257 Squadron – Hornby’s New Battle of Britain Class! + HM7000 TXS Install

A Southern engine, on my layout? I think we can make an exception for this, join me as I take a closer look at Hornby’s new Battle of Britain class. That’s not all, we’re adding sound to the spam can! Let’s take a look!

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On today’s episode we’ve got 257 Squadron touching down alongside hm7000 that’s a lot of numbers let’s see how they all add up hey guys welcome welcome back to prop the chuft my name’s Hilton and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing but that is half the fun of this isn’t it if

You are new here welcome to the channel Channel I hope you enjoy this content and if you do please consider subscribing if you’re one of my returning viewers welcome back guys it’s very good to see you again now I’m not much of a Southern Man neither am I a

Great western man those just AR two Railway companies that have never been particularly interested in although I understand they have huge fan bases and more power to you chaps um and they don’t really fit on my sort of layout plans uh which is sort of the set in the

West Highlands and it’s a preservation Railway way um and in the sort of my fantasy world a lot of prototype locomotives have been rebuilt and are now running on this this line however that being said there are a few Locos within each of those Railway companies that I’ve always been quite interested

In so I’ve decided to make a purchase and it is for hornby’s Battle of Britain class and now this is I believe one of their newer releases I’m rather excited to have it in my hands but I’m going to do something quite cool today because

I’m going to add sound to it now the locomotive in question is this 257 Squadron um and why I was actually really really excited about this is because 257 Squadron flew typhoons which happens to be my absolute favorite aircraft from the second world war um I’ve actually got a very large typhoon

In a box from AIX and I am yet to build it but I am terrified at building it so story for another day perhaps on another Channel too however I have decided to add some sound to it and I’ve picked up one of these now I picked two uh hm7000 dtas up

From from Hatton um during their sort of closing down sale I think they were about £45 each or so uh and I am rather excited because this is something I’ve heard a lot about uh there is no stock of this in in the country so I think

This is maybe some of the first hm7000 in South Africa which is quite cool um so today we’re going to take a look at 257 Squadron and we’re also going to fit sound to it um so yeah without further Ado let’s get into it so here she is 257

Squadron um I think before I open it all up I think it’s worth mentioning uh I paid about £28 for this now I know that this is coming into stock across the UK at this point and has been since sort of late last year uh and I know that this

Is a bit of an older tooling um now I paid as I mentioned £28 I I see that in most retailers selling for about2 39 odd pounds um I’m curious to see because it is an older tooling uh whether it’s sort of worth that money to be honest with

You uh £240 is quite a lot of money uh especially for somewhat of an older tooling so let’s take a look at it without further Ado and unbox it um it is DCC ready of course in today’s standards I don’t think you can release a loco without DCC ready compatibility

And uh I believe it is a 21 pin socket so without further Ado let’s take a look at 257 in her malachite green BR colors which is quite quite stunning as per usual we’ve got our documentation um just a little bit of info on West country class and uh Battle

Of Britain class uh as they are so similar little bit of discussion here around uh fitting the couplings um and the sockets and obviously the DCC um decoders now I can see here it’s got one of those awful um plug-in sockets which to be honest really not a fan of um

Which is unfortunate and then obviously there’s all the extra bits like um the brake rods and such we get an extras pack obviously with all the usual sort of bits and Bobs uh there’s actually a crew included here which is quite nice uh to see and some lamp irons and

Obviously some Market disc um because it’s a southern Loco pH okay this is already quite impressive um just the the glistening light that is catching here on the safety valves is is quite stunning um and rather heavy Too okay hey so here she is um okay first things first the first thing I noticed is the coal load uh I can see that this is an older model just because it’s got that sort of poorer quality of cold load that I think horn be produced

The newer stuff seems a lot more realistic um so that’s unfortunate to see that they didn’t sort of replace that with something a little bit more modern um but it’s not something that you know we can’t fix we can always just add some coal to it if we wanted to um

Yeah the tender connection oh boy it’s one of these okay um I’m going to lift it very gently um and show you here it is unfortunately one of these sort of screwed in tender connections with the the plug uh to it which I am really not

