Chuffer Davies

Sounds amazing... Are you assembling a small team or will you be a one man band?

Could this be the next Retford in the making? Please tell us more NFWEM57?

Stunning!

Hi Tony, On the whole I found this an enjoyable kit to build but I recall I had a problem with the smokebox saddle being too tall by almost 1mm (if my memory serves me correctly). I'll be interested to see if you have the same problem? Frank

Today I've finished test building the alternate chassis for the Bachman Atlantic's 'front ender' tender. As anticipated it was not completely plain sailing but none the less I've ended up with a result that I am satisfied with. I've a couple of changes to make to the design to correct a couple of minor blunders which I will carry out in case there is anyone out there who wants a set of etches in the future? The entire brake assembly can be separated from the frames by undoing the 12BA screws. This then allows the front wheelset to be removed for painting and servicing which otherwise would not be possible because of the outside brake pull rods. One of the things I enjoy most when designing my own kits is discovering how things like brake gear actually work. I have not modelled the vacuum cylinder and brake operating lever because these cannot be seen when the model is on the track but otherwise all the levers and rods have been modelled and in doing so I now have a good understanding of how it all works on the prototype. I still have the guard irons to fit. These are separate to the frames and screw directly into the plastic footplate. I won't be able to paint the chassis until I can spray outside so it'll probably be April before this happens by which time I hope to have the loco's chassis built and ready for painting as well. Frank

Try a different chip in the loco just to see if the motor operates?

Hi Mike, in hindsight you are probably correct but the way the chassis has been designed won’t permit the gearbox to be positioned as you suggest, so not an option for me on this build. Frank

Having put the 28xx to bed, the next thing to come to the top of the list is an ongoing project to design a replacement chassis for the Bachman C1 Atlantic. I planned to convert the Atlantic to EM but a colleague of mine had a commission to convert another C1 to S4 and so I agreed to design an etched chassis kit that would allow for both gauges. The chassis was designed towards the end of 2019 and at the start of 2020 I test built my EM version using the model as sold by Locomotion based upon the preserved C1 on display in the museum. The chassis went together far better than I could have hoped but I did encounter a couple of problems with my design. I wasn't happy with the weight distribution and I couldn't get as much ballast as I would have liked over the driven wheels. In addition I the spring detail that I had designed for the rear outside frames was impossible to actually build. I therefore modified the design slightly. In order to allow more ballast over the driven axles I moved the pivot point on the compensation beams over the driven axles so that the pivot was a third of the way along the beam and biased to the rear rather than central. I also redesigned the construction of the detailing of the outside frames so that it was capable of being built. By the middle of the year I had completed my EM model and it was ready for painting at which point my colleague was ready to start on his S4 conversion. Whilst there were a couple of minor albeit unexpected issues with the etches I had supplied him with, the loco's chassis went together successfully but he reported major issues with the tender chassis which I initially found completely bemusing. Eventually it became evident that the model he was attempting to convert had a different tender to the one I had designed the chassis for. Not only were the wheelbases different, whilst the tender I had built had the brake hangers to the rear of the wheels, his tender has the hangers in front of the wheels. Once the problem had been identified I felt I had no option but to modify my design to include the components needed to build this alternate tender chassis. A 2nd Bachman C1 was purchased and a request for help was sent to Paul Craig with regards to prototype information. I was advised that a preserved prototype for this alternate tender is attached to the C2 Atlantic (Henry Oakley) at Locomotion and they were known as 'front enders' because of the unusual brake arrangement. A new set of CAD files were prepared and just before Christmas I received the Nickel Silver etches from PPD Ltd. I now have to assemble these etches in order to test them and so, as I don't need a 2nd EM Atlantic, for the first (and probably last) time I'm going to build the S4 version just so I can tick an S4 locomotive off my bucket list. As yet I have no idea if and when I will ever get a chance to run it but hopefully someone will offer me operating rights so I can see if it performs okay. I'm only a couple of days into the build and so this is as far as I've got. Current collection will be by the 'American System', whereby the loco's chassis collects current from one rail and the tender's from the other. To avoid the need for pickups the rims of the plastic centred wheels are shorted to the axle using shorting tags purchased from the EM Gauge Society's stores. To install these I grind a small slot in the rim of the wheel with a mini drill, and having trimmed the tag to length I solder the tail of the tag to the rim of the wheel using a very hot soldering iron so that I can get in and out without significantly over heating the rim of the plastic centred wheel. I've found that if the rim of Alan Gibson's wheels expands too much it becomes loose from the plastic centre. I will continue to post progress as I go along over the next few days/weeks. Thanks for reading. Frank

