Di4 from Hobbytrade
Introduction
Di4 is a locomotive that can be commonly seen on Nordlandsbanen. It's an older locomotive running on disel. It was supposed to be replaced by Di6, but that never happend. The Di4 is therefor still in traffic as of writing this article.
Several manafacturers have created the Di4 in model. One of those manefacturers is Hobbytrade, which was a danish model train manufacturer that unfortunately went bankrupt some years ago. No one have created a Di4 model after the latest model by Hobbytrade as of writing this article. Those models are therefor getting increasingly harder to get as they are only available on the second-hand market. Those who own such a model usually hold on to their models making it even harder to get hold of such model.
One of the hobby shops that used to exist where I live used to have Hobbytrade Di4 in stock. That was unfortunaely before I where able to really get into model railroading. I like the Di4 and it's a model I have always wanted in my collection. The challenge have been to find someone selling it. A railroad friend of mine actually sold a Di4 at a gathering I attended some time back. I did at that time decide to not buy that model, which is something I have later regreted as I did not realize how hard it was to find this model for sale.
Another one of my railroad friends knows very well that this is a model I have wanted for some time. He recently saw a Di4 on a web auction and notified me about it, which I am very grateful for. I decided to bid on the auction and ended up winning, thus getting hold of a Di4!
The model I bought second-hand was the Di4 with running number 653 with product number 154653. That product number is originaly a DC version, but the previous owner added a non-sound DCC decoder.
First look at the model
This ia a model which according to the seller has barely been used. My impression when opening the box for the first time matches what the seller said, as the condition of the model looks great. Bellow is a picture of what the model looked like in the box before taking it out and right after opening the package from the seller.
The box does not have the best pf protections, but it looks to be good enough. There also seems to be space for transporting the locomotive with mirrors attached without breaking them of. Bellow is a picture after taking the model out of it's box.
A parts bag came with the model unopened, which tells me that the previous owner never bothered to attach detail parts. Bellow is two pictures of the additional parts included with the model.
The couplings that came with the model seems to be Fleischmann couplings instead of the original couplers, which is a good thing as that is the coupling brand I prefer due to it's high quality.
Pictures of the prototype
Di4 is a locomotive I have seen in real-life, but I have unfortunately not seen running number 653. That running number is also the only Di4 at the time of writing that is no longer in operation, because it was involved in a fatal accident on the 24th of October in 2024 where the train driver was killed. You can read about the accident in norwegian here. The news article also shows some images of what the locomotive looked like after the accident. It's always sad when people die in such ways and I feel sorry for those who lost a member of their family that day.
But enogh talk about the tragic story of the 653. Let's have a look at the running numbers I have seen. The bellow picture is of the Di4 652 after having refuled.
The next image is of the Di4 655 in preparation for the night train.
I also have a video clip of two Di4 passing by in a night train, but that clip is unfortunately of so bad quality that it isn't worth showing here. The last image I have is the one of running number 655 that was shown at the top of this article.
The pictures I have of the prototype is not enough to do a detailed comparision, but it is at least possible to see a few differences. The most noticable one is the light arrangements. The top lights looks to be integrated in to the chassis on the prototype and contains three lamps instead of two like the model has. It should be noticed though that this might have been something that has been changed at some point. The image shown on the english Wikipedia page shows a Di4 with a different light arrangement that better matches the model which supports that theory.
Another difference seems to be a lack of ladder on the prototype. This could also be something that haas been modified through time. Also note that there is an SJ Nord logo on one of the pictures and the absence of a NSB logo on another one of the pictures. That is of no concern for me as that is something that has definetley changed through time. I do not mind missing the SJ Nord logo.
The snowplows on the model I got and the prototype is yellow. This has actually not always been the case. Those of you who have browsed the images of Di4 models in my image gallery might have noticed that some models have a red snowplow. That is actually the color the plow had when the Di4 was brand new. I personally prefer the yellow plows though, so I am happy that the model I got had yellow snowplows.
The model does otherwise look quite detailed compared to the prototype.
