Northmoor Works - Rolling stock for Stockrington: Southern Pride TCVs

[jukebox]

About time I got this finished... considering the body was started in 2001 (no, that is not a typo...).

Wheels fitted and quartered last weekend. Tested free wheeling on my bench felt okay, so time to to tighten up the grub screw on the final drive.

Portescap RG4 + TCS MC2 decoder. Factory settings. Speed step 1 of 128.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_C7Vyc0GSs

I think I'm in love with that motor/gearbox - just too easy to set up. Pity I'm not a lottery winner... it's the only one I am likely to own.

Other than a very brief burst on DC, this was the first time the chassis had been run.

A little later, speed step 20,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ol7UauGBPg

LNER die-hards should look away now.

In anticipation of Hornby/Bachmann getting around to an RTR P2 in the next 5 years, I'll be painting this one up in lined black, as No.2000, and naming it Robert The Bruce. No point having two 2001's running around when the inevitable happens...

Edited December 13, 2022 by jukebox
Update with this months build

[Horsetan]

.....Portescap RG4....I think I'm in love with that motor/gearbox - just too easy to set up. Pity I'm not a lottery winner... it's the only one I am likely to own....

 

The last RG4s I saw on eBay were going for £210 and £215 respectively. Suddenly a box at the Royal Albert Hall looks cheap.

[dikitriki]

The last RG4s I saw on eBay were going for £210 and £215 respectively. Suddenly a box at the Royal Albert Hall looks cheap.

 

You're joking! Why so much?

 

I've got a stock of the things from when I moved from 4mm to 7mm. Never bothered to do anything about them. Time to dig them out methinks.

 

Richard

[Paul Cram]

The last RG4s I saw on eBay were going for £210 and £215 respectively. Suddenly a box at the Royal Albert Hall looks cheap.

 

Really? I have half a dozen somewhere. Perhaps Ineed to look them out.

[will5210]

Beautiful loco. I personally can't see Hornby or Bachmann doing one, but I hope (for my sake anyway) I'm wrong.

[jukebox]

The last RG4s I saw on eBay were going for £210 and £215 respectively. Suddenly a box at the Royal Albert Hall looks cheap.

 

I seem to recall this one was around £36 from Holt way back in 2001 when I gathered this lot together.

 

Beautiful loco. I personally can't see Hornby or Bachmann doing one, but I hope (for my sake anyway) I'm wrong.

 

I think if the A1 Trust gets down to building one, it's a certainty for one of the big two RTR players. And I don't doubt theirs will handle tighter curves than this one is ever going to - so I'll be happy to run two if and when that happens.

[jukebox]

I'm rather proud to say to those of you who noticed a pimp-my-Pullman Hornby Brake Third on the Gaugemaster stand at Warley, that said model was mine!

 

Richard Johnson from DCCconcepts asked if anyone would like to do a test install of his Lighted Dining Car and Pullman Tables, and I put my hand up. Great fun it was too. So I managed to upgrade my Railroad Pullman Brake 3rd to match the Bachman Mk.1's I will run it with, and Richard got himself a sample to show the world what even a cack handed modeller like me can do.

 

First attempt - with 5k ohm resisitors, the lamps are a bit too bright. Paper curtains were added later...

 

Well while my coach was sitting on the stand at Warley, I had a second car to do, so set about having another go. This time out, I painted the curtains onto the window glazing, and upped the resistors from 5K ohms to 10k ohms per table, to dim the lights. As pleased as I was the first time, the second coach looks even better!

 

Pools of light cast on each table

 

 

Side View

 

 

You can see the carriage interior is not lit, just the tables...

 

 

A close up - pink lamp shades, and china with crimson trim

 

So with two lighted Brake Thirds to bookend the Bachman Mk.1 Pullmans, I'm set for my own incarnation of the Master Cutler.

