Station start without the "hand of God"

[melmerby]

8 minutes ago, Playing trains with kids said:

PS I love the expression "heritage fleet."

 

"Heritage Fleet"

Definition:

1. Pile of old tat that looks crap and doesn't run properly.

2. Scrap condition items usually sold on e-bay as "collectable", "rare" etc.

 

Just park them in the sidings to make it look busy

[TheQ]

This lot are definitely not old Tat, nor scrap items.

Norfolk's Heritage fleet.. 

https://www.huntersyard.co.uk/our-boats/

[andyman7]

9 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Which of course raises the question as to why Hornby and Lima churned out models with the same fault for 30 years.

Because it was cheaper to make (weight = heavier transport costs, extra pickups =  higher manufacturing costs). Interestingly the original Hornby 'Silver Seal' models from the early 1970s with the Mk1 Ringfield motor had more pickups, but complex soldered internal wiring. This was all simplified and downgraded later in the 70s to try and keep costs down in an era of high inflation.

[kevinlms]

8 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

Because it was cheaper to make (weight = heavier transport costs, extra pickups =  higher manufacturing costs). Interestingly the original Hornby 'Silver Seal' models from the early 1970s with the Mk1 Ringfield motor had more pickups, but complex soldered internal wiring. This was all simplified and downgraded later in the 70s to try and keep costs down in an era of high inflation.

The counter to that argument is that the US market had been making a far more reliable and better hauling chassis for years.

The Athearn diesel chassis was miles ahead of the equivalent British market.

 

The key difference was that Hornby & Lima considered themselves to be in the toy market. But even by the 80s, that was no longer true, as evidenced by the increasingly common batch production of different numbers/liveries. I know as I have some, but gave up on that lark! Every issue of Railway Modeller, would have several different liveries of the same models.

Personally, I went the other way and started chopping up loco chassis & rejoining, so I could rebuild them as diesels with 2 power bogies. As others have suggested, this was one way of creating, far more reliable models.

[andyman7]

Yes, it was market specific. The US model railroad market was larger so had economies of scale but also the market expectation of weight, all wheel drive and all wheel pickup. Indeed the initial UK Bachmann Branchline revolution was to transplant one of these mechanisms in the erstwhile Mainline 'Peak' loco in 1991 creating a sensation in terms of transformed running. 

The German market demanded much higher engineering standards  (and would pay higher prices) - technically mechanisms such as used by Fleischmann were broadly similar to UK Lima and Hornby but came with all wheel pick up, were much more substantially engineered and it showed in the running. 

Interestingly the French market was always more toy-like too so it does seem to have been a feedback loop of market delivery fuelling expectations.

You just need to look at the intense debates on price re UK model railways to see that there is still a limit as to what many consider a reasonable price to pay for UK RTR that often falls short of prices abroad. 

 

[tomparryharry]

13 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Which of course raises the question as to why Hornby and Lima churned out models with the same fault for 30 years.

 

Because they could get away with it!

[Jeff Smith]

Maybe that is why there is a world of difference between modelling in the US and the UK.  Perhaps US modellers did not need to resort to innovation as the models performed so well.  To my knowledge there is no cottage industry producing/marketing replacement chassis, motors, gearboxes, wheels, etc.  Andy Reichert's Proto:87 is the only one I know of.  HO track is the correct gauge so other than finer track there is no need for improved gauge accuracy.  The UK modelling scene is probably a direct result of poor quality and incorrect gauge......

[Theakerr]

3 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

Maybe that is why there is a world of difference between modelling in the US and the UK.  Perhaps US modellers did not need to resort to innovation as the models performed so well.  To my knowledge there is no cottage industry producing/marketing replacement chassis, motors, gearboxes, wheels, etc.  Andy Reichert's Proto:87 is the only one I know of.  HO track is the correct gauge so other than finer track there is no need for improved gauge accuracy.  The UK modelling scene is probably a direct result of poor quality and incorrect gauge......