Fitting additional parts
I decided to attach some of the additional parts. The parts I want to attach is the mirrors and the windshield wipers. A total of eight mirrors where included with the model I bought. One set with mirrors in retracted position and one in operetional position. I usually only attach mirrors in an operational position, so that is what I did in this case also. Bellow is a picture showing the different mirrors.
I used Faller expert plastic glue together with a reverse plier to fit the mirrors. A plastic bag was used to take of excesive glue from the mirrors before attaching them to avoid damaging the paint job. Bellow is two pictures showing what the model looks like after fitting the mirrors.
I personally think that the mirrors included with this model is actually some of the more detailed mirrors I have seen on a model. Most mirrors included with models are usually just one color. These mirrors on the other hand have a different color facing the driver resulting in mirrors that actaully looks like mirrors. Bellow is a picture showing what that looks like from the side of the model.
I initialy decied to wait with the fitting of the windshield wipers because they where going in a different direction on the prototype than on the model. I later changed my mind as I found some pictures showing the windshield wipers going the same direction as on the model. I used the same technique to attach them as I used on the mirror. Bellow are two images of the model after the windshield wipers are attached. The scratch that can be seen on one of the cabs is from when I accidently hit the model with a plier. It's luckily only noticable when a light source is pointed at the model. I might try to fix it at some time, but my experience is that trying to fix tiny scratches tend to make it worse.
First run
The first run of the model went decent, which is what you can excpect with this model. Hobbytrade was known to have somewhat bad drivetrain. Especially the cog wheels are known to be bad and it is therefor common to have to replace those on this model as they tend to crack due to poor quality. This is something that is noticable on this model too as it sometimes have a bit of noise that isn't supposed to be there. The seller did notify about the noise, which is great as I appreciate honest sellers.
Inside the model
This model is actually quite easy to open. All you have to do is to gently pull the flaps on the coat outwards followed by gently lifting upwards. Bellow is an image of the inside after opening up.
Notice how there are two brackets for speaker installation in the model. We can also here see that the decoder socket is 8 pins. The extra space for speakers and the precense of a decoder socket means that it's defintely possible to do a sound decoder installation in this model without to much effort. The decoder that came in the model from the previous owner seems to be some sort of Lenz DCC decoder.
I decided to unscrew the speaker sockets simply to take some measurements of them. Bellow are pictures of the meassurements.
One thing I found out while inspecting the model was how the snowplows can be detached. The process was actually quite simple. All that had to be done is to gently pull them outwards towards you. This is actually quite an interesting way to do it. All other locomotives I have has the snowplow attached from the bottom up.
I also decided to take a further look at the drivetrain in the bogies. The bellow picture shows what it looks like from above.
The cog wheel on the lower part of the bogie can be reached from the underside. The first step is to gently take of the side parts. Two platstic flaps on each side will then be visible and can then be detached with a plier like shown in the bellow picture.
It will then be possible to take out the wheelsets as shown in the bellow picture.
One interesting observation here is that only the first and last wheelset has a cog wheel, while all wheelsets have power pickups. I decided to avoid dismantling the bogie any further. I strongly suspect that the cover on the top of the bogie needs to be taken of to fully dismantle the bogie for cog wheel replacement.
Putting the bogie together again is simply the reverse of the steps explained previously. Mind the pickups though, as it's easy that they get on the wrong side of the wheel.
Programming the decoder
The decoder came programmed with the address 4653 from the previous owner. I decided to change it to 653 as that better matches how I have addressed my other disel locomotives. The decoder that came with the model does not have any sound functions.
One peculiar thing I found out about the lights was that F1 would turn off the lights in the cab in the direction of travel. That makes little sense to me, so I therefor decided to try to change that behavior to turn off the tail lights instead. I was unfortunately not able to figure out how to do that on the Lenz decoder using JMRI and therefor decided to not spend much time investigating it as I will be replacing the decoder with a sound decoder at some time anyways.
Final thoughts
This is defintely a nice model, but it would in my opinion be even better with a sound decoder. So I will definetley install such a decoder some time. The cog wheels will also most likely need to be replaced at some point to improve the driving characteristics of the model.
Superspeed500 2026