Hornby Service Centre come to the rescue

About 4 years ago, I bought a new Hornby B12/3 to replace an old version that I remember having as a boy and which I bought "just for historic purposes" a bit earlier (The one with the sandpaper chuff-chuff noise!).  She is seen above on the old Yarslow layout in London - all nice and shiny and red, hauling a Kirk Gresley 3rd.  The old version is half-hidden on the right of shot.

Recently, on the new layout, she came a dead stop for no apparent reason.  I had a quick look for any obvious signs of trouble and finding none, put her back on the track where she ran another 6 feet before stopping again.

A full investigation revealed nothing obvious - motor, tender electrics, PCB all looked OK.  A quick on-line search produced a thread on RMweb about B12's stopping.  It turns out that there are issues with dry joints on the PCB in the tender and a simple re-soldering job would cure it.

Now, I have learned to solder wires to switches and other components BUT wiring tiny wires to a PCB? - no.

I called the Hornby Customer Helpline and spoke to a very helpful guy who knew that "there had been some on-line traffic" about this issue.  He promised a Warrenty repair and suggested a couple of weeks turnaround.

I'm not easily impressed by big companies and their promises but I was very pleased with the way Hornby handled this.  I shall send the loco off tomorrow and let you know what occcurs…………….

I've never had direct dealings with Hornby Barry but I have with Bachmann and have always found their service department extremely helpful - if a little expensive sometimes with their "standard" price for spares - £1 for a tiny screw (plus postage of course) !!

Good luck with the loco - I too had one of those sandpaper chuff versions and very effective it was.   :thumbs

She's back

After what Hornby have described as "a new capacitor and PCB", 61533 has been returned to traffic free of charge and running well.  She has had a dozen laps of the main line and looks just fine.

Whilst it can be a disappointment to have a new engine fail, I can only applaud Hornby for their polite helpfulness and willingness to effect a repair.  The whole process took about a week, door to door.

Net cost to me was the £8 I spent on postage - she went back to Hornby via insured/signed-for post.

Barry

Hurray. Hope it continues to run well from now on!

That's a brilliant outcome Barry - well done Hornby.   :thumbs

How does she run compared with the sandpaper version ?

Beer and crisps Peter!

I have an old one - bought for pure nostalgia - and despite having lost its phosphor bronze strip under the tender, runs like a whale in custard  

The new one, although a bit noisy when starting and stopping, is smooth and powerful.  The only thing missing from the DC version is the chuff-chuff noise!!

I can hear it in my head of course……….