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peach james

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Everything posted by peach james

  1. Remember that you have to get your fat fingers (or some assembly jig) into place to put it together- and what can be done in 12"/ft may not be possible in 1"/ft. More than once, we've been burned by that. Or just simply drawing errors...of course, with homemade engines, it's easy to blame the draftsman, but hard to find the envelope with the uncorrected drawing on it. (or weetabix box...) I remain in awe of what you and CF (Tim) are and have done with live steam engines. They are not what I'm doing, but the art that you are putting into the technical makes it well worth looking at. James
  2. Andi, perhaps you can post a photo of the 83 FB side by side of the 75 BH ? I noticed that the 75 BH was absent ^, but I don't have any 83 FB.
  3. I'm very fortunate, I have the basement, and my wife has a barn. We had a mini horse, who unfortunately died ~8 years ago. We haven't gotten another horse, but that's because we have two monkeys instead (two children, 11 and 16 years old, both ASD, and both...lots of entertaining !) She's fairly supportive of my hobbies...and only threatens to murder me about once a week
  4. Lots of coverage on todays OK the PK about the various sought remedies. There's been good coverage from OK the PK on this over the last week- Slim does a good job of picking up the leads and following them out.
  5. About 50 lbf, would be my educated guess- if anything, a bit less than that, but that depends on the weight on the trucks. Generally, models run out of grip before they run out of ummph to move. (or at least that's most of my experience on 3.5" gauge). Tmin=Pc*C^2* 0.785398 * S * D (For a _2_ cylindered engine...) Where Tmin= Minimum TE in cycle Pc= Cylinder Pressure (generally use .85 boiler pressure) C= cylinder bore 0.785398 (is a conversion factor) S= Stroke D= Diameter of wheels So, 76.5*1.66*2.16/6.6 =40.9 lbf (if 2 cylinders) So, sanity check says somewhere around 1/4th the weight on the drivers should sound about right. I can say that the math I did for the 5" I have to put together is a lot more than that...on a 0-4-0 0-4-0 (it's also a clearly inferior product, as Pete's loco is _astounding_ in its details). https://www.jghtech.com/assets/applets/LFLSRM-Tractive-Force-Article-current.pdf
  6. Think of the direction of forces- if the tank is moving sideways with enough delta to need chains, then the train is probably derailed... They'd have at least 1/4 G resisting any sideways forces.
  7. There's more than one- though less than there used to be... Crofton, Harmac on the big island, Port Mellon in Howe Sound, Powell River are still barge served. Port Alice & Gold River are both former sites. (Crofton : https://www.google.com/maps/place/Port+Mellon,+BC/@48.8740868,-123.6431969,217m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x548646f4bd5c45d9:0x2ced208c5d646c7b!8m2!3d49.5217479!4d-123.4880589!5m1!1e4 with a barge )
  8. Also the barge for the island (and the isolated pulp mills) docks there.
  9. #@$@#$ Scotch Broom. Why, oh WHY ! did Captain Grant have to like the @#$@#$ stuff ? https://www.coastalisc.com/scotch-broom/ (All the Scotch Broom in BC can be traced by DNA to 3 plants...)
  10. While a 14xx is big and powerful, it's not disproportionately so- a big roller is >16 tons, on road, vs 41 tons (~30 tons on the drivers). Since TE for a road engine can be as high as weight, in a tug of war situation, I wouldn't want to bet which one goes which way. Rollers are slipperier than RL's, at least in the 50's before the comparatively modern practice of putting rubber shoes on them (*), but as to who wins, I think it might be a bit closer than you'd think. The headstock on the roller will loose, but I suspect the best line to describe such an event is: War does not determine who is right. War determines who is left. It's not like a Roller vs Mini, or 14xx vs Car, in which case there is going to be one looser only. James (*) I am aware of the roller on Lancaster wheels, and I think there was a Sentinel engined one pre-war, but it's far more a last 20 years thing to put rubber on roller wheels)
  11. So, one aspect that I have done is to put the trees onto pins in the landscape, rather than planting them with roots. One aspect of this is that you can kind of "bed" them into the grass if they are semi permanent, but if you ever need to remove them to move the layout around, it is possible and all one is left with is a series of pins in the landscape, and a bunch of trees to store somewhere... It's a really quiet job to glue tufts onto the branches- it takes for ever to do. Kind of like welding ties on the Canadian Puget Sound (which is what I'm doing this winter...section #7 of the curves is tacked right now down below) James
  12. I'd suggest taking a look at Physicsman's thread, because it goes into quite some depth about building a viaduct (and walls...) out of DAS over plywood. (please ignore the image presented ^, no-one seems to know where it came from, not even Andy Y !)
