Steam Railcar resurrection

[bertiedog]

To go on the new layout in 009, a scrapbox body only of an Eggar bahn steam railcar, obtained long ago as scrap, minus a roof, and no mechanism at all.

 

I looked into fitting a Kato N gauge chassis but nothing fits in with the body joint, just behind the main chassis.

So a complete chassis to build, 6mm wheels on the power chassis, same on the bogie, live to opposite sides for pickup.

 

Motor is a tiny Mashima Chinese clone 5 pole motor, mounted vertically, with worm gear set on the rear axle, and idle gears to drive the front axle, no side rods. Nigel Lawton does 14;1 gears, and a spur gear pair can be added to the motor to give 3:1, giving 42:1, much better for slow running. The motor is double shafted so a flywheel can be fitted as well.

 

The gilt surrounds to the windows have gone, as they were part of the glazing mouldings. The size and shape of the windows improves without them anyway

 

Chassis will be solid brass, milled to shape, with one side recessed to take spur gears coupling the axles.

 

Most of the original body joint will be left intact, the old owner added a steel pin pivot.

 

It will need a wooden roof made, and a brass rear bogie made. As much weight as possible will be added under the floor, and a plate brass floor inside, with brass seats as extra weight. A few cast passenger figures will help traction and pickup of power.

 

Obviously not a UK type, but a bit anglicised it will work fine. Finish will be maroon, with grey roof.

 

Stephen.

[Giles]

It sounds like a significant improvement! It will be nice to see the innards....

[BernardTPM]

If you're going to build a new mechanism for it you may well be able to open up the other window, the one nearest the articulated loco part with moulded louvres, especially as you won't need to match the gilt framing. On an early pre-production artist's impression this was shown as another window. I assume they blanked it to hide part of the drive.

[bertiedog]

 Working on the innards tonight, with a motor off ebay that has a built in gearbox, from a digital camera. very high gear ratio though, and not sure it can be connected to the axle easily. Might need side rods added to the wheels rather than coupling gears. I may be able to mix and match some gear parts from other motors gearboxes.

The motor is tiny and 5 volt rating, but the railcar is light, so no load really, and I am not going to apply 12 volts!

Got to make 4 drivers, I have wheels for the bogie end already, solid brass chassis for weight. It will need interior of sorts, and a new roof, entirely missing at the moment.

I am drilling out the joint to split the unit, it can have a new joint added as soon as the chassis runs. The joint pin is not original, added by previous owner, when he considered conversion in 1971, anfd gave up as there were no small enough motors made at the time. Eggers was not a good motor then.

Stephen

[bertiedog]

I think Egger must have made a mistake showing an extra window, as the model as made has a shuttered window on one side, and a pair of doors on the other, which match other German steam railcars, and was there to get coal into the bunker behind the boiler.

I have never traced whether the egger was based on a real prototype, but vaguely remember that mention was made of a metre gauge one that closely looked like it, possibly an article in railway Modeller.

Any body know the prototype?

Stephen.

[BernardTPM]

Apparently the prototypes were the Ruhr-Lippe Kleinbahnen metre gauge railcars number 31 & 32, built in 1907 by Waggonfabrik A.G. in Uerdingen, Germany  with power units by Lokomotivbau Hohenzollern (works numbers 2137 & 8). The model is very shortened as they were 15.92m or about 52ft long. Unfortunately the picture link I had has gone 404, but it had five windows where the model has two plus the louvred window or shutter doors not present on these particular railcars - each window was wider too. Really moire a case of inspired by than any kind of scale or near-scale representation.

[Dava]

They were cute models back in the 1960-70s but did not run well unless you were lucky. I have one in my heritage H0e collection. If I were considering remotoring one then an option is the Minitrains range based on Eggerbahn and dimensioanlly compatible but much better engineered. You pay modestly for quality. http://www.minitrains.eu/mt-diesel.html

 

Dava

[bertiedog]

This may be the quoted prototype then, metre gauge  RLK Steam Railcar, I have seen a closer photo match in the past, but as said, Egger designed it themselves!

 

 

There are many other German Steam Railcars, Dampf Treibwagon, but most are four wheeled, or with a four wheeled chassis and a leading small pony wheel. Only one axle drive on these types. M&F used to make a couple of very nice kits in H0 of Triebwagons in the 1970's/80's.

 

 

 

 

 

The modern Egger Chassis are a bit too expensive, and a scratch built custom one will operate just as well, and have stainless steel wheels, and no pickups, with return via bogie wheels. I am aiming at using a coreless motor on a gearbox made from gears removed from a digital camera auto focus gearbox, they have 2 start worm drive, then very fine spur gears to a final course gear. The motor original in a three pole, but can be swapped for coreless easily,

 

Original bogie

 

I will rough out the chassis later today, with side rods to couple the wheels, and spaced to take cylinders as well, although they barely show under the skirts.

 

Stephen.

[bertiedog]

Cleaned up shot of RK Triebwagon, it has no bogie at rear, only one axle, no skirts as Egger portrayed, but general details the same. I think I will leave a bogie, as it is the return pickup for power.

 

 

[bertiedog]

In taking apart one of the ex-digital camera gearboxes, the first gear is a worm set of suitable size, but they have used a two start worm, which reduces the 20 tooth gear to 10:1, a bit low for slow speed running, so a second stage must be added using the next spur gears in the chain, which give, on a quick check, about 3:1, which gives 30:1 overall, much better.

 

The motor is 6mm by 14mm coreless, with .5mm shaft, which matches the camera motor I am removing.

 

The gears are very fine pitch metric, about .2mod I think, may be a bit less, difficult to measure without a count and measuring the diameter. As they are all coming from the same gearbox, it does not really matter, they will all mesh up correctly.

 

Just have to juggle the parts around till they fit the available space.

 

I have decided to fit cylinders and side rods, the side rods save a lot of work on the chassis and make it more compact.

 

Stephen.

[BernardTPM]

Yes, that's the one. The cab part is reasonably close but the whole back section very much shortened. Having said that, they probably shrunk the whole thing down given the original was metre gauge - 9mm is more representative of 750/760mm and 2' 6" lines than metre.

Incidentally, the back bogie is Lima derived (there was some connection between the two companies, particularly for the Fiery Elias models) so if you want a more old-fashioned looking rear bogie you could substitute the Lima Mk.1 BR1 as they clip in the same way. On the other hand, a Kato bogie with integral pin-point pick-ups would give the potential for improving the running without adding drag.

[bertiedog]

The back bogie will have to be metal, brass and nickel, to do duty as the pickup return, I do not want any pickups running on the wheels, too much drag in 009 or N gauge.

Yes, Lima may have made parts, the dies etc., and they ended up with Jouef in France. All current production of the New Egger is in new moulds and redesigned totally on the mechanics.

I don't think Joeff made any Railcars, the ones they sold were old German stock clearance fro the Egger breakup.

 

Stephen.