Edited November 27, 2012 by jukebox

[jukebox]

*snip*

 

In anticipation of Hornby/Bachmann getting around to an RTR P2 in the next 5 years, I'll be painting this one up in lined black, as No.2000, and naming it Robert The Bruce. No point having two 2001's running around when the inevitable happens...

 

Well, well, well. It only took a year for the announcement, and it will be another before we will see Hornby's RTR P2 on the shelves.

 

That's okay - I tip my hat to Hornby for having the courage to take a risk on such a large beast.

 

So, yes - assuming they get it substantially right - I'll be happy to put my money on the counter for one.

[jukebox]

So....  I have been test running some Heljan D/E locos on the Stage 1 trackwork of my layout. Great Danes, indeed.
 
But this week I've also been looking into two other breeds of dog. Or DoG, as the case may be...
 
***
My kitbuilt DJH Duke of Gloucester has been in store for over a year whilst the house extensions were done.  With Stage 1 trackwork featuring a loop and a 3% incline, testing 71000 was a high priority for me, just to see what she could haul compared to my RTR locos.  At the time of the build, the fact that only three of the drivers provided were insulated bit be squarely in the behind, as I didn't identify them, and ended up with a shorting chassis.  A deconstruct and re-wheeling sorted that out, and managed to get the DoG running nicely on my rolling road.  FFwd 12 months.  Now, with the Duke on the rails, I opened up the throttle and she slid into life - until the first curve. The PSX kicked in, and it was clear that Houston had a problem.  My quest to detail the plumbing under the footplate is part of the issue - the rear pony touches some of this on curves, and of course with three live drivers, the whole body is live.  There's also a clearance issue with the front bogie and front brake blocks.
 
The good news is, it's not a major issue - on curves >700mm I didn't have an issue, but pointwork can be as tight as 600mm.  Perversely, the chassis, that I though was going to be a drama, seems to handle the radii with no arguements.  So I have to flag The Duke for a trip back into Northmoor works for some modifications - but that's for another day.
 
It's right about now I wish that three years ago I'd stumped for six brand new Romford drivers, all insulated, with the correct spoke count. 20/20 hindsight...
 
***
The other dog* I have been playing with is a Dapol Western.  Now Northmoor stage 1 is not pretty: +3%, -5.5% grades, R700mm reverse curves, a double slip+turnout crossover...  but it's been tamed by Heljan D/E's, Bachman D/E's and Bachmann steam locos.  However when a friend was having trouble with his brand new Dapol Western, I suggested I borrow it for a test to see how it performed. Over on it's home layout, this unit has been splitting Peco and Fleischman turnouts, has smoked itself to a costly warranty return to the UK (£35 postage, thank you), and generally misbehaved (flickering lights, poor and or hesitant running). So it was with some trepedation I temporarily placed a TCS chip onboard and set it on it's way.
 

 
And it had to be temporarily, because by the time I added an 8-pin-to-21-pin plate, plus an 8 pin decoder, the body could no longer be screwed down...
 
To it's credit, the loco did not prove fussy on the turnouts at Stockrington.  I checked the BTB's and they are perfect.  However it does not like my reverse curve.  Those same curves that Heljan and Bachmann pass across with a touch of flange squeal were a source of repeat derailing of the Dapol's middle axles. Every single circuit.
 
Mechanically, the Western did not feel anywhere near as smooth as the Heljans - the equal of, perhaps, but certainly not better than the Bachmann Deltics I am trialling.  Except they stay on track. However, on the plus side, I had no issues with it hesitating on DCC, and no smoking from any circuitry. 
 
FWIW, the following observation about operating the Western on DC appeared over on the Western thread:
 

I'm sure the cause of the lighting problems has already been mentioned in this thread, (But I'm not trawling 110 pages to find it)

The issue is with the lighting board. There is no overload protection, so if a short circuit occurs, the integrated circuit on the board starts to overheat.
I experienced this on the layout in the shop - the loco derailed and the leading bogie crossed the rails, causing a short. Bang go the lights.