I'm not a great lover of having lots of different projects on the go. Whilst some people seem able to keep multiple projects progressing in parallel I regret I am not one and I'm more productive when I progress one project at a time from start to finish. Unfortunately of late I appear to have started several projects and I've realised that I'm failing to finish anything and so over Christmas I decided it was time to finish a project or two. One of my Hungerford loco's has long been stood on the shelf above my workbench awaiting attention. A few years ago I converted a Hornby 28xx to EM to replace my ancient Cotswolds 42xx on the long goods train. The 42xx is not appropriate for the task but had been the only goods loco powerful enough to pull the freight until the rebuilt 28xx entered service, or at least that had been the plan. Conversion had taken the form of a replacement chassis. I seem to recall that this was a Comet chassis but rather than use the white metal cylinder castings I had opted to build the cylinder assembly from a Perseverance GW cylinder etched kit. In practice the 28xx did not live up to expectations. Not only was it slightly too light with a tendency to slip, although it set off happily enough, as it progressed around the layout it would gradually slow down and by the time it got back to the fiddle yard it would be crawling. The loco was fitted with a Portescap 1616 unit which had been rebuilt with alternate frames from MJT. This should have been more than capable of performing the job to which it had been allocated but not so in this case. My suspicion was that the motor was overheating and in doing so was losing power. The loco ended up staying in my stock box and the 42xx was re-commissioned. More recently I had been very impressed by Chris Gibbon's (High Level Kits) new range of coreless motors and decided to replace the Portescap unit with his 1320 motor coupled to my favourite High Level gearbox - the 40/1 RoadRunner Compact+. The compact nature of this combination has the benefit of occupying significantly less of the firebox than the previous unit freeing up space for additional lead ballast. The extra ballast will almost certainly eliminate the slipping previously experienced with this loco on its allocated train. The loco has now been reassembled and tested. It runs smoothly and (virtually) silently from a crawl all the way up to a prototypically high speed. The motor appears to have significantly more power than can be used by this chassis which will happily spin its wheels despite the additional ballast. I should probably mention that the front of the tender is heavily ballasted and this weight is delivered to the rear driving wheels via the drawbar. Hopefully this loco will now be able to perform the role for which it was built and I have the added satisfaction of being able to tick a completed task off my list.

Hi Neal, I think you will find that 'the book' is actually a series of paperbacks which many consider to be the definitive reference for Great Western modellers. They are: The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway series. The one that the moguls appear in is: There is a table of allocations which includes a column for when outside steam pipes were fitted to specific locomotives. The books are long out of print but can usually be obtained 2nd hand from most specialist railway book suppliers. Frank

Frustratingly, I've just realised that I hadn't followed my own advice. I'm in the process of preparing to convert the new Dapol Great Western Mogul to EM gauge. I knew that I had a problem with the clearance between the tender's frames and thought that I was okay (just) with the loco's splashers. I've had one of those (in your sleep) light bulb moments and realised that I hadn't considered the additional thickness required for the balance weights. I now realise that in order to allow for some side play on the centre axle I'll need to remove a small amount of material from the splashers as happened with the J50. I'm so glad you started this thread Duncan!

Before starting out on a conversion of a steam locomotive first check the inside clearances of the splashers to ensure the new wheelsets will fit - 22mm is required for EM in order to accommodate a small amount of side play. I can highly recommend the Ultrascale conversion sets which you can get preassembled as a drop in replacement. They include modified crank pins to accommodate the larger coupling rod holes typical in commercial models. The downsides are the cost and the delivery time which can be a couple of months minimum but they are well worth the wait and cost in my opinion. I have a couple of Hornby Castles converted this way and they were really easy to do. I have converted two locomotives in the last couple of years using the proprietary chassis where the clearances were insufficient to accept EM wheels. The first of these was the Hornby J50, although there was sufficient material in the splasher fronts to enable me to thin them down to obtain the necessary clearance. The 2nd conversion was the Heljan Great Western 47xx. This was an absolute pain to convert. I had to cut new splasher fronts out of plasti-card, remove the existing fronts and glue the replacements outside the originals to widen them. Regards, Frank

Just in case you have not spotted this topic elsewhere on RM Web there is a new range of kit turnouts in EM under development.

