Hey W.S.L.,

The layout looks great. You obviously have put a lot of effort into it. 

I hope you can lay your hands on a better camera, 'cos I'd love to take a closer [& clearer] look.

Unfortunately, I model US, British & Aus, so scenery is always a problem. I think I should start the Alantis Coast Railroad, being in the middle of no-where, they may have bought locos from everywhere .

Quote from: SteamGene on December 27, 2007, 08:56:29 AM
That's strange.  I found the reverse to be true.
Merry Third day of Christmas.
Gene

That's only 'cause you're on the other side of the world to me. 

================================================

Quote from: trainguy on December 27, 2007, 06:24:29 PM
Did you check the wheelsets on the tender?
I assume you installed the traction tire?
merry christmas and a safe and happy new year
Lou

G'Day Lou,

I had a look at the wipers and one was a little tight so I eased the pressure, but it wasn't enough to haul anymore. But good point - Thanks

Since it hauls the same load as the Bachmann 2-10-2, I'm satisfied. Anyway , it's always another good excuse to Double Head - Yeah Baby!!!

I don't use Traction tyres if I have a choice. That's not to say, I think you shouldn't. It's just a case of.....
"You say Potatoes, I say potartoes, you say tomatoes, I say tomartoes"......


Happy New Year

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas?

It was a quiet family day today, no friends or relatives; We were all playing with our new toys.

I received a Walthers USRA HEAVY 2-10-2. I hitched her up & sent her up a 2% grade with 24 hoppers & caboose, but she lost traction half way up.

I removed the caboose & six hoppers & she got her footing and moved on.

My USRA LIGHT 2-10-2, just hauls this load on the same section of track.

I had a look at the Heavy & decided the Sprung Pony Trucks were possibly unloading the Drivers. I removed the front spring & tried again - This time it hauled 24 hoppers, but stalled with the caboose.

Off came the rear truck spring & the caboose was included in the consist.

The modified Front Pony truck doesn't find any track irregularities either. The spring tended to make the lateral movement stiff & so the truck had a memory of the last curve, & flanged the rail on one side once reaching a straight.

All's well, that ends well.

Happy New Year.

Peco makes some O Gauge flextrack.

They make Bullhead as well as Flat bottom. Here are the Flat bottom codes.

I don't know what the availability or expense would be in your area, but at least it gives you a little more choice.

SL-700-FB      Flexi Track Code 143 “Flat bottom Rail”, Wooden Sleeper. 1 Yard.
SL-700-BH      Flexi Track Code 124 “Bullhead Rail”, Wooden Sleeper. 1 Yard

Merry Christmas

Nice work Kyle.



Merry Christmas

Quote from: Conrail Quality on December 20, 2007, 07:05:25 PM

Okay, point is: we don't often request obscure models, because Bachmann, because of it's position in the model train market, is unlikely to produce them. I'll get off my soapbox now.

Good Point!

Bachmann UK & Hornby announced, they were going to build the same LMS 4-6-0 loco, with BR variants & rebuilds. This would have been a financial 'Kick in the Teeth' to both companies. As Bachmann US, MTH & BLi must clearly understand, with their PRR K-4.

But, to get into the spirit of the thread,....


I'd like an Atlantic, or two or three.

A UP 2-12-2, if it gets around a 30" radius curve.

& perhaps, a Spectrum quality early 4-4-0 [Definitely].

G'Day,

I would love a swag of US pacifics. USRAs, P7, PS-4, SP Southwind, ATSF 3400, and others.

Many of the Pacifics wheelbase had Driver centres of between 6'6" to 7'.

When it's all scaled down, it really isn't that noticeable.

So if you had a running chassis with Driver centres of 6'9", you would have a good starting point for quite a few different pacifics and reduce some of the production costs with a shared running chassis.

The question to the buying public is, would you critically accept a loco with a 'total driver wheelbase' that may be up to 6" too long, or too short?

If it meant getting more pacifics, I would!

G'day Dusten,

If you're referring to running Tender first; the lack of a turntable on the end of a branchline meant you had to run the loco around the train & couple at the other end for the return journey. The locos used on these lines were designed to run that way, with low tenders so visibility & general working were not so bad. The weather, could be a little on the cold side though. 