This is a consistent and repeatable problem.

The LEDs themselves are not affected as they are protected by their resistors, but the Integrated circuit that controlls them, is ruined.

Putting a DCC chip in fixes the issue (Which is why no-one running DCC has a problem) so you should have no concerns buying the model if you are running digital.
But, the circuitry should be right in the first place.

I did write to Dapol about this, when Richard was experiencing his problems, suggesting what I believed the cause of the problem to be, but got no response.

I'm having similar silly problms with the lighting in their N gauge HSTs (Works fine on DCC but not on analogue)
The model might look fabulous (and it does) and may be the most accurate ever, but it can only be a great model if the whole package (Electrics and mechanicals included) inside and out, is of the same quality.

 

So whilst it behaved itself on DCC for me, and looks like a fine model, from my perspective, the track handling was not as good as it's peers.  I've arranged a return loan of a de-chipped Deltic to my Dapol-owning friend, and shall soon see how the reverse loco exchanges have gone (he doesn't own any other other D/E models except the Western)

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

*Possibly a bit harsh, but then again, if I'd bought one of these, and not been able to get it to operate reliably on my layout when all my other stock had no issues, shipped it back to the UK, been sent a replacement, and still was having performance issues, I'd be disappointed.

Edited August 12, 2013 by jukebox

[jukebox]

During the year-long hiatus whilst the extensions were underway, I did a few odd jobs on locos, readying the fleet for Stockrington.

 

I had a pair of split chassis Bachmann BR Blue A4 Sir Nigel Gresleys, and one of those projects was to fit them DCC decoders (if you say that quickly, it sounds like a simple job!), renumber and rename one as 60012 "Commonwealth of Australia*", and add some corridor detail and real coal to the tenders.

 

 

I also needed to apply the "brass tube muff" repair to the centre axle insert on one loco, so took the opportunity to mill all the centres and fit hoops as a precaution.

 

When I reassembled them, it was bought to my attention that I'd managed to transpose the front and rear drivers, so the faux oiling points on the coupling rods pointed downwards.  Shopping them would be a good time to correct this, too.

 

 

These locos saw the light of day on Stockrington last week, and despite showing promise in some gradient trials I did a year or so back, were limited to 4 pullmans up the 3% slope. Luckily, there is plenty of room "under the bonnet" as it were to add some extra weight.

 

The process I use to add extra weight is to fashion templates out of Blutack, and test fit the for interference.  Being a split chassis, I needed to be careful not to bridge the two halves of the chassis block, so filling the space at the top of the boiler was out of the question.  Luckily, there was room each side of the firebox, and alongside the boiler, as well as in the nose.

 

 

Once I had Blutack masters, I used roofing lead to make pieces the same shape, and held them in place with tiny dabs of Blutack. When I had trimmed them so that the chassis fitted without interference, I double checked by using a continuity meter, to be doubly sure I was maintaining isolation.

 

With that done, the lead was added on piece at a time using Gorilla Glue (it expands as it goes off, so is useful for filling any void bewteen the inside of the boiler and the lead).  Originally tipping the scales at 384g, the superheated A4 now weighs 440g, and can comfortably lift 5 Pullmans up 3%. 

 

 

Last but not least, was the fitting of a Kadee to 60007's tender (for reasons lost in the mists of time, I only did 60012 last year).  When I finish this work later this week, these two will be ready for work on Stockrington.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

*Yes, I know No.12 didn't get a double chimney until it was no longer painted BR Blue. Rule #1 applies.

Edited August 13, 2013 by jukebox

[jukebox]

Short update:  SNG is now back on shed at Stockrington. Curiously, for the numerically inclined,  No.7 can now manage 6, not 5, Pullmans unaided up the 3% incline - not sure where the extra draw-bar power has come from, but it is a good thing.  Now I'm curious to see what she's good for on a 2.5% mainline... with coaches that have been shopped and lubricated, not out-of-the-box like these are.

