Retro-fitting Hornby NEM pocket converters to other stock.

I've done a bit of experimenting with spare Hornby X9098M NEM pocket conversions intended to upgrade earlier Pullman coaches to the later NEM pocket type, the intention being to see if I can add this modification to the "Hearse Van" (formerly a Southern Railway 'Gangwayed Luggage Van') to enable me to 'close-couple' the complete train for my "Winston Churchill Funeral Train".
Removing the 'clip-in' bogies from the van, it was apparent that the flat underside and the 'Boss' on which each bogie pivots would lend themselves to conversion with relative ease, and so it proved. With the bogies out of the way, I positioned the NEM pocket assembly in a central position around the raised 'Boss', and marked the positions of the required end stops which act to push the coupling over in the direction of bogie swivelling. These end stops are already present on the Pullman coaches, but are easy to fabricate from small pieces of 'Plasticard'. Once made, they are glued into position as below. The small Phillips head screw is fitted to hook the centralising spring onto as will be seen later.

 

Once the glue had set, I positioned the coupler against the end stops and holding the retaining plate in position, marked the holes need to fix it, and drilled them. the supplied spring is hooked around the small Phillips head screw (not supplied in the kit), and this centralises the coupler as the bogies return to the straight ahead position after going around a curve. As can be seen, on this particular van application, it's necessary to cut away the central portion of the buffer beam, but this will not be visible as it's masked by the corridor connector.

 

Next fit the retaining plate using the supplied small screws into the drilled holes in the stop blocks. This keeps everything in place.

 

A slight modification of each bogie outer end is needed, firstly remove the unwanted hook and the large loop by simply chopping it off! With that done, a slot is cut into the front edge of each bogie to clear the raised part of the coupler and also act as a guide. To help with this, I glued 2 thicknesses of 'Plasticard' about 4mm wide on top of each other and then onto the top 'ledge' of each bogie. When set, I filed out a gentle curve on each side of this central slot to ease the coupler in sliding up the slot as the bogie turns and pushes the coupler over to the side in the direction of the turn. Here's a shot of unmodified and part-modified bogies, unmodified to the right, part modified with the slot cut on the left.

 

With the added strips of 'Plasticard' now filed into a curved slot, here's a fully modified bogie ready to clip back into place.

 

Now with the bogie clipped back into position you can see how the turning bogie also helps the coupler move over in the direction of curve being travelled.

 

As the bogie straightens out after a curve, the groove in the bogie front and the centralising spring bring everything back into line. Coupling height works out to be the same as on the coaches, unsurprising really as the chassis of both coaches and van are at the same height. I reckon these Hornby X9098M conversion parts should work on any Hornby bogie stock which has the central 'Boss' and a flat underside to the chassis, as long as there is sufficient space to allow pivoting then these parts should fit many of Hornby's other coach stock (and maybe Bachmann/Lima/Mainline) to allow 'closer coupling' yet no buffer lock on curves. Once you have NEM pockets fitted then the choice is yours for actual couplings, either small Hornby 'tension locks', Kadee's or what-have-you.
Keith.