  13. Up to 21 lb of filler wire used so far. I have to change over the roll on the MIG, and carry on with the next piece
  14. You should have tried an Armstrong-Whitworth ! Dad, I think, is still in love with Big Johnny, the Fowler that LJB had. (FF 4912). Not as much as HIS tractor though, 7529
  15. 1: change the cylinder block. 2: add a generator 3: call it a showmans. Oh, wait...no, that's something ELSE that's likely to start a flame war ! Different cylinder block, different arrangement of valve gear. On a 4mm scale model, mostly just altering the cylinder block, make it more "square" on the LHS, rather than rounded, knock the cover off the front to make it square too. I would suggest thinning the rear tyres down too...they look stupid thick to my eyes. If you are going all out, the distance between the cylinder block and the chimney appears a bit big too- as well as the cylinder block being offset too far (the exhaust on the real one is straight into the chimney, not offset- I don't know enough to know, but would make an assumption that is because the engine blocks porting on the piston valve engine is offset to the outside, and to the inside on the slide valve version. (the internal porting _is_ different, as 99% of piston valves are inside admission, vice outside admission for slide valves...)
  16. Once on a time, say, about 1988-93, I used to exhibit a Thomas layout. It was 4x6, (or 1200x2400mm) which exceeds your space by quite a bit. Later on, I moved on to building my own, which sits on 60x60" (actually, 60.25x60.25"). I can confirm that the Hornby Thomas, Percy, Duck, James, Bill, Ben, Oliver will all comfortably run around 15" curves, because that's what is on it. (Strangely, I don't think I have any photos...certainly not many...) So, building a layout that sits in 90 cm wide is practical. I used Peco turnouts- I think a mixture of setrack small turnouts, and one curved one, which might be Hornby rather than Peco (it certainly isn't the long radius Peco curved turnout...). In 60x60, I had 5 loops in the back, and a passing loop on the front, with Faller road on it. (and it was all automated, with Lego Mindstorms RCX's (x3) to run it automatically...not DCC). If I was going for a layout for kids, I would try to make it so they can configure it- it's a pain in the buttocks in some ways, but good in others. I would look at KATO Unitrack, or Bachmann EZ Track (yes, spelled like that...), and go from there- both of them are designed to be taken apart and put back together many times, whereas the UK systems (Hornby and Peco) are not as good for that. If you want to attach the track to something for now, that would make sense, just do it in a way that you can recover the track later for them to have at it on their own, would be my suggestion. (use white glue, something that water will remove ? Or over here, draft stop calking, which can be peeled off when they get to wanting to "change" the layout on their own...) My (then 8 year old- now 11 !) has a Kato N gauge loop in the bedroom in OO9 (N gauge, OO scale) that he occasionally plays with- both of my minions are far more about the easy to use than the more traditional, as my 16 year old dragged out the box of wooden railway and it's currently set up all over the living room floor. (both my two children are autistic- and killing a childhood by saying no, you are too old for that seems like a daft thing for someone with 450 000 pieces of lego to try to do !). So, I would say stay DC with a single controller for now, and that yes, a loop that goes away under the bed is perfectly practical. I would use a non traditional baseboard material (some form of plastic) for the top surface to allow to remove the track in 2-4 years, and my preference would be Unitrack. It is not cheap, but there are a couple of advantages that I can see for a kids layout over the traditional track- 1: it has built in ballast for laying onto the floor (if carpeted) 2: it is fairly easy to connect/disconnect 3: it is engineered to be connected/disconnected 4: resale is likely possible if they decide to get out of it, probably at 1/4 of what was paid in. https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/magento/catalogsearch/result/?q=kato+unitrack+2-260 or Bachmann EZ track- Rails carry it: https://railsofsheffield.com/products/Bachmann-trains-44505-e-z-track-15-radius-curved-track-4card?_pos=1&_sid=427bef5c0&_ss=r I hope you get enough info to help you- remember that asking for opinions on here, you are likely to get at least 1 more than posters ! James
  17. " JPR scores again, and god said "You should have been specific" " !