A fan of these are very fiddly and if you do tend to break one of these little wires here unfortunately it’s kind of difficult to get them fixed uh though not impossible but just a frustrating thing to deal with um there’s a decent amount of pipe work here let me put it

Back on its on its side there’s a decent amount of pipe work here the Finish is absolutely fantastic I will say that delivery the application the pin stripes of the yellow on the malachite green are extraordinary um super straight um and actually the the um name plate have 257

Squadron and the the uh emblem of the Squadron blow it is is quite beautiful um they’ve done a very good job on that so well done to them on that um looking inside the uh cab I I will give you a closeup of this later obviously uh there does seem to be

An extraordinary amount of detail in there so looking forward to taking a closer look at that um overall quite impressed um not mad about that Co load or the tender connection um but those are things that we can look Beyond um but first impressions are very good um the riveting looks fantastic on

This um all sorts is going on here but as per my usual motus operandi I think we shall turn on the lights and take a closer look at 257 Squadron and its history the southern Railways Battle of Britain class was first introduced in 1945 by a chief mechanical engineer

Enger Oliver bulled these locomotives were part of the broader light Pacific class designed for Express passenger Services the Battle of Britain class locomotives were named after RAF fighter aircraft notable airfields and figureheads from the Battle of Britain during the second world war utilizing insights from The Merchant Navy locomotives bulled integrated his chain

Driven valve gear into the new design a distinctive feature in British locomotive engineering this component though notorious for its challenging accessibility and potential valve irregularities when combined with the fast bullied steam reverser operated within a sealed oil bath for constant lubrication the locomotive resembling The Merchant Navy class with its air

Smooth casing earned the nickname spam cans due to its similarity to tin cans the integral Smoke Box forming part of the air smooth casing maintained the casing shape and housed the circular arrangement of the five nozzle larre blast pipe within a large diameter chimney Electric lighting powered by a

Steam generator illuminated gauges with fluorescent markings for enhanced nighttime visibility the cabs ergonomic Design Group controls for the driver and fireman’s convenience ensuring safe operation additional features included a steam powered trle for Firebox door opening enclosed foot plate for improved winter conditions and Innovations like steam powerered class brakes and iconic

Bullied F Brown wheels these locomotives were primarily used on the Southern Railway and later the southern region of the British railways they operated until the end of Steam on the southern region in 1967 unfortunately due to the shift to Diesel and electric traction most steam locomotives including the Battle of Bren

Class were retired from active service 257 Squadron was constructed at Brighton works and completed in 1948 this specific Pacific was among the initial batch produced under BR ownership initially station that DOA Marine shed it primarily operated Continental boat trains to London and played a significant role in the night fairy

Service Additionally the locomotive handled local Services between the Ken coast and Charing Cross and notably ventured onto the tonbridge to Red Hill line a rare feat for a bullied light Pacific with the electrification of the Ken Coast lines in 1958 steam locomotives were relocated leading to 257s moved to outh Junction in February

1958 serving as the southern Region’s primary shed for the West country the locomotive operated trains to Salsbury Plymouth and various destinations in North Devon and North Cornwall in its final assignment at eastley from June 1964 257 Squadron amassed a total of 698 843 Mi before being withdrawn in October 1964 concluding its operational

Lifespan of just over 16 years having sat in the famous woodam scrapyard for 19 years from 1965 257 was rescued in 1984 and brought back into steam in 1990 and has since been operational on a number of preserved Railways currently permanently based at spa Valley Railway

So here she is then 257 Squadron and looking at the front of her we can see that there’s an immense amount of detail here separately fitted um smokebox doart lamp irons six of them in total and then the amount of riveting that’s going on here is kind of crazy and the riveting

Actually looks fantastic um and to I suppose its natural scale size um I often find these locomotives have riveting that’s a little bit too large for them and looks a little bit unrealistic however this very fine riveting across the entire body of the locomotive is is rather impressive the

Running number 34072 painted on the front there um nicely shadowed with that Southern Green the malachite green and yellow as well as um the running number included on the smokebox door itself moving down a little bit we can see the middle of the body here um the name plate and Squadron Insignia are