At some point there was a significant aftermarket industry for up-grade and kits for non-available locomotives in North America.  I recently helped breakup a large layout started in the 60's and there were all kinds of stuff from re-motorizing kits, etched detailing and cast bits, re-wheeling, decals for re-numbering, etc.  When I first got back into Model Railways in about 1980,  we started with NA outline, then I saw some Hornby stuff at a show in Winnipeg and it was quiet superior to the NA stuff, so we went UK.  I would say that within 5 to 7  years the NA was street ahead of the Hornby stuff and it is only now that Hornby (and Bachmann) are getting close.  Some of the US stuff is un-believable but for the most part the prices are not too bad.   

[DCB]

On 24/09/2020 at 03:07, BR60103 said:

 

Older motors had a characteristic called "JackRabbit start".  The motor needed more volts to start than to run at minimum speed. There was a feature in power packs called "pulse power" which was half wave DC  where only half the AC was rectified. This was supposed to act like a lot of little blows on the motor to get it spinning. The pulse was supposed to be turned off after a point because it made the motor heat up.

 

 

Hammant and Morgan produced variable Transformers which delivered between about 5 and 13 volts through the control knob off load with half wave for slow speed and a 13 volt push button for starting.  Half wave and a jab on the button would produce good starts and slow running as long as you practised , and every loco needed a different treatment.  Some had variwave so you could blend from half to full wave seamlessly.  Sadly they fell foul of legislation cost a fortune to make, and were a bit gutless, but they are the best I have found for Triang XO4 motors.

A lot of that need for more volts to start than run was / is due to mechanical resistance,   The motors themselves start easily enough off load.  The Ring Field motors  are actually pretty good starters but their spur gears are awful, decent gears, properly supported as used by the Germans and another 2:1 reduction would probably sort the Hornby and Lima power bogies out but at present the motor tries to turn the gears bind up mechanical resistance turn into electrical resistance and any poor contact anywhere means it don't start.   

[Jeff Smith]

Also,to be brutally frank about current pick-up, a rigid chassis probably ends up with three point contact on the rails, two one side and one the other, so one grain of sand or spot if debris under the one wheel will do it.  This is actually more prevalent with rigid kit built chassis where there is no slop - RTR chassis tend to have slop, presumably to try and avoid this.  This is a good reason to build-in compensation in an attempt to keep all the wheels on the track at the same time.

[The Johnster]

Good, smooth starting is a big ask of a DC loco, and a major cause of frustration if it doesn’t happen.  There you are, all expectation, carefully turning the control knob, waiting for something to happen, and waiting for something to happen, and w...

 

The mechanism is being asked to overcome it’s own mechanical friction and inertia on the lowest possible current that it is capable of moving with, and pull a train; any more will result in a jerk start.  Even the best designed and built mechs (and modern ones are very well designed and built indeed) need all the help they can get, a perfect storm of track that is laid level and aligned perfectly to the next piece, and clean, pickups properly adjusted, clean wheel treads and backs, and a free running chassis with no tight spots (you are at an advantage here if you do not run steam outline locos. 
 

1980s locos have several disadvantages; the market was demanding more realism, which meant cab detail and ‘see through’ bogie frames, and, on steam outline locos, daylight visible beneath the boilers; the old open frame motors with worm/cog drive  no longer cut the mustard.  Pancake motors (marketed as ‘ringfield’ though they were very different from the old Hornby Dublo ringfield motors) mounted vertically were the trade’s answer, but to develop sufficient power they needed to run at high revs and drive through trains of reduction gears to the traction wheels, increasing mechanical friction right where you needed it least, and which even then often had to be fitted with traction tyres, which meant that that axle could not pick up current at all and often lifted the other wheels off the track preventing them from picking up as well, to pull trains. 
 

They were a poor design to start with, compromised further by poor material choices for the transmissions (split nylon gears were common), designed and built down to a cost.  The availability of cheap can motors of sufficient power at low revs eventually enabled Chinese manufacturers to produce the very smooth and reasonably powerful performances we have come to expect from RTR.  
 

Things are much better than they were, but owners of layouts big enough for scale length trains still complain of insufficient power from RTR’ especially steam, and I would prefer to see higher gear ratios, which would further improve slow running and haulage, but my small BLT does not allow running at much more than about a scale 40mph. 
 