Mainline engines did not run Tender first as a rule, which is just as well, due to the lack of visibility. In Preservation, you will see a lot of locos running Tender first as many of the turntables around the mainline are long gone. I'd guess the Preservation Engineers, get a little steamed-up about this, but when your driving a steam loco in reverse, I suppose you'd cool down a little.

In the latter British Rail years, many locos were fitted with BR1G or similar tenders which have cut aways each side of the coal hopper & rear facing windows & weather shields. 

The strangest tender[re bunker] first running, belongs to the Great Western Railway, where the loco was fitted for remote running. The loco was coupled Firebox first, as normal, to the coach. When the train arrived at the terminal, the driver went to the rear of the Coach, & there were  the remote controls for the loco. The fireman remained the the loco, which traveled Tender[re bunker] first behind the Coach to the other end of the line.

G'Day Sheldon,

I agree with you; extra weight is a a great equalizer, figuratively & literally, to overcome the lateral forces both the wiring harness & a Cam action close coupling system create. 

With the Cam action coupling system though, the more weight the loco pulls, the greater the lateral forces on the lead bogie, & the greater chance it has of finding that illusive irregularity in the track or turnout. 

Fortunately, the K-4 does not have the traction to pull enough 'train weight' to overcome  even a moderate amount of added weight in the tender. If it had traction tyres, that would change the equation drastically.

Apart from the derailment problems, having your tender & possibly your loco "Crabbing" along the track is a bit unsightly. This is more noticeable with the N class [as used in Bachmann's 'IRISH Train Set'], and occurs even when running light.

In regards to the Brand of Locos Incognito, their harness [on many of locos] springs back into the tender & so has no excess wiring suspended between the units, reducing the problems we are so familiar with other systems. 

On some models this feature, is not present & in these cases, I lift the tender shell & bend the wires toward the back of the tender, where the harness plugs into the PC board. This creates a spring action, which sucks the excess wires back into the tender after coupling. This lasts indefinitely, if care is taken not to over-extend then harness when coupling & uncoupling.

The wiring harness in the Bachmann Low Boiler Ten Wheeler is the most critical to get right, don't you think?

I had one running great for months, then packed it up & took to to a friends, where I spent the best part of the night fiddling with it.

At that point I decided this is not how it should be. Not wanting to do major surgery to change the position of the locos harness sockets, I mucked around with the tender & the Harness itself. I found two areas  I could improve. The first being the harness wires glued together. I swapped them with a set from another Bachmann loco - the unglued set are much more pliable.
The second problem, was the hole in the tender floor where the harness exits, rubs on the lead axle, causing a braking/skidding wheel, & those horrible lateral forces causing the lead axle to Flange the rail & cause derailments.
I removed the tender shell & drilled a hole in the floor where the coal spill is. I  then fitted a KADEE coupler box to route the harness above the axle & smoothly down each side of the drawbar to the loco connection. It has very little slack & the harness no longer drags on the sleepers.

These are just my solutions to some problems & everyone has a different viewpoint & their own solutions.  Any suggestion to make these little bundles of joy run better, couldn't be bad

P.S. Gene, if you're there, the 2-8-8-0 lark, has had some serious consideration, & appears feasible. I have some more measuring to do, but it looks good. I was thinking I might give it a really weather beaten, neglected look, so no particular road number & name willbe legible [or blamed] 

I added a Light 2-10-2, with DCC, to go with my Tsumami 2-10-2. The Tsunami can be configured to make sounds for double headed locos, so a second sound decoder is not necessary in the new loco. I just have to speed match the two.
.

G'Day Neville,

The Spectrum PRR K-4 Pacific & N&W J class; as well as Bachmann's British outline N Class 2-6-0, all have the same problem of the tender catching on points & track irregularities. These problems, to a large degree  are the result of the Cam Action Close Coupling System common to all three locos.

For this coupling system to work effectively requires it to be near frictionless. To do this would require highly machined cam surfaces in the loco & tender & roller bearings on the Cam Follower arms, neither of which are on the loco. No surprise really, it would be grossly uneconomical. So from the day you buy one, there is a built in problem.

For example, if you watch the loco on straight track, traveling away from you from above,  "after it has exited a right hand curve", the tender will have it's leading truck flanging the left hand rail. This will pick up any irregularity in the track, or split a set of points. The more you load the loco, the worse it gets. The N-class suffers most from load, to the point where the loco starts to flange the track on one side & the tender, the other. This is caused by the cam not being able to self centre, as it cannot overcome the friction generated near the centre of the cam.

