Mainline locos

[Dave00]

 

Hi everyone, I have a mainline manor class that needs new axles. I have a wheel quartering jig but can't use as the wheel stubs are too large for it. Does anyone know who sells one that will take a 5mm axle? Not sure whether to try and make one myself? Any help would be appreciated. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Once these roughly forty year old RTR mechanisms start falling apart, you might consider that it is wearing out, and be better occupied constructing a replacement mechanism from kit parts? With a wheel quartering jig and thoughts of building a specific jig, I would guess at a degree of handiness? The real trouble with these mechanisms is that they have multiple weaknesses, and as fast as you fix one...

[SVR C & W]

I'm sure somewhere on here it has been shown you can fit a Hornby Grange chassis into a Manor. 

[Butler Henderson]

Replacement axle centres are available from Bachmann (unless they have run out) and Peters Spares.

[The Johnster]

The Hornby Grange should fit, but will need a bit of fettling and jiggerypokery no doubt. as will the Large Prairie, which may or may not be more or less the same thing.  My experience with Mainline chassis is that they have a limited life expectancy and once they start giving trouble, will find new ways of continuing to.  The upcoming Dapol Mogul and Large Prairie are other possibilities.

[Dave00]

Thanks guys for your replies, but all I need is a wheel quartering jig that will take 5mm axles. 

[cypherman]

Hi,

Possibly your best bet is looking for a second hand chassis. You know from that place that no one dares say it's name...….

[The Johnster]

Secondhand Mainline locos are easy enough to find on the Site That Dare Not Speak It's Name, which I describe here as 'Bay, and are often quite cheap, but there is a reason for this.  It is that their owners have become aware that the mechanisms have a limited service life and that modern replacements are more reliable and perform better, and no doubt in some cases problems have already started to rear their head even when the loco is described as a runner.  Personally, I'd avoid any secondhand Mainline whatever the source; the best you'll do is to defer the problems.  A secondhand Hornby Grange as a chassis donor, on the other hand, will be much more use to you, but it'll cost you more as well!  As they tell you when you want to buy a small motorboat, there's no such thing as a free launch...

 

Mainline designed a split chassis at a time when scratchbuilders were employing such devices and enthusing about them in magazines.  A properly designed and built split chassis with a coreless motor is in theory capable of completely free running with no friction whatever, and phenomenal slow running was achieved by some builders.  Mainline, sadly, used a combination of cheap poor quality plastic spur gear drive to reduce the gearing from the very fast speed their small motors had to run at to develop sufficient power (it still didn't develop sufficient power and they weren't the only ones; Lima and Hornby employed similar mechanisms in those days), and plastic stub axles to achieve split current pickup.  The gears split or went out of alignment, and the wheels would go out of quarter if you looked at them a bit harshly, so the stub axles wore out where they interfaced with the plastic axle centres.  And the axles, running in channels in the brass chassis blocks instead of proper brass bearings, wore the channel through to the top at which point the loco seized irreversably; this happened to 3 of mine!  In other words, it was a good idea spoiled by poor quality build and materials.

 

Split chassis are still used on some models, but their reputation and popularity has been seriously lessened by experience with Mainline locos.  Bachmann, Mainline's successors, do not use them AFAIK in anything.

 

'Conventional' open frame motors driving through worm and cog gears, the predecessors of modern can motors with integral gearboxes, were out of favour as being expensive to manufacture and taking up a lot of room; much store was being placed at the time in having cabs without motors protruding into them so that there could be detail there, and in having daylight visible beneath boilers or between frames.  This is the reason for the small pancake motors and spur reduction gears,  Airfix continued with traditional motors and drives, but used pancake motors and plastic spur gears in tender drives.

 

It's worth remembering how crude RTR models were before the likes of Mainline and Airfix started giving us brake and other detail below the footplate instead of just plain wheels, and abandoned flangeless centre drivers before being too critical of Mainline, who were breaking new ground and one of the companies that revolutionised RTR in the late 70s and early 80s; we have them and Airfix to thank for the very good models we are now able to take out of boxes and run.  

[Butler Henderson]

The mechanisms were a Kader standard rather then being specifically designed by Palitoy (Mainline). Many overlook the Triang Hornby Rocket which also used a split chassis albeit of more robust construction.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

7 hours ago, Dave00 said:

Thanks guys for your replies, but all I need is a wheel quartering jig that will take 5mm axles. 

I may be wrong, but don't know of such a thing for OO. Kader's split chassis wheelsets have nothing in common with the axle diameters usual on steel axle construction wheelsets, whether RTR or kit parts.

Edited May 19, 2019 by 34theletterbetweenB&D