 

***

 

By all accounts, the Bachmann KOYLI has been a well behaved house-guest over at the home of the errant Dapol Western I previously tested, with plenty of grunt, and twelve wheels consistently staying on track, regardless of turnouts and curves and combinations of both (just like the ~30 other steam outline locos the gent has).  

 

So two layouts - same result.  That may not be statistically significant, but it is significant enough for me.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

I was lucky enough to snag one of the original issue NRM Deltic Prototypes when it first was released; it had always been a favourite of mine, and in my "to do" pile was a Dapol Deltic shell, A1 models grill pack, Fox transfers and metal nameplates and an Athern PA-1 chassis to power it all...

 

When the model arrived, I was happy, but it always niggled me that the blue was a vivid blue, not the powder blue seen in so many of the photos of DP1 in service on the ECML.

 

Fast forward to last year, and the announcement that DP1 was to be released in "in traffic" livery.   Great.  I couldnt afford to buy another, and so sat and stewed on it for quite some time.

 

Well earlier this month, I managed to shift a lot of US outline stock on eBay - enough to cover the cost of a new DP1-b.  So I emailed the kind people at Locomotion and earlier this week, the box arrived safe and sound down under:

 

 

There are a couple of minor blemishes on the livery - the Chinese Quality Control not being as strict as it used to be perhaps? - a mark near the EE logo and some less than perfect paint around the portal window on one door - but I'll live with that.  There's not a massive difference in shades of blue - esp. in the photos - but there is enough to make the newer version look "right".

 

So now, if I can sell of the original release for something close to what I paid for it, all will be good in the world!

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Wow.  More than a bit of turmoil in my life since that last post, in late September last year.

 

For those who aren't in the know, I am currently shuffling through a separation with my soon-to-be-ex-wife, and so there is a question mark over whether I can afford to keep the family home. 

 

In the meantime, rather than continue to build a layout that may shortly need to be demolished, I have decided to return to the workbench and continue rolling stock work.

 

In the short term, that means completing a ProScale P2 I started over a decade ago, an ABS L1, an Alexander K4, possibly some PO wagon kits to break the monotony, and eventually tacking a batch build of x3 Craftsman A5's.

 

So pull up a comfortable chair, there won't be any rush on this lot...  :-)

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Okay, so the P2 is almost done. The superstructure for the loco and tender are 90% complete.

 

The chassis is wheeled, and when I stopped work on it to start building Stockrington, it looked like this:

 

 

I had quartered the wheels, and tested it on the rolling road, and all was fine.  There's a video back in Post #1 on this thread, showing some nice slow speed motion.

 

However when I offered up the cylinders and connecting rod to the chassis, I struck a problem - the slidebars, that I had attached to the motion bracket, did not allow enough travel for the piston to move from full forward stroke to full reverse stroke.

 

So I disassembled the motion and took a closer look.

 

Full forward stroke: why can't those slidebars be longer by the distance of the green arrow?

 

Full reverse stroke; L/H end of slidebars hanging in open space...

 

And yes, the cylinders are in the correct position - there's a lug they have to bolt on to - and the hanger bracket is also the correct distance from the cylinders, as it needs to be in that location to relate to the rod that comes down through the footplate at that location.  The crosshead has 10mm of travel available, the throw on the wheels (Gibson) is, if I remember correctly, 9mm - so it should work.

 

Some investigation tonight has shown that I can get the slide in a spot that will give me free movement, but that spot is some distance off the cylinders. I could solder the rear of the slidebars to the hanger, but that would leave the front unsupported - a recipe for trouble, I think.  I may be able to cut away part of the crosshead that fits in the slide, so I get another millimetre of travel, which would allow me to shift the slidebars forward enough to touch the rear of the cylinder assembly.

