Adding weight to a HornbyThompson O1

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Happily this proved very easy. Just had to make a short extension to enable my worm puller to get the flywheel off the motor shaft. That left the whole smokebox end clear for a lump of lead. Strips of lead can go along the boiler sides, and another lump inside the rear of the boiler. No trouble adding 150g and maintaining the balance point in the centre of the coupled wheelbase. Needed the extra weight for a guaranteed restart with the heaviest train it will be employed on, all standing on a 1 in 80

 

Small surprise, the excellent low speed performance even on a vanilla DC controller, and the relatively low top speed, led me to expect a fairly high  gear ratio, but it turned out to be 20:1. So the motor is clearly a very smooth and relatively low speed type.