Another factor was plastic wheels on rolling stock.  In conjunction with the traction tyres (which I regard as Satan’s expectorant), you would have been hard pressed to design a more efficient and effective method of spreading crud around your layout, and crud does not conduct electricity, especially at low voltages.  No wonder everyone bought Relcos, which broke down the carbon build up at spots where poor contacts led to arcing. 
 

These old mechs can be made to run reasonably well, but my advice would be to scrap and replace if you can afford it.  If kids are to handle the models, remove the finer details and store them to replace on the model when they’ve grown up.  That can be read as an instruction to store the kids until they’ve grown up; this will for some reason usually attract adverse comment from their mother, and is not recommended...

 

Otherwise, the older tooled models are pretty robust and great for kids, but need a lot of cleaning to run well, track, wheel treads and rim backs, and pickups.  I very strongly advise giving traction tyres the opportunity of exciting new careers in landfill, and replacing all plastic wheels on all stock, which will reduce the amount of cleaning you have to do and enable your locos to haul longer trains as wellas to start moving them at lower voltages.  Make sure your track is laid as level as possible, and if there are gradients on your layout, that the vertical transition curves at the bottoms and tops are as smooth as possible. Turnouts or crossings anywhere near a change in gradient are asking for trouble! 

 

I have had good results from rubbing a carbon block on my railheads, a controversial tip which sort of shouldn’t work, but does.  I’d suggest trying it, but be prepared to clean it off if it makes things worse.  Try on a section of track with a loco that can be easily cleaned. 

Edited September 27, 2020 by The Johnster

[Playing trains with kids]

Thanks again everyone. I am in the process of upgrading to metal wheels and adding weights.

 

I found the issue of how best to add weight has been discussed elsewhere on this post

(sorry I can't work out how to post it here, the link doesn't work it's called "Adding weight to loco's")

 

Sadly it's not just my kids, but also my budget that stops me going for newer stock (maybe that's because of the kids....)

[hallmodelspares]

Lima did not churn out completely the same locos with the faults as described. I have owned and come across many revisions on lima diesels mainly class 31/3747/55/59/42/52  and 60. These included pickups on all sides of the bogies with wiring. These were usually in the blue 'Lima Collection' boxes

[Legend]

If you read some of the posts here it’s almost as if Lima locos never start and are completely unreliable .  I have an old Deltic seldom used since I got the later Bachmann one , a 37 And 47 . I don’t have any problems with them starting, control through the speed range . Yes they are noisy but I don’t mind that . Same with Hornby 47s with Pancake motors , they move off quite easily . You don’t need the latest locos or DCC for good running it is possible with old locos on DC . 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Legend

[melmerby]

14 hours ago, Legend said:

If you read some of the posts here it’s almost as if Lima locos never start and are completely unreliable .  I have an old Deltic seldom used since I got the later Bachmann one , a 37 And 47 . I don’t have any problems with them starting, control through the speed range . Yes they are noisy but I don’t mind that . Same with Hornby 47s with Pancake motors , they move off quite easily . You don’t need the latest locos or DCC for good running it is possible with old locos on DC . 

I have a Lima Diesel Railcar and it was exactly as described, failed to start easily, it also only had pick ups on one side on each bogie, I also have two Hornby Steam outline with Pancake motors in the tender, same again.

The DRC now has a Black Beetle power unit and all wheel pickups, it starts every time.

[96701]

I have a Hornby Sulzer Type 2 that even with dcc worked intermittently. I dismantled the bogies and attacked all axle to bogie contact areas with Ambersil contact cleaner and cleaned everything as best that I could , applied a mall amount of Electrolube. That improved performance by a considerable amount, but not good enough for my liking, so I did it all again and again. That sorted it.

[ikcdab]

On 23/09/2020 at 11:07, melmerby said:

No Hornby loco AFAIK ever has had a split chassis and I don't think Lima did either

My loose wording. My old Hornby locos have pickups one side only, current being returned via the chassis block, wheel bearings and metal wheels on the other.

[melmerby]

1 minute ago, ikcdab said:

My loose wording. My old Hornby locos have pickups one side only, current being returned via the chassis block, wheel bearings and metal wheels on the other.

The standard way of doing things a while back.

Even such things as Romford wheels were (still are?) available with insulated & solid versions.