 

All of this suggests buiilding this part of the motion in "reverse order" to what feels logical to me (building the cylinders with the connecting rod attached to the crosshead and offering it up to the chassis). Instead, it seems the best way forward is to fit the connecting rod to the crankpin, which will set the slidebar at the distance from the crankpin that it works, and then work around attaching the slidebar to the cyliders and hanger, wherever it may fall.

 

I shall spend a bit of time with it over the next few days and see if i can make it work.

 

:-)

 

Scott

Edited April 28, 2014 by jukebox

[Jaz]

Present and correct, added to followers, shall look forward to progress. 

[Jaz]

Can't promise to always understand, but will keep reading until some seeps in...a bit like osmosis. 

[freebs]

Greetings Scott. I've dutifully followed Jaz over (I don't  think she saw me following, I was hiding behind New Zealand)

 

I haven't a clue what you're doing here, but it all looks very fascinating

[jukebox]

Don't worry, freebs, I make half of this stuff up as I go along...  learn by doing, as Jazz (note the 2nd "z") says.

 

Glad you guys and gal are stopping by.

 

I asked the question last night: why cant that slidebar be longer.  Today I figured out it could.

 

I took some nickel silver strip scrap off the edge of the etch that holds the valve gear from the kit - and folded it in half.  I was then going to solder that into the "open" end of the slide bar.  But as I did that, I realised if I made a third fold on one face, this time just half way along, I could still slide the extension in, but leave the outside face flush (think of a wafer of three layers, and the top wafer cut back half way... )

 

So I did

 

 

So what I have done is lengthen the whole slidebar assembly by about 3mm, but not the length of travel of the crosshead.  The fillet I added bridges the gap marked by the green arrows in my photos from last night, and allows me to attach the slidebar the rear face of the cylinder and the motion bracket. In theory.

 

I spent some time reviewing all the P2 photos I have in my reference material, and the Isinglass drawing:  details of the crosshead are seemingly always obscured, so all I can really do is fit them so that the crosshead slides freely and is firmly attached.

 

The extensions as added were miles too long - about 7mm; I've nipped them back to 3mm and filed them flat and smooth; by the time the rest of the gubbins and faux rodding is on, they will barely be visible. The close up photo, above, is shamefully cruel.

Edited April 29, 2014 by jukebox

[Kal]

well I am here, I found it, which way to the doughnuts?   mmmmmmmmmmmm    Doughnuts...DOH!

 

welcome back!

[Jaz]

Don't worry, freebs, I make half of this stuff up as I go along...  learn by doing, as Jazz (note the 2nd "z") says.

 

Glad you guys and gal are stopping by.

 

I asked the question last night: why cant that slidebar be longer.  Today I figured out it could.

 

I took some nickel silver strip scrap off the edge of the etch that holds the valve gear from the kit - and folded it in half.  I was then going to solder that into the "open" end of the slide bar.  But as I did that, I realised if I made a third fold on one face, this time just half way along, I could still slide the extension in, but leave the outside face flush (think of a wafer of three layers, and the top wafer cut back half way... )

 

So I did

 

Con Rod Extensions.jpg

 

So what I have done is lengthen the whole slidebar assembly by about 3mm, but not the length of travel of the crosshead.  The fillet I added bridges the gap marked by the green arrows in my photos from last night, and allows me to attach the slidebar the rear face of the cylinder and the motion bracket. In theory.

 

I spent some time reviewing all the P2 photos I have in my reference material, and the Isinglass drawing:  details of the crosshead are seemingly always obscured, so all I can really do is fit them so that the crosshead slides freely and is firmly attached.

 

The extensions as added were miles too long - about 7mm; I've nipped them back to 3mm and filed them flat and smooth; by the time the rest of the gubbins and faux rodding is on, they will barely be visible. The close up photo, above, is shamefully cruel.

That looks suitably scary.....am hidden behind the sofa....just in case.....

it is not like you can just puttee 4mm back if you change your mind....