Separately fitted and are beautifully detailed I am so impressed at just the Fidelity of both of these especially the Squadron Insignia we can see the lion sitting in the middle of the crest there with the crown at top um 257 Squadron doesn’t really pop out I I would think

That the the gold lettering um gets kind of lost in that blue a little bit unfortunately but it’s not a problem the detail is there again there’s a lot of riveting going on here and those massive 6t bullied wheels so iconic at the top we’ve got separately turn metal

Um safety valves that have been included the three of them there as well as a plastic whistle uh there’s a little bit of paint bleed on mine but overall you wouldn’t even notice it from a distance so it looks pretty good there too looking at the cab section and also the

Tender we can see we’ve got separately fitted glass um obviously that is a plastic of sorts but um rather impressive I did not know that these tenders had glass fit to them as well but I suppose that makes a lot of sense given that you could sort of look

Through it um when the cab is all sealed up in on a wet or rainy or cold day and and see what’s what’s going on behind the tender um again a large amount of detail here the rear Pony truck um those sort of Springs that have been included there rather impressive looking the

Bogey detail overall is very impressive um I’m impressed with this casting I I would has it a guess to say as a rather recent one um so well done to Hornby on that it it looks absolutely fantastic and the more and more I look at this the

More um I’m inclined to say that this is probably worth the cash um at £240 again you can see the the pen striping that’s been included here on on this malachite green and yellow the pen striping is absolutely exceptional um there doesn’t seem to be any they

Haven’t skipped a b here in terms of um putting those down very very clean lines and I’m very impressed with that looking at the tender another six lamp end uh waiting to be fitted uh two ladders looking rather plasticky unfortunately I think that may be my one criticism I think they’ve obviously used

A green plastic for that and sadly it comes across as looking a little bit too uh cheap and and not very realistic to be honest with you um however of course as you as you would expect rung buffers as well as um the coal load which

Frankly to be honest with you it’s not quite as as highend as I would expect but again something that could be resolved once you’ve added your own coal to it here’s a treat the inside of the cab this is a rather impressively detailed little piece um obviously you

Can see the gauges up top there looking really really well detailed almost look like they’ve individually painted on those numbers um obviously it’s not that um sort of delicate but um it passes the the test of realism in my books uh there are separately fit seats for the driver

And firemen both of which are included in the Box you just need to paint them up and put them down on their seats and you’re a way to go so it’s time to finally fit some hm7000 now I’ve seen a lot of content about hm7000 online some good some bad

Um but mostly it seems the reception to this technology has been very very good and um I’ve been itching to get my hands on hm7000 just so I can mess around with it and just see how good it is for my myself in person and I’m very very

Excited to be able to do so today um especially with a locomotive that first of all a class that sounds so fantastic and um it’s it’s going to be a really cool experience just trying to do something a little bit different with DCC so uh what’s in the box uh it’s

Pretty basic actually um and that’s what’s fantastic about it it’s so simple to use so you get a number of sort of speaker um speaker housings um uh which we’ll fabricate a little bit later once we determine the size inside the tender for this um we get some

Instructions uh which will go through throughout the setup I suppose um and then what else is here right two things cool we’ve got the decoder itself um nicely sealed up a white decoder something I’ve not seen before and we also have a small little speaker uh I

Believe they call this a sugar cube speaker so um what we’re going to do is open it all up first of all I’m going to open up 257 Squadron unfortunately undo all that cabling from the tender uh and um we’ll then fit this uh hm7000 I’m looking forward to this right

So I’ve removed the tender from the body of the locomotive um I’ve taken out that small screw which is that sort of Pony um that metal bar between the two and uh I’ve also taken out the plug uh which is quite a sort of delicate operation um be

Very careful when you do do that it just makes it all a lot easier to have the tender by itself when when fitting um a DCC decoder or in this case hm7000 so uh with that done um there’s quite a bit of weight in this tender um body actually

Despite the fact that it’s plastic um okay so here we are we have a blanking plate on top of the um 21 pin um interface so I’m just going to gently pry that off uh which leaves us with the exposed pins and now it’s a case

Of opening up the hm7000 decoder cool so it sits flush there on the pins and then um if you can see carefully here that’s a small plug interface there for the speaker now I need to decide what speaker got this sticking to me I need to decide which speaker will be

