THE RAMCHESTER CHRONICLES

[HSB]

I've started adding a bit of paint to parts of the brewery, starting with the chimney and boiler house.

[railwayrod]

Yet another visitor to Ramchester yesterday! This time a GWR Prairie tank and autocoach. Just how it arrived at the station is a complete mystery and I can only assume that it took the wrong turn somewhere way south of here and no one realized until it had to come to a stop at the platform. Here are some pictures of the event.

Having realized his mistake he quickly reversed and proceeded hot foot out of Ramchester before his error was noticed!

 

As you will probably deduce the loco which is a Lionheart model belongs to my friend Peter Martin who popped in to give his new "toy" a run. It is a beautiful model which looks and runs well.

 

Howard has been doing a little more work on the brewery and I have been working on the LNWR loading gauge this afternoon. Picture next time. Progress!

 

Rod

 

[railwayrod]

Just to bring you all up to date here is a picture of my LNWR loading gauge. This I commissioned from Chris Ward from an drawing Which I think appeared in Jack Nelson's book "LNWR Portrayed". it is now ready for final cleaning up and painting. The little daringly bits at each end of the bar were made of leather and would have probably been removed in LMS days and certainly by the late 50's and early 60's but I rather like them and therefore a little reluctant to cut them off. I will decide before painting .

More soon.

 

Rod

 

 

[HSB]

A bit more work on the brewery this week:-

 

[HSB]

We had a bit of a running session today as Rod had invited four of our friends round for a get together. Here is John Farmer (Re6/6) getting to grips with DCC control.

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by HSB

[railwayrod]

Can anyone help please.

 

My Heljan class 20 diesel loco has recently lost its drive on one axle which limits its hauling power on my layout. I should add that this loco only has one motor so effectively at the moment it is only driven on one axle - the other motor bogie is free rolling. This has proved to be more than adequate on Ramchester and up till now all was fine.

 

I had a packet of replacement gears which I purchased a few years ago for my class 47 so I thought I could use one of these to replace the "gear" in the class 20. Having eventually managed to disassemble the loco and separated the bogie from the chassis I began to examine the gears to establish which one was cracked. However all appeared to be OK with no sign of any damage. Then almost by accident I discovered that the small gear wheel on the lead part of the drive was loose on the axle. Ah I thought all I need to do is to remove said axle and replace it with one of my spares. Wrong to my amazement this small gear was a completely different size to my replacement one.

The offending axle and gears

The small gear and the knurled part of the axle where it must go.

 

My solution I think is to glue the small gear wheel back on to the axle  if I can find a strong enough glue to do the job. This is where I am seeking help. What glue is best to use, Powerbond, super glue, one of the two part epoxy adhesives? If anyone can kindly help with appropriate advice etc it would be greatly appreciated.

 

I have attached a couple of photos to illustrate the problem.

 

I do realize that the axle and gears will need a thorough cleaning before any glue is applied.

 

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

 

Rod

 

[John R Smith]

Hello Rod

 

Any of the adhesives you mention should be strong enough for the job. The concern you might have is that as the gears will normally be lubricated after reassembly, you need a glue which will not be adversely affected by oils or grease. I am not sure sure how superglue stacks up in this respect, but one snag I can foresee with this (cyanoacrylate) glue is that it wilill not give you much time to assemble the gears before it kicks off. Two part epoxy will be more forgiving in this respect and you will have more time to press the gear home and line it up. Read the manufacturer's data sheet and see if there any negative warnings regarding oil or grease.

 

Good luck with the repair!

 

John

[Ray H]

Presumably, as a Heljan loco, it had two motors initially. Can you not swap the relevant gear axle with the one from the other end or have you already tried that?

[Simond]

Rod,

 

I would expect that the pinion has also cracked - I doubt very much that it would come off the shaft for any other reason.  If it has only just happened, and if the grease is pretty clean as it appears to be, it will be difficult to find, but it will for sure be at the root of the gap between two teeth, and, there will be a matching groove on the inside caused by the knurling on the axle.  You'll be searching for a very thin, probably faint, line running the length of the gear.

 

If it is cracked as I expect, glue will not fix the problem, unfortunately.

 

If Ray's suggestion works, I would suggest doing that, and then trying to source a brass gear.  Jim Snowdon did a load of work to sort this out a few years back, and may have some gears left - you can perhaps contact him through the Guild, as I don't thnk he frequents RMW or WT any more.

 

If he can't help, and can't suggest a solution, I guess you might have to trawl the various sources of miniature gears - hopefully Jim can tell you what the gear actually is - specifically the "module" which along with the number of teeth, will define the gear adequately.  A custom gear will be pricy, but hopefully you'll find something that can be used.

 

hth

Simon

 

belay that, Jim does still use RMW

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/profile/6524-jimsnowdon/

 

perhaps a PM?

Edited November 9, 2022 by Simond

[Ray H]

I believe Gaugemaster had a delivery of some spares relatively recently so they might be worth a punt as well.

[HSB]

Simon was correct - there is a crack! Rod couldn't see it but I managed to find it. Fortunately, when Rod checked the unpowered bogie he found that the gears had all been left in place so he actually has a replacement to hand.

Meanwhile I have finally finished painting all the brickwork on the brewery (bar a little touching up here and there). I propped three of the main walls up against the mock-up to take a couple of pics:-

 

 

 

[railwayrod]

Firstly may I say thank you to John, Simon, and Ray for their help and advice which was extremely helpful in gettin to grips with the problem. Your words were a great encouragement to me and it now looks as though my problem has been solved.

