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Running of MK2 Hornby coaches.

1691 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  double00, 
D
Any suggestions! please. My Inter City Hornby coaches when running, have an annoying show of a fast "pull-push" effect. Couplers are of Hornby originals, while the Heljan diesel locomotive have the modern EM type couplers fitted.
Coach wheels have been inspected and cleaned thoroughly and show no problems, spin freely when rotate by hand. Track itself is cleaned regularly with no noticed irregularities.
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If these are the Mk 2's with the plated wheel rims and the square section axles that may well be the cause of the problem. In the past I have encountered similar problems with this type of axle which is caused as I recall by the axle being off centre to the wheel. If this is the case you may be able to solve it by replacing the wheels with modern wheel sets.

Hope this is of some help.

Regards
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D
Britho, thank you for your help. All coaches were fitted with Hornby new steel wheels. I agree that wheels you mentioned where a nightmare, certainly a quick replacement was order of the day.
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SRman
I'm not quite sure what effect you are describing: would I be right in assuming that they speed up and slow down so opening and closing the inter-coach gap as they run?

If that's so, you need to tighten up the couplings. I have done this with some Lima DMUs: take the metal coupling hook and, looking at it from the top, put three bends in them. This adds an adjustable Vee shape into what was a straight line and allows you to tighten up the free play between couplings. If you want them to uncouple, leave just enough free play to allow he hooks to disengage from the horizontal bar of the adjacent carriage. If youdon'tneed to uncouple regularly, you can tighten the gap right up, in which case, file a small notch, well off-centre, in the coupling bar to ease manul uncoupling.

If I've misunderstood your problem, please explain further and I'll try to help some more.
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B
As others have said it appears to be the "slack" in the couplings.

One thing you could try to prove it one way or the other would be to introduce some "drag" in the last coach - this will have a slight braking effect & will keep the couplings taught. I've done this in the past with freight stock & as it's cured the problem left it as is.
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D
SRman - if you imagine the coach coupled to the diesel engine, speeds up and slows down in slow motion, is the visual effect that I am experiencing.
Due to size of my layout, I only couple one coach to an engine, giving me the above mentioned effect.
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