Jump to content
 

SL&NCR Railcar B


33lima
 Share

Recommended Posts

I'm the very lucky soon to be owner of this Railcar B.I remember talking to the late Michael Hamilton in 1999 about his time on the railway.Little did I know I would be getting this model as I'm sure 33 Lima might have second taughts about parting with it.Im sure every one that has watched the build would agree it was lovely to see it come to life just fantastic.Thank you again Ivor

Railcar nut.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder who gets the greater personal satisfaction:-   The owner admiring the thing or the person who designed and made it?.

 

A minor suggestion,  - maybe a bit late now.   I see the exposed brass drive worm.   I suggest a cover over it.   I have had oil/grease being flung off from the worm by centrifugal force making a mess of the insides of windows.

 

I have a question:-   What are the actual radii of the 'first radius', 'second radius', 'third radius' etc.?.   I am not familiar with those designations.

My own version of SL&NCR  'B' can go round curves of slightly less than 24" radius, the limitation being the skirts around the rear bogie.

 

Jeremy.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder who gets the greater personal satisfaction:- The owner admiring the thing or the person who designed and made it?.

 

A minor suggestion, - maybe a bit late now. I see the exposed brass drive worm. I suggest a cover over it. I have had oil/grease being flung off from the worm by centrifugal force making a mess of the insides of windows.

 

I have a question:- What are the actual radii of the 'first radius', 'second radius', 'third radius' etc.?. I am not familiar with those designations.

My own version of SL&NCR 'B' can go round curves of slightly less than 24" radius, the limitation being the skirts around the rear bogie.

 

Jeremy.

Hi fletchj1

Railcar B will be running on a straight shuttle track leaving a platform and entering a tunnel.I will post a video of it running around the layout before it takes up its final home on the layout and as for the greatest satisfaction I'd have to give that to 33 Lima.

Edited by Railcar
Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder who gets the greater personal satisfaction:-   The owner admiring the thing or the person who designed and made it?.

 

A minor suggestion,  - maybe a bit late now.   I see the exposed brass drive worm.   I suggest a cover over it.   I have had oil/grease being flung off from the worm by centrifugal force making a mess of the insides of windows.

 

I have a question:-   What are the actual radii of the 'first radius', 'second radius', 'third radius' etc.?.   I am not familiar with those designations.

My own version of SL&NCR  'B' can go round curves of slightly less than 24" radius, the limitation being the skirts around the rear bogie.

 

Jeremy.

 

 

Hi Jeremy

 

[Hornby] 1st radius is 'trainset' stuff, 14 5/8 inch radius, tho some of their bigger trainsets have 2nd radius curves, 17 1/4 inch, which is also the radius of the turnout in their standard (non-'express) points'. All doubtless anathema to people who play with model railways not trainsets. As one who preferred Tri-ang Super 4 'girder' track to Dublo 2-rail, and still has a soft spot for the former product, I entertain no such affectations :mosking: 

 

It would be easy for Michael to pop something over the open top of the worm gear housing should that prove needed, as the cab is just a push-fit. The worm drive is at the very back of the cab with the rear half covered by the dummy corridor connection. Apart from the end bushing and the open top it's well boxed in so I hope it'll be ok and the driver figure won't be complaining about being sprayed with hot lubricant. A sound chip with intermittent loud swearing sounds would be an alternative, perhaps? :)

 

Ivor

Link to post
Share on other sites

Effectively a standard gauge Donegal car but with a rear cab and proper reverse gear. A shame the last Donegal/WC cars weren't built like this as they'd have been much more useful on the isle of man (and their home systems). The Australian cars were a further development of railcar B.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ivor,

Thank you for that.

The Australian versions were the end of the evolutionary line for the Walkers railcar designs.   Although the later Australian ones were a bit more powerful they were still under powered and slow by modern standards.   The twin underfloor engine cars, pioneered by LMS No.1 were much more capable as they were better powered and capable of higher speeds.   The lack of an engine compartment also gave more usable space for passengers.

