It's 1979 and I'm at an interview for the post of an apprentice electric DC traction motor technician. Manager: Do you have any experience of electric motors? Me: Well I do have a Triang Hornby model railway layout. I service & repair my own locomotives. Does that count? Manager; Excellent, you start tomorrow. And that's how my engineering career started. Having a Triang Hornby trainset counted more than O levels back then!!

Finally, the first episode of "What is unbroken now?"

Funny you uploaded this today, as I have been servicing my two Hornby Dublo N2's so they can both work properly at last!

I am 2 days into my new hornby life, given owner ship of my grandad's and dad's train sets, the joy of fixing non runners is quite something.

That shassy went from litteraly sparks flying to a happy little runner.

Really enjoyed that Lawrie. I've spent today planning and laying my Hornby Dublo 3-rail track and getting my Duchess locomotive running again. As you say, very very satisfying indeed. Many thanks.

can see the pure adoration in your eyes when it starts to run, fixing anything is a simple joy and well enjoyed, continue the good work, its your enthusiasm that made me subscribe to this channel

Hi Lawrie. It was good to share your joy in getting your rolling stock together and working.

Things to be aware of when servicing Dublo motors: -There should be equal resistance values between each adjacent pair of armature windings. Use a multimeter to measure this. -Clean out the commutator gaps with a pointed wooden or plastic object. The surfaces can be polished with very fine sand paper or a fibre glass pencil. -Clean the brush tubes with some solvent and a cotton bud. The springs should be clean and straight, and the brushes of adequate length. Anything shorter than 3-4mm needs replacing. -There are 1/16" steel balls at the top and bottom of the armature shaft. The lower one is quite tricky to remove, the best way is to try a strong magnet after a good soaking in solvent. -It is quite difficult at times to determine whether there is a ball in there at all. The best way to tell is by seeing how high the commutator sits when reassembled. -When reinstalling the armature, never screw down the bearing nut too tight. There should be a bit of movement to allow for heat expansion. -After removing the magnet and reinstalling it, it should be remagnetised. A weak magnet will increase the power draw and reduce performance, resulting in excessive heat. -The slider should be disassembled, cleaned, and straightened if necessary. The "spoons" should have a satisfying spring loading on them. -Slider spoons with ruts worn into them should be repaired. The rut can be filled by soldering a piece of brass wire into it, and filing the excess off into a nice rounded shape.

My dad's old triang princess Victoria. That he got second hand because my great-grandfather took it as payment for a pint of milk. It's been one of the family since and passed down to me when I was 7. After so long in use I, (now 20) recently completely stripped it down, painted the chassis, polished every piece of metal on it and rebuilt it with new gears and wiring as well as some repairs and added painting on the body. Runs unbelievably smoothly and can do a better slow speed than the two modern engines I own. It's not the most detailed, Or accurate... But it's got character. Here's to another 60 years!

OMG! Lawrie fixed stuff and it works! 😱😳 *faints*

Ah Hornby Dublo. Unbreakable 👍 I believe Dapol inherited some of the old HD tooling when Wrenn folded which may explain why the wagon bits fit. Your N2 chassis is probably a later one but even so probably nearer 70 years old than 50. I have an ancient LMS version which has a horseshoe motor and even the very old style (prewar?) ring type coupler.

Well done Lawrie! Model trains have got me through some troubling times including this pandemic.

The pure excitement is absolute gold

Actually, Lawrie, as a model railroader myself, I found something that works for cleaning plastic and metal. Just use a paper towel, cotton ball, or something like that, and douse it in 70-90% isopropyl alcohol. Works every time!

These video are so interesting to watch.

I watch your channal from Denmark, and I realy like you ways about your modeltrains, thank you.

Mini what’s broke now series 🤩

The level of arcing on the commutator and brushes is spectacular. At the very least service the comm and brushes, you'll probably get much better performance just doing that.

I must be seeing things Lawrie has repaired three items successfully. I have loads of hornby Dublo trains in the loft but some are in need of motors, servicing and one needs the bolts that hold the axle rods on.

Nice work, Lawrie! It's worth having the motor magnet, er, re-magnetized. I've tried the replacement neodymium magnets but they just seem to pause, pause, pause & then take off like a scalded cat! I need to get the original magnet back into my Standard 4MT

I enjoy buying none runner, sold as seen from a well know website and bringing them back to life, last one a very old Hornby 08 shunter now almost works a treat

Well done, cf booth wont be getting his hands that 😄👍

That's the type of controller that has you thinking "Will I take out half of the national grid if I turn this on ". That said it's probably the most reliable one.