No turning back now then. Welcome to the dark side. Congratulations on a successful outcome. Frank

Whoops. No idea who Andy is either. Apologies.... If I decide to produce the new configuration as a universal unit I will no doubt announce it on this thread but it won’t be any time soon as I don’t currently have a personal need for such a unit. What I will commit to do is check the suitability of my replacement chassis for use in the Mainline/Bachman Mogul body. Frank

Hi Andy, I can't see a problem with you using the Comet chassis for the loco but at the moment I do not have the option of just supplying the reduced height motor in tender system required for the Churchward tender without supplying the loco chassis as well because they are on a shared set of etches. My universal system shown earlier in this thread requires greater clearance e.g. I think it would fit in the Churchward 4000 gallon tender and in most of the GN tenders that I will be building for my Clayton locomotives. If you are happy to go on that basis then I'll certainly order an extra set of etches for you once I know that I've ironed out any errors in the CAD design. Frank

I’ve just been for a lie down after reading this. I came over all unnecessary.... You must be a fantastic modeller because I couldn’t get what you’ve described work no matter what. Well done but please don’t do it again , or if you do please don’t tell me. Frank

Hi, I've just tried assessing the ratio again and it could be 18:1 rather than the 16:1 I originally reported, but there is so much slack in my chassis that it is hard to be certain. I can't see there being a possible issue with the way that the gears have been installed. If the image provided is a true representation of the gears from the Mogul then the worm has to engage with the larger diameter gear on the top axle, and because the lower gear is on its own then it is just acting as a transfer gear but has no impact on ratio's. If we assume the gear on the driving wheel's axle is the same diameter as the 2nd gear partnered with the worm's pinion then the overall ratio will be determined by the worm and pinion only. The pinion as illustrated here looks to have about 18 teeth which would support the revised 18:1 ratio I've suggested. It would need someone like Ultrascale to manufacture a bespoke replacement set of gears but the only thing that could readily be altered as I see it would be the worm and pinion ratio. Changing anything else would mean a fundamental change to the gear's housing as well. I can't see this being a change that many customers would be willing to invest in particularly as it means almost totally dismantling the chassis to install replacements, as well as obtaining a gear puller to get the worm off the motor's shaft (assuming it will come off without destroying the motor). The bottom line is that it is unlikely to be a financially viable undertaking to manufacture an alternate set of gears. At the end of the day it is what it is unless you are a madman like me and are prepared to eliminate the Dapol chassis and build your own replacement such as that from the Comet range. Frank

That’s very kind of you to say. I was thinking today about why I felt inspired to start this thread? I think the overwhelming reason is because I want to use this thread to encourage others to try out techniques which I have gained much pleasure from mastering but which have been discouraged elsewhere on RM Web. Mastery of such techniques then open up the possibility of migrating to EM or S4 which otherwise might not be a considered option. It’s not that there is anything wrong with modelling in OO, I still do when I work on the club’s Leicester South (GC) layout, but just that if you are going to build everything anyway then why wouldn’t you at least consider a more accurate track gauge? At the same time I hope others who read what I’m doing will offer alternate approaches to achieving the same or better outcomes. I still want to develop as a modeller and I know I still have things to learn. Thanks for reading, Frank

Yes I agree with you. You may recall that when I was experimenting with banking goods trains on Clayton I used my two J7's. One had the cube motor that you had previously introduced me to at York, and the other had a Faulhaber 1624 coreless motor. As far as I could determine the two loco's ran identically in every respect. The cube motor cost less than a tenner and the Faulhaber as a one off purchase from the UK distributor would cost well over £50. No contest....... Frank

Hi Michael, We’ve had this discussion before. I’ve not had an opportunity to put this to the test because the layout is still not fully operational but on the weekend we did run it fairly continuously last year I was not aware of any problems. Time will tell, but it would be easy enough to swap it out if there is a problem. You’ll have to let me know if you start experiencing issues with this motor. Frank

Hi Phil, No not a totally silly suggestion at all. There is possibly a small range of wheel diameters where it is not possible to run the drive shaft either above the axle (whilst still keeping it below the fall plate) or below the axle placing everything too close to the rail head. But tonight I've been experimenting in CAD with the D20 locomotive which has a 6' 10" driving wheel and it does look like it could work. I need to do a more accurate drawing to finalise where to put frame spacers and the draw bar but I'm reasonably confident that it'll work okay. Before anyone points it out, I'm pretty sure this isn't the correct tender for the D20 but I already had it loaded in CAD so for the sake of a quick experiment I thought I'd use it. Frank

