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Saturday, March 2, 2024

Running out of steam - I need a Pacer!

Having been quite busy over the last few weeks I do find myself running out of steam at the moment to get on with projects! The weather has been all that encouraging either to get out to the Man Cave so I am running behind on things. Now if I were an athlete undertaking some record attempt I might have a pacer to help me along. Well in the model making World there are no Pacers - or are there????

Hornby Pacer

Well let me introduce you to my Hornby Pacer! Actually it is my other Hornby Pacer as I wrote about the other back in November 2021 (click here to read that post) (Wow! That long ago!). However, I bought this one about 25 years ago second hand for the princely sum of about £10! They were never considered good models by many and the real Pacers were like Marmite - you either loved them or hated them! Personally I do like the Pacer and at the time of its introduction in the 1980s it provided a cheap (being based on a Leyland National bus body) way of keeping some previously loss making passenger services going.

Hornby Pacer

The model by Hornby is unusual in that it is powered by a Scalextric slot car motor in each car. Unfortunately this makes them underpowered and the electrical pickup arrangement for the motors was not good with both running and also not running on many occasions independent of each other. I did add additional pickups and wired the two motors together which improved the running a bit. When compared to some of the newer models of the Pacer my one leaves a lot to be desired but for £10 I will stick with it! Now if only it would give me a push to finish my outstanding projects!

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