Fantastic video once again. I have been 3d printing locomitive shells and a caboose shell. Once they are finished it is a great sense of accomplishment knowing that you created something. Good work and keep the videos coming.

Using a Peco maintenance cradle probably make your life easier

Very cool :) It's always a good feeling when you repair things and make them work properly, especially if you are bringing them back to life :)

Seeing those scattered parts become a cute, functioning train again made my day.

Reminds me of a job I had to do recently to one of my Hornby tinplate wagons in O gauge. Found a lumber bogie wagon, but it wouldn't swing round the tight O-27 curves of my layout like the little 4 wheel wagons do (it should be mentioned that the original Hornby track has a much gentler curve). Turns out the wheels were hitting on the body, so after agonizing for a little while on whether or not to modify a vintage toy, I took the plunge and popped out the rivets the bogies pivot around and replaced them with modern bolts, using washers to raise the body enough to clear the bogies. In the end, happy I did, a running wagon on the layout beats a shelf-queen collecting dust.

You can us a (spongy) drywall sanding pad to clean the track then wipe with WD-40 to keep it trouble free longer.

If its anything like my HO scale loco from 75 was, the pickups on the wheels needed to be cleaned really good, I just use electrical contact cleaner, and a 9volt battery on the wheels to test it and get the engine back into working order, I had to super glue some details back on, but the loco is back in running condition

i used to have one of those third rail locos back in the 1970s, nice models. Good video Lawrie. ;)

Lawrie your right, it is something like d-apple for dapol

Lawrie Builds A Little Loco! :-)

I find it interesting the those of us who have model railroad equipment with center pick-up, like Merklin, or here in the US - O gauge, often forget or neglect to clean the center pickup and focus only on the wheels.

The Triang Hornby RP14 "Barclay" is the most powerful power unit that the company has ever made (9.6 VA).

Nice repair series

lighter fluid - oh no, he's going to set his table on fire again, isn't he? :-)

Dapol is derived from the original owners - DAvid and PAULine Boyle. Hence 'DA POL'. I pronounce it Daypoll, therefore. I hope that helps?

you need to get your self a converter wagon which triang did ..its basically a black wagon with hornby dublo nuckle coupling at one end and a triang tension lock the other easily obtainable on ebay

Lawrie I recommend you get a train cradle. It's amazing for working on your locomotives and stock.

The way you pronounce Dapol IS the right way, I live only about 7 miles or so from the Dapol factory and shop, so I think I know how its pronounced.

I like the older version of LMM

That was a fun video to watch. I'm glad that you got everything to work again. I was wondering: do you have something like a permanent layout?

I think you should set up a loop of track on the shed floor

can you convert the shed to being a working scale model of the entire railroad system of England?!?!?

Lawrie says, near the start of this video "the N2 came into production in 1947". That is not correct. Hornby Dublo production resumed in 1947 after the wartime interruption. But the N2 (0-6-2 tank) was one of the first Dublo models introduced, at the very launch of Dublo in 1938. And in that pre-war period the N2 was produced in both electric and clockwork versions. Production of clockwork Dublo was not resumed after the war. Pre-war examples are expensive - clockwork ones extremely expensive - but they can be found, if you don't mind paying several hundred pounds. I'm sure that Lawrie's chassis was indeed produced after 1947... but still, 1947 was definitely not when the N2 originally came into production.

Is that a bt screwdriver?

Mr TRY TO FIX IT LOL

I will say some of your model work may not be approved in the states with your super glow method because you can do many things without glue... but you did well and I can respect that with the recorses you have

I recommend you to clean EVERYTHING engines, rolling stock and rails Or you will end up with filthy track The Wells of the coaches and the trucks look clean, but they aren't! (Sorry for the not-so-good english)

He fixed more in half an hour then he has in all of What's Broken Now. And BTW, I say Dapple. Easy on the vocals. Dayple, Derpol ect just don't sound right.

17:13 Rubber band job. No he managed fine…

When will we have an update on Jupiter

okay what gives...I've got MODERN stuff that run worse than this N2 does after its wheels have been cleaned, lol.

What I would've done is just slam it on the floor and then yell "I COMMAND YOU TO MOVE"

when are you going to start fixing your stuff that's broke, Instead of playing with Toy train's