Appropriate and fit inside of the tender here um depending on the size that I have inside here now there are a number of options I’ve already pulled some of them um from the sprew and I think this is such a fantastic system is creating this little sort of speaker box system

Um that can then sit nicely inside which is quite cool okay so having explored my op options it seems that none of the larger speakers are going to actually fit inside the the tender here now um obviously there is a bit of a gap here that leads to to the bottom of the

Tender um so that’s probably where your best sound will be coming through so what I’m going to do I’ve decided is and it’s pretty much the only one that fits is this very thin one um now the speaker itself goes on top of that but what I’m

Going to do is I’m going to just there’s just enough space underneath the decoder to have it sit um flush sort of against the the bottom of the uh um the tender the tender body there so I’m going to put the speaker in and then attach the speaker itself the

Whole speaker box unit to this part of the Loco and it should sit I did test earlier and it should close up quite nicely so that should be our problem solved so right now all I’m going to do is attach the speaker itself it’s quite a finicky little thing um but that

Should then sit like such inside the resonation chamber and we should be golden right so I’ve now fitted the speaker to the small speaker box resonation chamber and I need to now attach it to the tender itself now I believe Hornby did actually provide me with some double-sided tape to do this

And I’m seem to have lost it um in my excitement and um so I’m I’m just going to do it myself with some of my own double Sider tape now obviously I’ve got this sort of situation where there’s there’s the the through point I guess for as much audio

As possible uh I want I want to sit that over that that hole in the tender so I’m going to apply double-sided tape to this side and this side um just so that I I sort of cover my bases and make sure that as much audio as is going through as Possible and that’s it speaker attached um I’ll just curl up these wires so they don’t get in the way of closing up the tender there we go perfect as you can see sealed up nicely and we’re good to go um I’m going to screw everything back together and plug

It all back in and then we’ll test out hm 7,000 right so we’ve got 257 Squadron on the track now uh track is powered on and I’m just going to show you guys how to quickly link it all up uh it’s a very simple process one of the things you do

Need is a Hornby account um just so that the decoder can link to that account and identify it what’s fantastic about it too is once it is linked it’s sort of detected as your decoder and at that point you’re able to um adjust it you

You get a password uh sent to your email immediately so that you can reset the decoder if you wanted to um but just to walk you through the sort of connection process uh let me show you here on my phone um I’ve started up the app now and

I just go to settings and I click U let’s not do that link device um and we do a scan and you can see here that it’s picked up the hm7000 Dakota let me just see if I can get a right angle for that okay so it’s picked up the decoder

And we select That fantastic so now we need to do a couple updates um and we can update both of those you obviously do need to be connected to the internet uh while these both update cool so both updates completed takes about 2 minutes or so to do and you select

Done loo profile detected um and we would like to detect and we need to power cycle the logo so I’m just going to lift it up and put it down back on the tracks great so now we’re detected um it should connect in a second

There we go loo address 3 as the basics now you can rename the logo if you want to um so I’m just going to go 257 Squad and I’m going to change her profile to 340 uh those are the first three numbers of a running number okay and here is where it gets

Really cool guys so you can essentially adjust CVS on the fly without having inividual values you can sort of there’s a slide bar to adjust the acceleration rate the obviously the higher the acceleration rate the longer it’ll take for the loo to get up to speed uh the

Same with the deceleration rate so I’m just going to bump both of these sort of a little bit there I guess 15% or so um and then we can also adjust the global volume so so right now I’m going to leave it as uh 50 at the sort of Base

Default and we can import function Maps um not too familiar with how those work but I’m assuming that if you have certain profiles that you or Hornby provides profiles you can use those um but then let’s look at locomotive profiles now this is where hm7000 really comes to life because here you can

Actually adjust the sound of the loo um because there’s a a whole library that Hornby have provided and are continually work working on and and adding to and you can find the exact logo that you you are putting your hm7000 sound and decoder into um now I did check before I

Purchased this logo that uh the West country or Battle of Britain class does have a sound profile so we’re going to load up those profiles now and we’ll be able to select the one um for this locco specifically now you can check out all the profiles here Hornby do have quite