To demonstrate this hold the loco & tender on a smooth surface & try to emulate the motion & load to make the cam work; You'll find it nearly impossible to to centre the cam as it will skip from one side to the other.


As the loco gets older , the cam surface gets dirty & lost lubrication, & the 'cam follower' may be worn & therefore has a much larger rubbing surface, causing more friction. Due to the friction problem this system does not work well from new.

Bachmann UK has even made modified wheelsets to "overcome the result" of the Coupling System, & much has been written about complicated & expensive modifications owners have made to their N-Class locos to make them run OK, well, sort-of. None of which involves ridding the loco of the cam system & solving the the problem. This, to me, seems a bit odd. Why would you attempt to modify the result!..... & not even attempt to solve the problem causing it.


If you want to test this, simply run any of these locos without the coupling system connected, the loco & tender run straight & true & do not catch on points or irregularities as they are not flanging the rail. So, if the Loco is OK & the Tender is OK, you can probably guess the rest!.

I have removed the Cam Action Close Coupling System, from all my Spectrum PRR K-4 Pacifics, N&W Js &  N Class 2-6-0s. I fitted ordinary metal or plastic flat drawbars, & have instant results, with all locos & tenders running perfectly.

Sheldons suggestion of adding some weight to the tenders will not go astray as the design of the wiring harness will still attempt to hi-jack your tender.

Personally I don't, preferring instead to get the harness to behave by bending the wire to better suit the situation or re-routing it under the footplate, where applicable. This, ofcourse is fiddly & most will not want to make modifications to their locos. It would be nice if Bachmann would start putting the wiring sockets on their yet-to-be-released locos, horizontally under the footplate like a certain other Builder of Locos In the US.

Finally, Kudos to Bachmann for attempting to improve model railroading products. I think, for the money its hard to beat a Bachmann. But, the cam coupling system, although designed with the best intentions,  really does not work.

G'Day,

I found a very interesting video on Track gauge. It is Canadian, & follows NMRA HO standards. See Track Video.

This is something I urge everyone to watch. It graphically shows the relationship between the critical parts of a set of points & wheels.

Apart from Modelers, I believe manufacturers staff should look at this too.

The video is produced by Tim Warris; who proved derailments can be a thing of the past - See Tilt Table.
He only stopped after 50,000 perfect cycles because the Train show staff wanted to close the show & go home. 

Track Video
http://www.handlaidtrack.com/nmra-online.php

Tilt Table Video
http://www.bronx-terminal.com/index.php?s=tilt+table

QUOTE : IT'S A WIN/WIN SITUATION!!
                                                                                             THANX!!
                                                                                                Ernie

==================================================

Ernie, that's a mighty fine offer, & I do appreciate it, ....really I do.  But I would hate to put you through all that trouble.....

Sorry I didn't get back to you right away, but I've got this 2-8-8-0 to build, you see......I wish I had a Gene ,, sorry, Genie to help me.

G'Day S-J,

There are a few model shops that sell Sound Decoders for British outline. I have listed a couple below.
They have one thing in common, they all use ESU. If you buy one from them, they give you the DSD with sounds.
Since ESU does not list British loco sounds on its download site,  that is your biggest hurdle, if buying just the DSD from elsewhere.

http://www.southwestdigital.co.uk/

http://www.howesmodels.co.uk/Railways/viewProducts.php?CatID=21
for LMS/BR 'Black 5' 4-6-0,  LMS/BR 8F 2-8-0,  'West Country'/'Battle of Britain',  'Castle' class,  BR 'Standard 5' 4-6-0.

If you want to see & hear a 2-8-0 & Black 5, 4-6-0, see you tube urls below.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hBY92EBiU_I

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qG5i1qgMXyA&feature=related

Quote from: Atlantic Central on November 29, 2007, 06:00:48 PM
Mark,

Congratulations on your bargins - good for you!
===============================
Again congrats on you find!

Sheldon

G'Day Sheldon, Thankyou; when I thought I was getting some spares, details parts, tenders & original boxes, I felt it was a good deal. But three running locos - I'm chuffed.