Ruston Hornby wants a new friend to share .

[AlexClass4F]

It´s a long time ago i posted here ,to share my adventures of scale 0 .

Recently i bougt in 00 gauge the Ruston loco from Hornby , wich it´s a good runner for me ,

My question is m what 2nd locomotive i can share with the Ruston ? A Sentinel or what else ?.

Is there a  locomotive at the same area as the Ruston  i have , i have de green one (DVLR) with zebra stripes . a museum locomotive.

 

Greets Alex

Edited May 9, 2023 by AlexClass4F

[The Johnster]

Hornby do two Rustons, the 48DS and the 84DS, the numbers referring to the horsepower.  RH's intention was to sell them to industrial or military installations that did not have a need for anything more powerful and were looking for low fuel costs; Planets were aimed at a similar market.  These little diesels were fullfilling a role that even the smallest standard gauge steam engines were overkill for, perhaps prompted by the popularitiy of WW1 surplus Motor Rail 'Simplex' locos.  Another contender would be the Greenwood and Batley battery electric steeple cab locos.  Worth mentioning Aveling & Porter, basically traction engines with flanged wheels, but geared down, so the lack of speed (the Rustons etc were hardly going to give Mallard anything to worry about) made them unsuitable for use over any but the very shortest of distances.

 

There really isn't much RTR that is comparable to these in size or power, and the next step up is probably the Model Rail Sentinel, which is a much heavier and more powerful loco.  When one gets into the Peckett/AB/RSH small 4-coupled steam area, this is a further step up from a steam Sentinel, as are the various Hornby 'Smokey Joe' range 0-4-0s and diesels.  I have seen 'Uskmouth No.1', a Peckett now preserved on the DFR but originally employed at CEGB Uskmouth Power Station, haul a 1,000ton load of ten loaded TEAs that we'd brought up from Aberthaw with a 52 from the exchange sidings into the oil discharge bay, around a tight curve and on wet rail; those things can pull!

 

Judith Edge and some others do kits for several small and low-powered industrial diesels, a favourite seeming to be the jackshaft-drive Fowler, but one has to be comfortable with building chassis and fitting wheels, final drive cogs, and such to axles.  The Hornby RH 48DS is a brilliant little thing for the price, and probably about as small as it is practical to make as a volume produced RTR model that can be sold at a price the market will bear, but the nearest thing to it in RTR is the 84DS, twice as powerful.

 

Probably not what you were wanting to hear, sorry!

[MartynJPearson]

Isn't it the 88DS @The Johnster. And IIRC it's not due out until autumn, although I'm sure that's been pushed back a couple of times already.

[The Johnster]

Yes, 88DS, more senior momentary rubbish from The Johnster. 

[Nearholmer]

Building a pre-War Motorail or Lokalke Planet, using a motor bogie (see Scalelink website) would be a good way of starting in DIY. So long as you put plenty of weight in the bonnets (that’s what the real things were: weights), it will do the job. Either cardboard or plasticard would be perfect materials.

 

They came in several flavours, this one being less “scrapyard challenge” in design than many.

 

Similarly, various battery electrics, OWE locos, other petrol and diesel locos with inside chain drive and outside axle boxes, all east builds over r-t-r, low profile motor bogies. There was an entire menagerie of these little locos, and I think there are even very easy kits for some, the Hellingly Hospital OWE for instance.

 

Another option is to use the chassis from entry-level H0 4W or 6W diesels and scratch-build over those. A lot of people sift to freelancing when doing this, but there a no real need, given the range of real things to copy.

This is a loco that had a very long service life, and would be an easy build over a cheap US or Continental 6WDS chassis - all you need is an old cornflakes packet, knife, glue and patience.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Nearholmer

[The Johnster]

That's an interesting looking loco, Nearholmer; what is it?  It looks an easy build on a proprietary chassis, the reason you chose it of course, and I'm tempted to have a go myself!  No louvres, body about as plain as it gets, and the drive shaft would be hard to get revolving but that's probably not a dealbreaker; plenty folk happily run Lima/Hornby or Heljan GW diesel railcars on their layouts without that luxury.

[Phil Parker]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Building a pre-War Motorail or Lokalke Planet, using a motor bogie (see Scalelink website) would be a good way of starting in DIY. So long as you put plenty of weight in the bonnets (that’s what the real things were: weights), it will do the job. Either cardboard or plasticard would be perfect materials.

 

They came in several flavours, this one being less “scrapyard challenge” in design than many.

 

Impetus made a kit years ago - it still appears on the second hand market occasionally - I was tempted by an example at Doncaster!

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

what is it? 

It’s a Famous Engine, if you are into early-ish internal combustion locos. Built as a demonstrator by Kerr Stuart in 1929, KS4421, it worked on SG track dealing with quarry stone traffic on the Ravenglass & Eskdale - it actually belonged to the R&ER. Then was sold, but I can’t remember all the owners, until it ended-up with a firm called Rom River Reinforcement, whose works was next to the WCML at Lichfield, where it was still being used in the 1980s. I often saw it either tucked in its resting siding or shunting. It’s now preserved at Foxfield.

 

Heres a picture, not mine, bf somewhere I’ve got a similar “from a passing train window” picture that I took of it there.

 

 

I don’t think the shafts down the side are cardan shafts. IIRC, it has chain transmission, and those are tie rods with turnbuckles for adjusting the wheelbase to take up slack in the chains. It was designed by the same guy who designed the Sentinel steamers, and if you look a lot of them have the same arrangement.

