Most modellers have an SOS, or in other words a Shelf Of Shame. This is a place where stalled, broken or just 'lost interest' projects reside until such time as they are restarted, fixed or interest is rekindled. I have such a shelf, well actually probably a shelf and several boxes, but lets just deal with the shelf for the moment! On this shelf, amongst other things, was this Hornby Class 86 in BR blue.
Bought second hand or pre-loved depending on your preferred term, from Hattons some years ago it came, unusually for this era of model, with DCC fitted by its previous owner. It ran well and did so for some while until one day it just stopped. I had no idea why and at the time I did not have the time to investigate so onto the SOS it went! There it stayed until today when I thought I would like to run that and then remembered why it was on the SOS. However, with a little time available I took it down and put a 9v battery to the pickups just to make sure it was a non-runner. Nothing! No sign of the motor doing anything.
Time to open it up and deal with either the defunct DCC chip or a broken wire. Taking it apart reveled a bit of a mess of wires but nothing obviously broken or unattached. Interestingly it is also fitted with a stay alive module which supplied power to the motor for a few seconds if the loco looses electrical contact with the track. Anyway, just out of curiosity and a vein hope that the problem might have fixed itself, I applied the battery again. The motor ran! Moving the wires about to see if that would induce the fault again the motor still ran. It was my lucky day! A self fix electrical problem!
Body back on and back on the track it runs perfectly!
If only all my SOS residents were this easy to fix or finish!
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