Can Hornby O Run On Lionel Tubular Track?

Mr Lee

Depending on which Hornby models you have/ are considering, they should run on tubular track just fine. The big Princess Elizabeth is designed for 3' radius and bigger (072). the # 2 specials and other larger locos should run on 2' track so 042 is a little tight but 054 should be fine.The little 4 wheel locos and cars should run fine on regular 0 gauge track, in fact some of the smallest sets came with 1' radius track.

Some of the reversing units were designed to be hit with 20 volts to reverse (think full throttle on a Lionel ZW). The Hornby controllers went from off to 20v down to 0 in order to snap the reverse unit over.

If you are looking at some of the French Hornby, be careful. some of it was 20 volt DC only.

Roland

If you do a search on YouTube for Hornby Trains running on Fastrack this will pull up some videos.

I have seen Hornby O gauge running fine on Lionel track at shows over here.

All the modern stuff from ACE and Darstaed should be fine. To double check I would contact Dave Allan "O gauge guy" from Australia on the forum as he is a Darstaed dealer and is more familiar than I with this.

Nick

Much of Hornby is clockwork (windup) and it runs well on tubular track.

Bill

Roland is absolutely correct, but I would caution that Hornby O Gauge locomotives were

20Volt AC.  You will have a very difficult time running them at 12-16 volts.  Indeed that's why I purchased an MTH Z4000 in order to get that extra kick above 20Volts.  Here's a photo of some of my Hornby on Lionel tubular track.

Lew Schneider

Thank you all for your kind responses. It sounds like Hornby locomotives and cars could handle the broader curves of the Tinplate Trackers of Austin's modular layout (The outer two loops frequently host members' articulated steam locomotives and full-length Golden Gate American-style passenger cars).

The voltage requirements could conceivably be a problem, but I've never tried to see how many volts our electronics could provide at track level, so I wouldn't be surprised if our club could handle Hornby O.

Thanks again for your responses.