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Benefits of rolling road

Captain Kernow

Entry posted by Captain Kernow

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I've had a rolling road for some time, but have always preferred to run locos in on a circle of track, in both OO and P4 gauges.

 

My 16XX (built from the old Cotswold kit, now available again from SE Finecast) was constructed a few years ago, but I've never been completely happy with the running.

 

I had given it what I considered to be a 'good running in' (several hours, all told) on my circle of P4 track, which has to be laid out on newspapers on the floor, but that didn't improve the quality of the running to the extent that I had hoped. The loco has a heavy whitemetal body, on a pair of Gibson 64XX milled frames (the wheelbase is the same as the 16XX, but the frames need to be slightly lengthened at one end and shortened at the other by the same amount to get the relationship between the axle centres and the splashers on the body right). It is driven by a Mashima motor via a High Level gearbox.

 

I've tinkered with the quartering and the side rods, but never quite managed to get the level of smooth running that I wanted.

 

A few months ago, however, when I was doing more work at my workbench and could keep an eye on proceedings, I decided that I had nothing to lose by putting the loco on the Bachrus rolling road and giving it a significant spell of running forwards and backwards.

 

blogentry-57-0-08447700-1516635025.jpg

 

At the end of that process, given the running on the rolling road under the control of my Gaugemaster (DC) controller, I was still sceptical, but I hadn't tried it on a piece of track and under the control of my slow speed hand-held controller until this afternoon.

 

Whilst still not quite 'perfect', I was pleased to see that the running was better than I had expected, so rather than rush into building a Branchlines chassis for it (the parts for which I obtained earlier this year), I will persevere with another spell on the rolling road and see how that goes.

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sigtech

I'm seriously considering purchasing a secondhand 'Bachrus 50'series Rolling Road ('Loco Stands' as they call them )when one appears on Ebay.

Seems like a Good result Captain- nice model.

Regards

(SIGTECH)

Steve.

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Tim V

After all that running, it should be perfect. Suspect a discrepancy between coupling rod centres/wheelbase.

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Captain Kernow
  • RMweb Gold

After all that running, it should be perfect. Suspect a discrepancy between coupling rod centres/wheelbase.

Quite right, and it is almost good enough.

 

The coupling rod centres and wheelbase should match exactly, though, due to the use of a jig during construction.

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Regularity
  • RMweb Gold

The coupling rod centres and wheelbase should match exactly, though, due to the use of a jig during construction.

How did dancing help?

 

...is that my taxi?

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