Edited April 29, 2014 by Jaz

[Kenokie]

Scott

 

I have trundled over behind the others to see what's going on ... good to see you back in action

 

Chris O

[jukebox]

Right!  So while it is more than two years since post #1, and this video looks suspiciously like the video in post #1, the good news is, it isn't!

 

 

After I'd attached the extended slidebars, I found there still were some issues with the relationship between the travel of the slide and the throw of the wheel; this is the part where I guess it is easy to be frustrated.  So I stopped, and just looked at it methodically.

 

I'd set myself up for trouble by attaching everything at once, so the first thing I did was unhook the connecting rods one at a time.  This revealed that one side was smooth and fine, the other was catching.  I then threw a small engineers straight edge (as opposed to a "small engineer's" straight edge) over the assembly, and could see the hanger on the errant side was not following the same line as the one that worked;  So I unsoldered it, shifted it across, and straightened it up relative to the cylinders.  I also took the time to fit a couple of bushes, so the conneccting rod is well clear of the coupling rods. And lastly, I shimmed the cylinders slightly, as they seemed to be sitting a fraction too low on the main frames.

 

This was combined with a good amount of offering up the whole lot to the body, to see if it all was going to sit as designed - which it did.

 

Much to my satisfaction, when I pushed the dead loco on my test track, there was no fouling or stiffness - it actually rolled freely with quite some momentum - very pleasing. So I dug out a decoder, and went upstairs, and grabbed the Powercab.  I harnessed The Bruce up, checked the chip on the programming track, then sat it on my rolling road, and wound the throttle up... and nothing happened.  I could hear the motor spinning, and for a second I thought I might be having fried Portescap for supper.  Then I remembered I'd loosened off the grub screw on the final drive so I could fit the motion. A quick nip up with a micro screwdriver, and away it went, as you can see.

 

I didnt do a lot of testing, as I still need to solder the retaining caps for the connecting rods, and I also need to grease all around - I could hear the whine even only pushing up to speed step #40, so need to get some lubrication into all the moving parts.  I still get a big kick out of running it on step #1 though, and seeing the moving parts creep around feely, with no signs of stiff spots of catching...

 

So despite it looking a lot like 2012, the reality is I now have the hardest part of the job done - the chassis is quartered, powered, and smooth. Once I'm sure all is well, I can fit pickups, hardwire the decoder onboard, and add the leading and trailing wheel sets. And then the bit I enjoy most - the paint shop!

[Jaz]

...paint job.....

[jukebox]

Despite the lack of updates, I have been chipping away at The Bruce in the last fortnight.  Among the items attended to was glueing the shrouds that sit forward of the cylinders to the body, cartazzi axleboxes - both whitemetal castings - and cab steps.

 

I also fitted some spacers to the valve gear and soldered the fixing nut to the connecting rod crankpin.

 

The last job was replacing the whistle and smokebox dart.  Some years back I'd fashioned my own brass replacements for the crude whitemetal castinsg supplied with the kit, but when I revisited the model this time around, they looked grossly overfed. So it was on with a Gibson dart, and a new whistle, still fabricated by me, but a lot leaner this time.

 

"Before and after" smokebox front details in cruel close up.

 

I've also started work on the pickups, and also started detailing the front bogie casting with some shim and strip to more closely resemble the busy underbody that lies below the front bufferbeam on a P2.  I'm using The London and North Eastern Railway in Focus (John Crawley) as a reference, as this has some excellent, sharp detail photos. It's a volume I highly recommend to any LNER modeller!

 

Next thing to do:

 

Fashion some backets to sit ahead of the ashpan, and an ashpan rocking lever (?) a-la the Brassmasters A3 detailing kit.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited May 15, 2014 by jukebox

[Jaz]

glad you are getting your modellers mojo back, and have a project that is tempting you back. Shall enjoy the progress.