 

I stay away from unrealistic 'trainset' comically tight curves.

 

Concerning the Tri-Ang Super 4 track:-   I assume that is necessary to accommodate their huge flanges.  Why did they make the flanges so big?.   A friend over here has a lot of Tri-Ang rolling stock which does not run properly on ordinary code 100 track.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd guess the deep flanges and the coarse track helped avoid the kiddywinkes getting derailments, especially on track laid on less than even surfaces. Consider they started as train sets made in 1950 for Marks and Spencer's Xmas trade. I think by the late 1950s the Tri-ang flanges were reduced, this was certainly welcomed in the model press of the time. But needing to keep things backward-compatible meant it took until the System 6 track of the late 1960s for track standards to begin to leave the older, deep-flanged stock behind.

 

I have a well-worn ex-eBay Tri-ang Princess dating from about 1960 (came with a Blue Pullman centre car, which is what I was really after) and the flanges are not too bad, the main problem is the major inaccuracies in outline, inherited from the original moulding. Still, if I'd had one back in the early 1960s it would have been the pride of my layout, trumping my original Dublo 0-6-0T green R1 Class (finescale wheels notwithstanding) not to mention my Tri-ang Davy Crocket wild west mogul, and my brother's Blue Pullman (complete with milled driving wheel tyres, none of this modern quiet stuff).

Edited by 33lima
Link to post
Share on other sites

Lima 33,

First I have express my admiration for all the excellent rail car models you have made.   They actually look like the real things!.  Apart from the detail I particularly like the quality and accuracy of the painting.    Great pity almost none of the prototypes survived and I blame this partly on the 'steam and nothing but steam' mentality of a certain well known group of preservationists.

 

I could say I missed out on the Tri-Ang mega-rail & flange as I really didn't get into any sort of modelling until well after more realistic standards came in.   As you say they have a toy train heritage.   I actually started out with a Hornby gauge 'O' wind up tinplate effort which certainly had flanges like dinner plates.  It was of course a toy train and to be accepted as that.  I didn't rise to the more up market Hornby Dublo which was the only alternative at the time.

 

Nowadays the elite are into much greater precision with the likes of 'P4'  which demands great precision in track work.     That is away beyond my level and I am quite content to blunder on with RP 25 wheels which run fine on ordinary 'OO/HO' track (code 100 as it is now known).   Of course many of the more advanced modellers go for finer (code 83 etc.) track which is more realistic but I am not going to rip up mine and re- lay it all at this stage.

 

Another question:-  Why do so many model railway operators over there run their trains so fast?.   Is it a hangover from earlier days when motors and speed controls were 'all or nothing'. 

 

Regards.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Back in the 1990s I re-acquired a Mecano 'Marshall III' power controller, and one of its features was a 'pulse' power setting that enabled slower running at any given 'notch'. Not that I used it at the time. With no flywheels and maybe three-pole motors, and fewer pickups, I suspect we who started out with the trainsets of that era learned to accelerate quickly - and then keep up the speed, to avoid stuttering over points and crossings.

 

These days, thinking of the layouts at the two exhibitions I was at recently, I wasn't conscious of unrealistic acceleration or top speeds. And watching the CAF DMUs today at Botanic with that in mind, it was notable how quickly they moved, decelerated and accelerated. And that was on something pretty close to the full-size equivalent of train set curves! If not quite as pronounced as seen here at Central, taken on an October 2012 trip to get some snaps of the 450 Class DEMUs stored there pending disposal.

 

post-15566-0-32488100-1506112556_thumb.jpg

 

post-15566-0-75810300-1506112809_thumb.jpg

 

Agreed that the 'steam or nothing' approach was disastrous for UTA-operated railcars in particular. Granted it was on a GNRI underframe but armchair general or not, I was not best pleased recently when I found out the fate of the last surviving recognisable MPD I snapped at Whitehead in 1992 - despite also being a recognisable representative of NCC North Atlantic Express stock - was to be cut up in the mid 1990s.

