Drizzlington: A clockwork railway.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Hello all,

 

Here begins the start of my first proper effort at having a coarse scale railway.

 

 

Most will have seen my various topics on my O gauge live steam engine, and once again it is broken. So I resorted to my other coarse scale engine.

 

 

In mid 1911 Gebruder Bing of Nurnberg received a very sizable order from Bassett Lowke Ltd to produce O gauge models of the recently introduced LNWR George the Fifth class. And so they did, in vast numbers and vast liveries. There were even GWR versions! Mine is thought to be a Midland Railway version, as it has a Midland crest, however its in LMS colors, so I run it as an LMS engine. To add to this, I painted a water soluble circle around the crest, which I know some people will hate but that is their problem. It adds to the engines history anyways. 

 

 

At some point in time the engine lost its original tender, which is probably still lying around in upstate New York, were the engine came from. It was part of a huge collection of Bassett Lowke and Hornby from that era, probably collected over several decades back when such stuff was still sold. It is currently paired with a Hornby No. 2 LMS liveried tender, which I bought it with. The tender frames were badly corroded so the paint was stripped off and a new coat applied.

 

Roughly two weeks after the engine arrived (this was in September 2020) in the mail the spring snapped on the winding arbor, causing the engine to be taken to a clock repairers, who agreed to replace the spring. Unfortunately to our shock they were very busy, and the engine sat in the shop for 3 months with no work done. So in December Dad and I collected the engine again, and it became a very useful bookend. But after the live steamer broke again, I could no longer stand the sight of a 110 year old engine just sitting there on a shelf, full of potential. So two weeks ago after reading a book on clock repair, I gave fixing the spring a go. I won't go into much detail, as that is for a later post. But it worked, which is the important thing.

 

 

So, now having covered the history of the motive power, we come the layout.

 

Currently it consists of an oval of track atop a very very wide landing to enable somewhat easy access to one side. However, clockwork engines are designed to be run on a point to point layout. So, either a place needs finding for one in the house, or part of the garden needs terraforming. And as the weather conditions Oklahoma are only suitable for operation or 2 months a year, it will have to be inside. At the moment a lengthy unoccupied part of the conservatory is the proposed area. 

 

Rolling stock is not in great abundance. Currently the stock consists of two Leeds Model Company wagons, and some Bassett Lowke BR Mk 1s. However in future I hope to acquire some Darstaed LMS period 1 coaches from Raylo. Scenery is not intended to be added, but I built a Meccano water tower (seen in photos below) and a fully working replica Leeds Model Co signal back in the fall, which will be added.

 

And now, some photos. The rubber band on the tender is for holding a camera on to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a video, it's very shaky as the camera is sat on the tender buffers with the aforementioned rubber band holding it on!

 

 

 

Douglas

 

[J. S. Bach]

Hmmm, about as smooth a ride as on Penn Central track!

 

Serious thought, a sponge/cotton balls/something soft between the phone and the tender deck.

 

Anyway, good job there.

[BR60103]

Douglas:

Since my memories of clockwork trains are over half the age of that loco, 

does it have any auto-stop or auto-reversing provision?  My first Hornby had a tab below that banged on a bit in a special track that would stop it. I don't know if more expensive versions had a reverser. 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

49 minutes ago, BR60103 said:

Douglas:

Since my memories of clockwork trains are over half the age of that loco, 

does it have any auto-stop or auto-reversing provision?  My first Hornby had a tab below that banged on a bit in a special track that would stop it. I don't know if more expensive versions had a reverser. 

It has both, and I still haven’t quite figured out how to use them. I think I really need to order the special piece of track from a dealer in Germany, and hope it fits with my Lionel. 

[sncf231e]

8 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

However, clockwork engines are designed to be run on a point to point layout.

 

Douglas

 

Hello Douglas,

 

It might be fun to try to run a clockwork powered train on a point to point layout, but of course clockwork trains were never designed to run that way. They were designed to run in circles or on oval  layouts and some even had their wheel/axles arranged that they only can run in circles as can be seen/read here: http://sncf231e.nl/round/

 

Regards

Fred

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by sncf231e

[Florence Locomotive Works]

11 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Hmmm, about as smooth a ride as on Penn Central track!

[J. S. Bach]

14 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

It has both, and I still haven’t quite figured out how to use them. I think I really need to order the special piece of track from a dealer in Germany, and hope it fits with my Lionel. 

Buy one if you have to, but use it as a pattern to modify one (or more) of your Lionel track sections.

Edited May 21, 2021 by J. S. Bach

[BR60103]

The autocontrol track would be incompatible with 3-rail as the device has to stick up in the middle of the track.

What I remember is a metal piece with a tab that stuck up and two twists in it and a "handle". The piece started as a flat bit of metal. It went through 2 horizontal slots in the running rails. It normally lay flat, but pulling it out made it twist and the tab stuck up. *  

(The rails would match to Lionel O gauge after you changed one pin in the end.)

*The actual design is left as an exercise for the student.

 

I just looked at the Hornby Companion book.  It looks as if the tab may have just slid sideways sometimes. BB1was a brake rail, BBR2 was brake and reverse with two tab pieces, and the later BBR had one tab that slid across for both functions. 

[Annie]

On 21/05/2021 at 12:54, Florence Locomotive Works said:

So two weeks ago after reading a book on clock repair, I gave fixing the spring a go. I won't go into much detail, as that is for a later post. But it worked, which is the important thing.

How much did you have to shorten the spring?  Some of my clockers had broken springs repaired by previous owners using the original spring and it had reduced their running time by a significant amount.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

9 hours ago, Annie said:

How much did you have to shorten the spring?  Some of my clockers had broken springs repaired by previous owners using the original spring and it had reduced their running time by a significant amount.

I only had to cut off about 3 1/2 inches of the spring, so out of a nearly 3 foot long spring the running time hasn’t reduced that much. I will be making a YouTube video explaining how I did everything. 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

On 21/05/2021 at 23:28, Annie said:

How much did you have to shorten the spring?  Some of my clockers had broken springs repaired by previous owners using the original spring and it had reduced their running time by a significant amount.

Annie, the somewhat vague video has finally been done.

 

EDIT: that video is rubbish, new one coming.

 

Douglas

Edited June 10, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works