An extensive list of profiles on their website they’ve got a P2 uh tornado princess coronation is class 37s so all sorts diesels electrics and steam obviously so we’re going to go into steam and now we’re just going to scroll across and we see where we can find

Hopefully Merchant Navy uh I think that would probably be the closest um from what I remember a lot of Flying Scotsman a lot of a1s um Hornby do you sell enough Flying Scotsman I think you do um so we’re going to select Merchant Navy and we’re going to install this locomotive profile

Um now this takes a little bit of time uh it can take up to sort of 15 20 minutes so I’m going to stop it here and um I’ll let you guys know once it’s updated and installed but the key to this really is the fact that it is

Completely adjustable constantly so if you wanted to if you wanted to go to the trouble of it you could obviously switch decoders between Locos and try out different sounds um you you know you could mess around with all sorts of different profiles and I think that what’s fantastic is that horn Hornby are

Continuously building on this library and you’re not restricted to just downloading one profile and having it stuck there um I think the real Joy or key to hm7000 success is its sort of adaptability the fact that you can switch between Locos have different sounds and different Locos and have this

Extensive and pretty good sounding library on your hands um so really I think it’s a it’s it’s a really impressive piece of technology and also obviously you’ve got Bluetooth control which is fantastic and I think it makes the world of DCC or DCC control um a lot

More achievable at a a tighter budget with Bluetooth control you don’t need to buy an extensive DCC so system like a like mine like the z21 you can actually just control everything from your phone using bluetooth if you Locos are equipped with an hm7000 Dakota so I

Think overall this is a this is a ra rather marvelous um piece of technology and I’m very impressed with Hornby anyways let’s check back once this update is finished and we’ll see how this um Battle of Britain class sounds I was about to say Merchant Navy it’s not Merchant Navy right sound profile

Downloaded and updated uh you just need to lift it off and put it back on obviously just to apply the sound file and sort of reset I guess the settings and now we’re presented with our driver’s menu and sound menu which is absolutely fantastic so we got a break a

Stop um and then obviously just a series of different functions so let’s test out the sound first of all switching it on it’s rather loud um all right checking out the whistle wow so that’s that’s very loud Goodness Me Okay um all right let’s put her uh into GE

Some fantastic sounds coming out of this thing I’m very impressed with that so far now I’m not sure what impresses me more the quality of this locomotive 257 Squadron or the hm7000 app both of these are equally fantastic however I think it really is hm7000 that needs to be highlighted here

For as much as a beautiful locomotive as this is hm7000 is a game changer for people who are looking to buy DCC sound and get into that if I look at the price of DCC sound decoders like a lock sound V5 or so you’re probably looking at about £110

Right this is half that price and you get equally good sound and the option to then switch that decoder between locomotives and download new profiles that’s a game Cher that really really is and what Hornby is doing here I think is is really making the Hobby and sort of

The higher end of the hobby if you wanted to consider sound of that very accessible to people like you and me this is a very affordable way to get sound onto your Locos and new controls um to be able to adjust CVS without having to get into the whole expensive

DCC format the fact that you can run this on Bluetooth as opposed to buying a whole system is fantastic and it really is an affordable easy way to get into the Hobby and enjoy that sort of aspect of it I’m really really impressed with this well done horon like Kudos and hats

Off to you like you’ve really done something quite special here I’ll definitely be picking up more doodas in the future because I’d love like convert the entire fleet to have sound that would be fantastic I’m really really impressed with this so good job well done and if you’re considering it it’s

It’s an absolute yes from me um as for 257 Squadron she’s beautiful I’m really really happy to have her on the line these clean clean lines on her are absolutely fantastic such an oddl looking Loco like again I as I mentioned I’m really not a southern guy but the

Fact that it’s 257 Squadron a loco that is running today um it makes her quite special to me and the fact that it’s a typhoon Squadron is extra cool too so um let’s hook her up to some coaches now unfortunately um the sort of purists among you might be a little bit you

Might cringe a little bit when you see this I don’t have Southern coaches I don’t have those green coaches um so I’m going to have to hook her up up to I guess some blood and custards um so please bear with me I assure you I will give you a stunning running

Session um and I’m so sorry about the wrong Coaches d f