Try this: https://www.petersspares.com/Hornby-x6978-k1-pony-truck.ir Frank

I thought I'd share some more insights into my motor-in-tender (m-i-t) drive system. As I have already explained the motivation behind this was to increase the haulage capacity of the models being built for Clayton. If I remember correctly we were three years into the build of Clayton before we had sufficient track laid to be able to test our models on the 1:50 gradient. By this time we had also become aware that track radius has as big an influence on haulage as the gradient itself. The 1:50 gradient on Clayton coincides with a 4ft 6ins radius which is effectively a double whammy. By now we had built a few locomotives for the layout and so we could test their haulage ability. AT this point the tender engines had been built in the traditional manner with their motors in the firebox/boiler. These loco's started to struggle with anything more than about 17 (random) wagons. This included a Q2 (0-8-0) which would have seen trains in excess of 30 wagons on the prototype. It was for this reason I investigated the possibility of relocating the motor to the tender. Initially I talked with people who had done this previously by visiting demonstrators at a couple of model railway exhibitions. Having been convinced by them that it was possible I next wanted to devise a reusable system that could be implemented across a number of models not all of which would necessarily be built by me. The next key event in this story was my looking at Chris Gibbon's stand at an Expo EM event where I studied his display of High Level gear boxes and drive systems. At the time Chris was still displaying his TendeRiser gearbox although it turned out that it was no longer available due to supply issues, but it did give me an idea. Chris kindly provided me with a selection of gears along with his magic formula for working out how far to space the axles depending upon the number of teeth on any two gears. The other key item of interest on his display was his RoadRunner Compact+ gearbox. This is indeed fabulously compact and I realised it could be made to fit entirely within a locomotive's frames, fully concealed under the cab floor. Having sorted out the gear boxes for my system all that remained was to source suitable universal joints for the drive shaft. People who have done this before had advised me that whilst the joint at the locomotive end of the system needed to accommodate significant amounts of movement the joint at the motor’s end requires very little and a rubber tube is more than adequate. A tube has the added benefit of preventing the drive shaft dropping to the floor when the tender is separated from the locomotive. I already had a short length of suitable silicon tube in my spares box and so all I now needed was a universal joint for the other end. For this I sourced a well-engineered steel ball and brass socket from Markits. The first loco with which I attempted to install this system was my J7. For the initial version I used standard 2mm top hat bearings to support the drive shaft. I had tried to track down 2mm sintered bearings, but I couldn’t find a supplier. Chris Gibbon had warned me that there could be issues with lubrication on such a system because the shaft would be turning at the same speed as the motor. This indeed turned out to be the case. Whilst the bearings did need constant lubrication, it did at least prove the basic concept. A further refinement was to source some miniature ball bearings to replace the top hat bearings (as can be seen in the above picture). This has so far proven to be more practical although we will not know for sure until we start exhibiting the layout in anger. Given that many of the loco's needed for Clayton will require standard GN tenders I have gone to the added trouble of designing tender frames that have the m-i-t gearbox fully integrated (as above). These frames are a direct replacement for the London Road Model's frames which further simplifies the build. It was now possible to install additional ballast into the space within the firebox/boiler no longer needed to accommodate the motor. A repeat haulage test using the new drive system has proven the benefit and the somewhat diminutive J7 demonstrated this by hauling 23 wagons up the gradient. I have now retrofitted this system to the Q2 but as yet have not been able to carry out a haulage test on the layout. This will now be my standard approach to building models for our Clayton layout although where I know the loco is not required to pull full length trains I may revert to installing the motor in the locomotive itself. I have now fitted this system in four of my models including my new J1 kit. The system is fairly generic although I suspect loco's with large diameter wheels may be more challenging because it will lift the position of the drive shaft above tender footplate level. It is definitely practical for loco's with 5' 2" diameter driving wheels or smaller. I do have spare etches available for the universal system as illustrated in my introduction to this Topic and if anyone reading this wants to have a go then they should PM me to request an etch and some more details about the additional parts required and where to source them. Thanks for reading. Frank

HI, I was not aware that they had such a facility. If I need any Great Western drawings in the future I may well contact them but I've got all I need to complete my design for the Mogul. Frank