.
I do the same on the class 50s too I don't think it's still installed as I usually remove them when fitting the sound in. But I'll check as im not sure thanks for the idea..
The APT, I think it might be related to the tilting mechanism and the weight of the motor. And I think it was a problem on the original Hornby APT too. I had one of the old APTs on my old layout, with two powered NDMs and a good few coaches. And an incline. The APT even with two NDMs couldn't get up the incline so I added some weight to the bodies of the NDMs, which were empty because the motor was on one of the bogeys. Even though the bogeys were metal, and relatively heavy, as soon as I added the weight to the bodies, the exact same derailment issues started happening, and when I took the weight out, it was fine again. From what I can see, the new APT uses the same tilting mechanism as the old one did. So I think that, as the body on the new one is so heavy, as it tilts into the corner, the outside rear and inside front wheels become unweighted, similarly to how a racing car would. They then straighten up and when they come back down again, they're off the track. I'm at some point going to build a new layout, and have the new and old APTs, and will have an incline, so will do some testing. I guess that must be why the original APT was the only train of its era to have metal bogeys. They needed to outweigh the tilting body on corners. Thanks, enjoyed your video.
@@stocktonjunction Looking forward to it. I can't remember if I had when I posted the last comment, but I've bought one of the new 7 car sets now, together with a couple of coaches. And I'm edging closer to starting my new layout, which will have inclines, so will be interested to see what you've found.
You don't need to but it may struggle to run 14 cars with just the 1 ndm so I would suggest it's best to have 2 powered cars. You would have to have them speed matched too..
On the class 56, (and 31 and 50 for that matter - I do not have any other Hornby diesels), not only do the motor bearings get dry but also the bearings holding the shafts in the top of the gear towers. I find I need to give them a decent drop of oil once a year or so.
Sorry about your APT, mine is fine on my relatively flattish layout, but I did have a capacitor blow and burn a hole through the roof of the powered NDM. Great Credit to Hornby, they did replace it. Overall reasonably happy with my APT, it could have been better in the photographs, the coach capacitors despite being huge, do not give the lighting units any seconds after power is turned off (those in their mk 3s and Mk 2Es stay alight for about 3 seconds). The headlights don't come on at low speed (unless I have the full 14 car going round). And - as seen in another video - the pickups on the coach wheels are picking up a squeak.
The tilt mech between the Hornby APT and Rapido APT are entirely 2 different designs. Hornby's being the same crude system of the 1980s version causing the train to sharply tilt as soon as it hits a curve. Rapidos uses a pancake system giving a much more glided realistic tilt. Of course this comes at a price, the Rapido model is not easy to assemble on the track where as Hornby's could be done by a 5 year old.
My Rapido model is full DCC sound but I feel that the Hornby one does not merit this conversion and will remain classic DC.
Nice to have a full APT after all these years even if it was a missed opportunity in some areas.
Yes although I will say the rapido is much better design and quality and cheaper than the hornby one. I do feel hornby could of done so much better 😌
I take it that the APT would work ok on a normal gradient. I think that the problem is the tilt mechanism, combined with the tilt on the pantograph and the curve! I am expecting that Hornby have not come up with a design that puts the weight through the chassis. Their Ringfield motor Class 43, 47, 37, 58, 86, 90 & 91all suffer with not being able to pull much up a gradient, or run away down hill - with poor weight transfer. In contrast, Lima managed it with their pancake.
It will work on normal gradients ok but part of the issue is the dcc chip. I did another video on a fix for it
Not sure if they're still available, but have you brought the second run APT?
From what I can gather, they seemed to be improved from the 2020 APT.
No I haven't bought it but not bad idea
I have managed to source one so hopefully it will be better ... I will do a video once I get it and once I get my electrics done as layout is unpowered at mo whilst doing a fiddle yard re build
Hmmm. That's a concern with the lifting first and last axle. I have gradients on curves on my layout too. I will have to see how mine behaves when it arrives.
Yes please let me know how yours does 👍
Such a shame about the ApT. On the 56, have you tried slipping the fan drive belt off? This what caused me a similar issue, as a matter of course now I remove the drive belts, just cut them out.
I do the same on the class 50s too I don't think it's still installed as I usually remove them when fitting the sound in. But I'll check as im not sure thanks for the idea..
The APT, I think it might be related to the tilting mechanism and the weight of the motor. And I think it was a problem on the original Hornby APT too.
I had one of the old APTs on my old layout, with two powered NDMs and a good few coaches. And an incline. The APT even with two NDMs couldn't get up the incline so I added some weight to the bodies of the NDMs, which were empty because the motor was on one of the bogeys.
Even though the bogeys were metal, and relatively heavy, as soon as I added the weight to the bodies, the exact same derailment issues started happening, and when I took the weight out, it was fine again.
From what I can see, the new APT uses the same tilting mechanism as the old one did.
So I think that, as the body on the new one is so heavy, as it tilts into the corner, the outside rear and inside front wheels become unweighted, similarly to how a racing car would. They then straighten up and when they come back down again, they're off the track.
I'm at some point going to build a new layout, and have the new and old APTs, and will have an incline, so will do some testing.
I guess that must be why the original APT was the only train of its era to have metal bogeys. They needed to outweigh the tilting body on corners.
Thanks, enjoyed your video.
Many thanks that was certainly interesting and would enjoy hearing what your results are when u do test it too 😀
I will be posting an update soon on issue and the fix 😀
@@stocktonjunction Looking forward to it. I can't remember if I had when I posted the last comment, but I've bought one of the new 7 car sets now, together with a couple of coaches. And I'm edging closer to starting my new layout, which will have inclines, so will be interested to see what you've found.
If I am right in asking, in order to make the full 14 car rake you need to buy another motorised NDM? To replace the dummy
You don't need to but it may struggle to run 14 cars with just the 1 ndm so I would suggest it's best to have 2 powered cars. You would have to have them speed matched too..
good vid on the review on the train layout looks good keep up the good vid on the channel
Cheers lee
Nice model trains 👍👍👍😎😎
Thanks