I recently posted about my 3 truck Shay and have a question about my Climax. Both had been sitting in my Tuff Shed for the last few years and I am reviving them to build a new track in my yard. I turned my Shay over and worked on it to clean up the wheels. I used the foam for support and wired it up so the wheels would turn. I cleaned a bunch of gunk from it and fixed an intermittent short in the second truck. It works much better and I am waiting on some parts to fix the yolk. I currently have the Climax turned over to similarly clean the wheels. I connected wires to get the wheels, axle and everything else to move for inspection and cleaning. I noticed the rear truck wheels are moving faster than the front truck wheels and this is my question. It runs great but are the wheels of the front and back trucks supposed to run at different speeds? My guess is everything is okay but hope someone can confirm, deny or shed some light on this. Thanks for any advice!
Hi Mark,
While they should run about the same speed, it is not unusual to have one run a little faster than the other. I do not see a problem with it unless they are way out of sync. I had one Annie 4-6-0 that ran faster than my Other Annie 4-6-0. It was not a problem till I tried to double head it with it in the rear. Being faster it had a tendency to push too hard on the front one, when the positions were changed and the fast one was on the front all ran well.
I would not worry about it much.
Have fun with your renewed hobby!!
Cheers & Beers,
Loco Bill
Hi Bill.
Thank you for your message and advice. I cleaned the heck out of the wheels and brushes. The front and back trucks seemed to synchronize better and work at a more similar speed. Both the Shay and Climax are running pretty well now. Very glad to have the time to work on the large scale again.
Much appreciated,
Nymark