  18. Just for a note here- the throttle on 70038 in OO is droopy too... so it's a Hornby "feature" (?)
  19. Having played at the experimental part of model engineering... 1: High pressure steam (>300 PSI) means a water tube boiler. Tried. Several times. See Sentinel for examples. See Fury, CPR and D&H (US) for examples of multi pass systems running high pressures. In conjunction with that is the triple point of steam, which is about 3200 PSI. There are stationary plants which run above that for efficiency (n) reasons. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_steam_generator ) Water tube boilers in railway applications have had a storied history of failure. Sentinel made at least 6 locos with them, and a series of railcars. They also appear in Hush-Hush, and the abovementioned Jawn Henry. 2: Turbines. Turbines are less efficient than steam at lower power outputs. Even the Cofflin CG pumps we had used an "excessive" amount of steam in comparison to the HP generated- they ran about 10 000 lb/hr for 600 hp (or about 17 lb/hr) in comparison to high speed reciprocating steam which could manage as low as 14 lb/hr. As you get smaller than 600 HP (the CG pumps come quite a bit smaller- they were used on the SAR class 25's for feed pumps), the steam demand doesn't drop that much. Similarly, dad recounts fitting a Stones lighting dyno onto 8122, and said it was rather a hungry beast for 500w of electricity...small turbines suffer from inherent losses which make them less desirable than you may think. Traction turbines have to face the same problem as Naval turbines- varying speeds, but with the added horror of varying loads at varying speeds. 3: we ran 600 PSI operating pressure, 865 F superheat temperature (full power), on HMCS Protecteur. This was a GE designed plant, from the 1960's. The USN ran some steam at 1200 PSI. (the Leahy & Belknap classes, and the SL7's) . Y-100's ran at 550 PSI (RCN, RAN and RN versions). --------- Turbines are ill suited to the demand profile of railway operation. So too are water tube boilers. Just the wrong tool for the job, like picking up a wrench to use as a hammer. While open reciprocating steam engines probably were near their limits as per the Standard classes, there isn't a great easy replacement for them. Steam-Electric combines the worst of just about every world- the book "Rails Remembered Volume 4" is about Jawn Henry, and the tribulations it suffered. Suffice to say, putting the power plant on the ground and stringing wires makes more sense than trying to move it all around in a 12x12x150' box. James
  20. That would be Saturday . Fortunately, my parents are married, so I'd not know all the custom of the wierdroom PO2 James Powell, RCN (Retired)
  21. I'm still at it- the heap of rail has been cut to lengths for curves, so I have 3x tied 120" pieces, 7 not yet tied, & 10 each of 120 - 0.320", 119", 118 7/16", with neat 1/4" holes at one end of each one. Next step will be welding one of the -.320 pieces on, and seeing how they look for length. Hopefully I've got it right this time, if I have then it's back onto the drill press and out with the holes on the 120 and -.320 pieces, and the hot melt glue gun (MIG welder) gets used... I've had to dig into the stash of tieplates at home for more of them- I'm on my second lot that I brought in. James
  22. The one the image is of has (what looks to me) to be sensibly designed stairs as well, for those able to manage them.
  23. David, it depends... The larger ones here are in a no-mans land between vehicle and medical aid, the same as motorized wheelchairs. I know, there's one sitting in one of my sea cans right now...fortunately currently surplus to requirements. I think generally, there hasn't been a huge movement to do anything about them because it is more convenient as it is. Certainly, there are drivers (using that term deliberately !) of the larger ones who shouldn't be let loose on them, but its the last vestige of their freedom. The slower ones (the "4 mph" ones, per se) are generally not seen except in shopping areas around here, whereas there was a fatal accident between one of the bigger ones and a dump truck not that long ago in Langford. (4 ? years ago). Reading the RAIB report on the Alice Halt incident makes it clear to me that RAIB views the current standards as being acceptable, and that it doesn't seem to warrant a huge change, but that incremental changes (not having a 90% corner to traverse that then blinds the operator...) are justifiable. Practically, I think that the RAIB has it about balanced right when you look at what they are saying- look at the usage of the footpath crossing to determine what is required to make it safe. James
  24. You can use either a DB168 or a SE8C. If you use the BD4N's, be aware, all they do is provide an occupancy- no feedback into Loconet. You have to use a DS64,DS74 or DS78V (or a SE8C) to put the inputs into Loconet. The BD4N replaces the BD4, which was cheaper and easier to wire... Yes, you can use the BD4N to drive a remote panel LED. If it was me, and I wanted to sense the above, the answer would be "it depends", because if you are using Zimo decoders, I would go with something which does RailCom, so that you "could" automate the staging yard. James
  25. With 2 detection sections per loop, you don't need to worry- sketch out the track plan : ______|_0__|__________0_______|____ -----0-----/--------|--0--|-------------0----------|-------\-----0---- (train enters here) (with each 0 = a sensor block) and think it through- you don't need to know anything but the front and rear of the train for the software part. Basically, you have the software driving the train until it hits the short "stop" detect, and that's it...it should be able to be done by hand as well, with LED's providing the indication. If the rear of the train is still on the turnout on the RHS, then drive the train forward until it clears- and if it fires the LHS detection, then you have gone too far. I'm unsure how easy it will be to run as an automatic unless it is done with either RailCOM or Transponding (r) on the first block to identify the decoder ID required. (ABC using Diodes would be easier, in some ways...). James
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