 

As Howard indicated above the second non powered bogie still had its gears intact as I discovered when I removed the keeper plate. So I spent most of the afternoon taking this bogie to pieces and removing the gears which I can now keep safe as spares. While in bits I took the opportunity to clean everything before re-assembling the bogie and attaching it back onto the chassis. The whole took longer than anticipated as I did not want to upset the wiring which was not too generous in length which made it rather difficult at times. I did consider simply fitting the motor to this bogie but the wiring was too short to allow this.

 

I have learnt a lot about Heljan locos but have gained a great deal of confidence from this task. My next job will be to fit the motor into its original bogie and reassemble the loco. If all goes well it should be back on the rails very shortly. Keeping fingers crossed.

 

Rod

 

 

[Simond]

Rod,

 

good to hear you have a solution.  Good advice from Ray.
 

I don’t want to put a dampener on the festivities, but it is very likely that the replacement gear will also fail in time, as it is the same material, and same design as all the others that have failed.  Engineering is a bit like that, do what you’ve always done, get what you always got!  The failure seems to be a combination of time and load, so at one extreme it may take as long to fail as the one that has just failed; years, and at the other, it’s as old as the one that has failed and may likewise fail very shortly; days.
 

So, I suggest that you seek a modern replacement, either from Gaugemaster, or a brass one if possible, and you put it in a safe place, for when required.  If you’re anything like me, it’ll be so safe that you’ll not be able to find it for weeks if & when the time comes…

 

atb

Simon

 

ps, if you do get a replacement, put it inside the loco!

Edited November 11, 2022 by Simond

[Ray H]

Glad you sorted it Rod.

 

I can't remember if your layout is a dc or dcc layout. You may need to uprate the decoder if you restore the second motor if it is dcc.

[railwayrod]

Hi Ray.

 

The layout is DCC so if I ever restore the second motor I will have to upgrade the decoder.

 

Thanks for reminding me.

 

Simon

As always your advice is sound and I am now looking for a replacement brass gear.

 

Rod

 

[pwr]

Rod

 

Having had similar problems myself on Hymeks, 37's and 47's your long term best bet is replacement brass. I did have a set from Jim Snowden and very good they are too. However Ultrascale also now make replacements and I have had a set of those too.

 

The class 20 link is here https://www.ultrascale.uk/eshop/products/view/cat015/561

 

Expensive for a full loco but it does sort the problem once and for all.

 

Paul R

[HSB]

Some steady progress made on the brewery this week and I've now reached the stage where I have started to paint some windows and doors and have actually stuck a couple in. I am also making a basic representation of the boiler to go inside although it will just be a vague shape once the windows are glazed and the roof is on.

 

[HSB]

We've had three sessions in Rod's shed this week and I've made a little bit of progress on the brewery but Rod's still struggling to get the Class 20 back together as one end of the body won't sit down properly on the chassis for some reason. I had a quick look today but couldn't spot the problem.

I have made a rather simplified version of a launch boiler to go inside the boilerhouse  so it doesn't look like just an empty building:-

 

After an experiment with brown timbers I've decided to go with my first thought and gone with a black and white scheme for the lucam (inspired by pictures of Hook Norton Brewery which also has brown window frames).

[HSB]

A moment of reflection today.

This Slater's tank wagon was one of the very first 0 Gauge kits I built back before we had even started work on Ramchester. It was named after two of our modelling friends Frank Ewen and John Day who Rod and I had known since we were members of South Devon Model Railway Society back in it's early years around half a century ago.

Although we all dropped out of the SDMRS a long time ago we went on to visit many exhibitions together over the years as a 'gang of five' with Brian Harrap, usually going on to visit sites of railway interest on the way home.

Sadly, Frank died a few years ago and yesterday Brian and I attended John's funeral.

 

 

 

[HSB]

We're still slowly making progress on the brewery and last week I managed to find a length of wood in B&Q which was just the right width for the lower loading  platform. Rod has been working on this, cutting it to length and sticking some plywood strips he had to the bottom to raise it to near the right height. A final surface will bring it up level with the door but we have yet to decide if it will represent paving stones, tarmac or concrete. The walls will be brick.

I have been assembling and painting windows with a few more stuck in place awaiting glazing. I also decided to fit a cut-down Grandt Line window in the lucam instead of the resin sash window I was originally going to use but was never really happy with. This has meant enlarging the hole slightly but I think it now looks about right.

 

[HSB]

We managed to fit in a short session this afternoon in which I glued in a couple more windows and glazed a couple more. I've also touched up the paint on the lucam after my alterations to the window while Rod is making some steps to go on the front of the loading dock.

 

[HSB]

Yesterday our friend Tony Warner joined us for a pre-Christmas operating session.

 

 

 

[HSB]

Here's a bit of video I shot with two trains moving at the same time.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by HSB

[DLT]

On 28/09/2022 at 09:16, daifly said:

I can't help feeling that the chimney ought to be much taller than the adjacent building - else the upper floors of the building will be swamped in smoke! 

Dave

I'm sure you're right, but a Fred Dibnah sized chimney would disappear through then roof of the railway room!!!

[HSB]

I've now uploaded a second bit of video I shot on Friday.

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by HSB