 

[JDW]

On 04/10/2020 at 19:54, Legend said:

If you read some of the posts here it’s almost as if Lima locos never start and are completely unreliable .  I have an old Deltic seldom used since I got the later Bachmann one , a 37 And 47 . I don’t have any problems with them starting, control through the speed range . Yes they are noisy but I don’t mind that . Same with Hornby 47s with Pancake motors , they move off quite easily . You don’t need the latest locos or DCC for good running it is possible with old locos on DC . 

 

Yup, very much luck of the draw I think. I have two Lima 37s for example, bought a year or two apart, same internals, same pick ups, etc, and for that matter same livery. One has always run great. The other was never right and spent most of its time in its box. It now has a ViTrains chassis and finally sees the light of day! Same with 47s, I've had a few, some better than others. As ever, clean wheels and contacts are the key, though some just seem 'good' and others 'bad' no matter what you do.

[PaulaDoesTrains]

18 hours ago, JDW said:

 

Yup, very much luck of the draw I think. I have two Lima 37s for example, bought a year or two apart, same internals, same pick ups, etc, and for that matter same livery. One has always run great. The other was never right and spent most of its time in its box. It now has a ViTrains chassis and finally sees the light of day! Same with 47s, I've had a few, some better than others. As ever, clean wheels and contacts are the key, though some just seem 'good' and others 'bad' no matter what you do.

 Some months ago I bought an old Lima Crab as a "poor runner". It turned out to have a well-documented problem of the Mazak body weight swelling and locking the wheels. That was fairly quickly sorted with a file and the loco ran OKish except that it invariably started at a gallop. Much fetting of the motor and drive gear failed to improve the performance so I tried a CD motor conversion which wasn't really any better. As an experiment I re-fitted the ringfield motor and installed new brushes and springs. It is now much, much better - acceptable in fact. One thing I noticed was the new replacement springs are much finer than the originals. Perhaps that helps to get the "Goldilocks" pressure on the brushes - enough for good electrical contact without excessive drag?

[AndyID]

I have quite a lot of Lima and Mainline stuff that I bought for our son. I'll try this on some examples and see if if it helps or not.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/159701-keep-alive-for-dc/&do=getNewComment

 

[AndyID]

I did find a Lima Class 40 but it behaved quite well after I cleaned the wheels and contacts and applied a tiny amount of plastic compatible lubricant to the bearings and gears.

 

After that I unearthed a Bachmann split-chassis Jubilee but even after all the usual servicing tricks it tended to stall intermittently at low speed. When I attached the supercaps it would not stall under the same conditions.

 

Most of the problem with that one seems to be intermittent pickup contact, most likely at the driving wheel bearing journals. One way to solve that might be to add some weight and add pickups to the tender's wheels.

[Playing trains with kids]

Just to complete the story:

- It seems the problem was mainly lack of contact. I used some kind of hydrocarbon solvent (sold for cleaning circuit boards) and it has helped to clean both track and wheels. In some cases cleaning the contacts from the wheels (and the wheel backs) has really improved things. A quick wipe around the tracks before operation is a real help.

- I also added a rumble motor - a CD-pancake style motor with an eccentric weight - sold as a spare part for an x-box controller (aliexpress) and clamped it to the bottom of the baseboard at the entrance to the fiddle yard. This is then operated with a push switch to vibrate the board if the loco stops - it works very well on 5 volts, on 3 volts the vibration was not quite enough, I have the larger (left) of the two sizes available. This allows me to run the trains very slowly over the points without fear of stall or losing contact; when this does occur a quick "rumble" gets the loco moving again. I have ordered more and will install them at other locations where trains need to be stopped or moved slowly i.e. at the station entrance (each is on a separate board). I need to work a bit more on the clamping arrangement, I'm not sure how well it would work on thicker baseboards (mine are 6mm regularly resting on floor supports); but I really like the principle (let's face it I'm lazy and the track/wheels are not always super shiny clean).

- Still in the longer term perspective is to replace plastic wheels with metal ones, I think this will not only help the track stay cleaner but also improve running.

Thanks again for all your advice.

[Theakerr]

Rumble motor !  What a neat idea.  One that I will store away.

[BR60103]

I remember a reference in the NMRA magazine to the "Tustin Table Thumper".  Someone who had his own method of persuading locos to start.