 

post-15566-0-89865500-1506113233_thumb.jpg

Edited by 33lima
Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Agreed that the 'steam or nothing' approach was disastrous for UTA-operated railcars in particular. Granted it was on a GNRI underframe but armchair general or not, I was not best pleased recently when I found out the fate of the last surviving recognisable MPD I snapped at Whitehead in 1992 - despite also being a recognisable representative of NCC North Atlantic Express stock - was to be cut up in the mid 1990s.

 

attachicon.gifNIR MPD trailer 532, RPSI Whitehead, 1991 -2.jpg

 

I hate to have to point out that MPD Trailer 532 was never a representative of NCC North Atlantic Express stock, it was never even an NCC Coach, having been built by the UTA in 1951 as a J16 Corridor 3rd number 304, for The Festival Express.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you Nelson, that's praise indeed, coming from someone who has mastered his craft so young!

 

Some final pics, think the only difference here is that the cab door handrails are now picked out in aluminium and the corner cab wiper is in place:

 

post-15566-0-88781900-1506236791_thumb.jpg

 

post-15566-0-17696400-1506236801_thumb.jpg

 

post-15566-0-63961600-1506236809_thumb.jpg

 

post-15566-0-92559300-1506236819_thumb.jpg

 

Anyway at the risk of sounding pretentious, the model is hereby dedicated to the memories of Paddy Nevin her usual and dedicated driver, and Michael Hamilton who rode in her as guard and left us his precious recollections of her. And to the infectious enthusiasm and kindness of Michael 'Railcar' W, without whom this particular model would not exist.

Edited by 33lima
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Great job on the railcar, lovely.

Was the prototype a standard-gauge version of the final County Donegal vehicles, or a completely different design?

Thanks, Dave.

Railcar B had a more sophisticated transmission and control system than the Donegal railcars. Walkers designed and built a series of single and double ended broad gauge railcars for the GNR during the 1930s. The single ended broad and narrow gauge railcars had/have a manual gearbox with truck style controls, the double ended railcars, Railcar B and the postwar Victoria railcars had a fluid flywheel, self changing epicycle gear box similar to the pre-war GWR railcars.

 

The GNR tended to use the single ended cars on branch and secondary lines in the Border Counties, the double ended cars on Belfast and Dublin suburban services and the important Newry-Warrenpoint branch. 

 

There is a possibility that Railcar B may at some stage be restored, the car was vandalised while stored at Limerick Junction during the 1970s the skeleton of railcar B survives on the Downpatrick and County Down ,

 

Examples of both the single and double ended Walker broad railcars have been restored in Victoria.

Link to post
Share on other sites

As regards "trainset" curves,  those shown in the pics of central and so on, would, in 4mm be at least something like 4-5 foot  radius!!  Our Mk3 coaches are 75' (300mm) long - think of the overhangs and how far the doors would actually be from the track.  I have a station on a  3' curve and carriage doors still look much too far from the platform edges - the gap being about a scale 2 feet!  Even  our 3rd radius  curves would, on the real thing, be the curve where an 0-4-0 tank could just about get a few short wheelbase wagons round....

 

Colm

Link to post
Share on other sites

First  Lima 33.    I have to admire the skills in converting those power bogies (Tri-Ang etc.) to power your rail cars.   A lot of tedious work.    I have made various gearboxes etc. for my own rail cars and they are very time consuming to say the least of it.

 

Looking at your excellent Rail car 'B' makes me think it is time for me to 'spruce up' my own version!.

 

Concerning those numbered curves:-  I could venture that most of those, apart from the very largest radii, are primarily part of the 'train set' world as most regular modellers would be using flex track instead.   

What is the biggest radius for numbered curves anyway?.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...