 

It is a very close relation of KS4415, the 2ft gauge demonstrator that was used on the Welsh Highland and has now been repatriated from a distant sugar plantation to be restored on the Festiniog. http://www.kerrstuart4415.org.uk

Edited May 11, 2023 by Nearholmer

[uax6]

The Kerr-Stuart diesels were built with no hornguides for the driving wheels, so that any gauge could be accommodated, and as Nearholmer says, the bar across the axleboxes is a radius arm to allow adjustment of the chains and to take the reactionary forces of the drive. 

 

They were available in three sizes iirc, 30hp, 60hp and 90hp. I think that the standard gauge ones were only available in the 90hp size, the narrow gauge ones being the smaller two sizes.

 

Andy G

[melmerby]

41 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I don’t think the shafts down the side are cardan shafts. IIRC, it has chain transmission,

You can see the chain and sprocket at the front on that 6 wheeler you posted

[cctransuk]

2 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Impetus made a kit years ago - it still appears on the second hand market occasionally - I was tempted by an example at Doncaster!

 

I believe that the GWR had several at Swindon, too.

 

CJI.

[Phil Parker]

36 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

I believe that the GWR had several at Swindon, too.

 

CJI.

 

They looked like mobile sheds. The LNER version was far more stylish. Unsurprisingly.

[Nearholmer]

They were all standard catalogue items, I doubt whether the railway companies that bought them had much input to the spec other than to choose with or without enclosed cab, and maybe the colour f he paint if they didn’t like he standard colour.

[Halvarras]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

They looked like mobile sheds. The LNER version was far more stylish. Unsurprisingly.

 

Southern Railway No 49S (BR DS49) looked very much like a garden shed mounted on a coach bogie powered by a Dorman engine. It was apparently constructed at Exmouth Junction wagon depot in 1939 and worked at Exmouth Junction and Broad Clyst, ending its days at Yeovil via a spell at Folkestone in 1950 and scrapped in early 1960.

I was oblivious to its existence until the publication of 'Modern Locomotives Illustrated' No 222 on Departmental Locomotives (Dec 2016 - Jan 2017) in which a photo appears, and marvelled at its curved corrugated iron roof, four pairs of hinged side doors and all-round high-level windows. I've tried in vain to find a photo I could provide a link to.

Despite its ramshackle appearance it's sobering to think that this contraption existed for two full decades, the same as the Deltics and around a year longer than the WR hydraulic era.

Its scrapping deprived some chickens of a sturdy coop 🤭!

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

They looked like mobile sheds. The LNER version was far more stylish. Unsurprisingly.

 

Why should a mobile shed NOT resemble a mobile shed? 😄

 

CJI.

[Nearholmer]

If the OP fancies building something on a Triang Nellie chassis (you can tell when I was last into doing these things!), and wishes to produce something that everyone will think he’s made up, how about Drewry 2091, which had a Crossley 2-stroke engine?

 

[melmerby]

Blimey.

It's got a chimney & a smokebox.🙂

[Nearholmer]

I’m not totally certain of the engine layout, but I have a feeling it might have been a horizontal, open-crank engine, with the cylinder(s) enclosed in a water-jacket that vented steam up that chimney. The “smoke-box door” probably gave access to the cylinder heads and to top-up the cooling water. In short, if I’m right, very like the sort of stationary petrol and oil engines one sees chugging away at ‘steam’ rallies.

 

 

 

 

[Halvarras]

What an oddball! Love the prominent 'DIESEL LOCO' painted on the cab side, presumably to avoid confusion, cos it certainly looks confused!

 

A great find - and I thought fireless locos looked a bit odd........the endless variety of wagon movers to have existed over the past century or so never ceases to amaze!

[The Johnster]

Not just 'Diesel Loco' but 'Diesel Loco No.1', as in 'we are modern-thinking people and have our first diesel loco to prove it, and calling it No.1 is proof of our intention to have a Diesel Loco No.2 (or we wouldn't have needed to specify that this one is No.1) and no doubt many more.  Obviously, as well, the specification that this is Diesel Loco No.1 must mean that we already have a significant fleet of steam or even electric locomotives, or both; we are serious players, so there yaboo sucks'.

 

The only sensible conclusion to be drawn from this is that Colville's had a very small system and this was probably their only locomotive.  It is probably numbered 'Diesel Loco No.2' on the other side in an attempt to con people into believing that they had two of them...

[Barclay]

On 11/05/2023 at 11:32, Nearholmer said:

It’s a Famous Engine, if you are into early-ish internal combustion locos. Built as a demonstrator by Kerr Stuart in 1929, KS4421, it worked on SG track dealing with quarry stone traffic on the Ravenglass & Eskdale - it actually belonged to the R&ER. Then was sold, but I can’t remember all the owners, until it ended-up with a firm called Rom River Reinforcement, whose works was next to the WCML at Lichfield, where it was still being used in the 1980s. I often saw it either tucked in its resting siding or shunting. It’s now preserved at Foxfield.

 

Heres a picture, not mine, bf somewhere I’ve got a similar “from a passing train window” picture that I took of it there.

 

 

I don’t think the shafts down the side are cardan shafts. IIRC, it has chain transmission, and those are tie rods with turnbuckles for adjusting the wheelbase to take up slack in the chains. It was designed by the same guy who designed the Sentinel steamers, and if you look a lot of them have the same arrangement.

 

It is a very close relation of KS4415, the 2ft gauge demonstrator that was used on the Welsh Highland and has now been repatriated from a distant sugar plantation to be restored on the Festiniog. http://www.kerrstuart4415.org.uk

Love this loco - so much in fact that I built one !