ADDING ADDITIONAL PICK UP'S TO A HORNBY 0-4-0

The Hornby 0-4-0 "pocket rocket" loco's are infamous for lightening speed but are poor on insulfrog pointwork and often stall, here you can see by simply adding an additional wire to one of the pick up wipers, will improve your loco greatly , .

[@donniblanco5239]

Yep Totally Agree - I Love the 0-4-0’s Get them Cheap and Fix them up and they are Great Fun. We don’t all have the Space to run Mallard or FS with a rake of 9 Gresleys, so one of these with 5 or 6 interesting wagons, or shunting in the Yard, makes for a bit of Fun in my book. Crackin Hack Mate, thanks for Sharing 👍🏻

[@jasonfernee2401]

What a lovely layout. Nice to see someone still old school and actually preferring to play with the points too.

[@MrKlf1956]

Many thanks for a very helpful video. I bought a couple of cheap motors from ebay and soldered to the motor terminals and I too noticed a vast improvement in pick up performance. Slow speed running is also much more reliable. Like you I have a soft spot for these little locos. My next plan is to wire a wagon with pick ups and connect it to the loco.

[@BigBountyHunter]

At last! Somebody has taken the time to explain and show exactly how to improve these much loved locos in simple terms .....Thank you!! I also love these little rockets and use them on micro layouts so this will be an advantage to me too to try this, excellent video thanks for sharing

[@Richardsrailway]

BigBountyHunter . Your welcome , would love to hear of your results good luck , merry Christmas

[@benforster6254]

i agree

[@ghostengineer]

I have an older version of this locomotive letter Stewart's & Lloyd Corby and it's an excellent runner so I decided to do this very thing and set about to solder the wore to the pickups like you did and I didn't need to because this older version has the pickups on both sides to both sets of wheels that then go to the motor. They must've changed it after my version to what you have. Great video BTW

[@richardclowes6123]

Excellent video and an 'eye-opener' to something simple, but often overlooked. Will take a look at mine and see if they are single or double wired and make them all double wired. I have 5 little 0-4-0s. Have a few small terrier 0-6-0s as well. Will have a look at them as well as the theory could help these too. Have Peco electrofrogs on the main line and insulfrogs in the sidings. The insulated frogs on Peco points are smaller than Hornby ones which helps. Electrofrogs are clearly better, but, sadly, anything Peco is better than Hornby !!!!

[@User-3O3]

It seems pointless to me that Hornby would install pick-ups on both side of the loco if on one side, the pick-ups aren't even wired to the motor - or am I missing something? Nice video, man - I really enjoyed it. It shows that these basic Hornby 0-4-0's are actually capable of good, slow running. I love your layout too - lots of lovely trees. :3

[@stevem9754]

I wonder why Hornby don't connect that extra wire up to the motor? Is it just to save a little on production cost? So, out of the box, does that pickup without wire just connect to metal chassis which in turn connects to other side of motor. Would have been good to see a "before and after" shot of the loco travelling over the points. I'm still a little confused as to *why* this improves the electrical connectivity over the points as its still picking up power from only the 4 short wheelbase wheels. But your video has inspired me to try it! Thanks :)

[@andyrussell7506]

I have at least six of these locos some old and some newer all in different liveries they all have two wires to the motor

[@richardswallow1967]

I am not clever enough to chip the pug loco I have, had DCC Concepts in Perth Australia , chip the loco for me. Did a great job. It's unfortunate now there no longer in Perth anymore, and now based in UK. Anyway the loco runs well over electrofrog points , even at slow speed.

[@Richardsrailway]

Richard Swallow great job !

[@grahamthompson6406]

Hi I have three of these, and yes I’m going to do this mod, thank you

[@charlie1872]

Wow! Just watching this and that is amazing. Have you been able to improve the problem with the plastic part of the points on the older Triang Hornby locos? Thanks fir pointing out your Clipper, I have one but don’t know anything about it and have temporarily replaced it with a small variable power module. Can you give me any info on how it should be set up? You can see it on my channel Thanks for doing this

[@craziej2k1]

How come your motors the other way up compared to the pugs that I've got? On mine, the annoying spring pushes the motor points onto both pickups and ensure that they stay in contact with it.

[@_RandomPea]

Hey, daft question but for loco wiring from pickups is it a specific type of wire?

[@Richardsrailway]

I’d say use a thin piece of wire that is flexible

[@SimonLivertonCentral]

Very nice "how to". Before you soldered the wire onto the pickup that had no wire where did the motor get its power from?

[@Richardsrailway]

Simon -Liverton Central I assume it was only picking up on only one wheel on the the other side , now all four wheels are connected the lead wheel will pick up if the rear wheel crosses the plastic bit on the points

[@SimonLivertonCentral]

If the one connected wire was going to the positive side of the motor, for example, what was powering the negative, before you soldered the wire? Was one side doing nothing, before you soldered the wire on?

[@Richardsrailway]

Simon -Liverton Central I think the other side had the tv interference chip leg connected to it and the other leg of that went to the motor with a pick up lead , either way it doesn’t stall anymore as you’ve seen . If you have one take it apart so you can see .

[@charlietaylor5742]

I can get a good slow speed out of a hm 2000 controller

[@PhilPage227]

Excellent tip, I am not sure if I am confident enough to try that but thank you. peco points are far better than Hornby and have smaller frogs. I have subscribed to your channel, please have a look at mine. mainly real trains for now but layout videos soon.

[@Richardsrailway]

Philip Page , thanks Phillip , appreciate that , sub on its way !

[@cliveroberts5748]

where does the other pick up wire fit onto the motor . Sorry to ask me and electric don"t get on.

[@clivepearson1202]

like my name's sake ,'Clive' I don't want too short the motor out, so can you show or outline where you solder the other end of wire on the opposite side of the motor ?

[@matthew_thefallen]

Wil this make them slower? I was wondering how I could make them slower..

[@petersmith4455]

get a gaugemaster controller, they are good,

[@Richardsrailway]

Absolutely Peter , still have my DS model from this layout