AC Models ‘Spares or Repairs’ —-they can’t all be saved!!
There has been an effort by many within the club and outside to resurrect ‘spares or repairs locos’ from A C Models over the past years, many in the belief that they will bag a bargain, throw a few spare parts at the apparent ‘Write off’ and hey presto a nice running loco!!
While this is a commendable approach and would appear to be a perfectly normal evolution of bringing a model back to the tracks it doesn’t always end up ‘smiles all round’. There’s a good reason that the locos were written off by whoever was working on them at the time.
Some of the needed parts are just not available anymore and for those parts that are, it has the knock on effect of using up already low availability items from the Hornby spare parts bins of the OOLS shop and Spares suppliers elsewhere.
It has to be realised that many of these ‘Spares or Repairs’ locos must be used as the former and not the latter.
Whilst i cannot refuse to supply a part for any good reason I am loath to supply parts to a dead loco when the parts are scarce and are better kept to keep running locos in the manner they are accustomed to.
If if you are thinking of buying a Spares or Repairs loco, please think of it as a supply of dwindling Spares rather than a cheap option to get a loco for a project that may not reach fruition due to now unavailable parts.
Nick
OOLSC shop manager
Good advice, Nick.
How on Earth Hornby found the cash in the first place to make all the intricate components needed for each loco beats me. Having lived in China for thirteen years, I guessed correctly that all the tooling had probably been chucked out years ago from the Guangzhou (?) factory where the locos were made. A waste of resources, but typical of China. Even if the tooling had been saved, I think that with spiraling production costs in China, it wouldn't be deemed viable to make the components now. My AC 'spares and repairs' A3 looks as if it will be for spares!