Struck2soon

Neil, another one for your perusal:

Neil, Thanks for the link to the prototype photo showing the “splatter” effect. I have to say though that your model doesn’t quite capture the original, it is just a bit too heavy-handed. The golden rule is to try and copy what you see on the photo, not what you see in your head. (We call that “fantasy weathering”, and although it can be a fun thing to do it will invariably look not quite right. I always try hard to work from a photo. You requested an example of my models, so let me try to upload a couple of images...I will put a prototype image with it as well to allow you to decide if I have captured the right look. (And yes, I do like dirty locos but only if they are like that in real life!)

Neil, Just been looking at your 47’s. The “splatter” effect just doesn’t look right to my eyes, and I could find no photos of 47’s with it on...what picture(s) did you use as reference? (It looks more like it has been on a 4 x 4 test circuit...perhaps there is a line somewhere that has mud on it!) Tommo

Indeed they do John, I tend to just buy the Athearn gears in packs of six from a UK stockist. (Much cheaper that way) Anyway, the Merchant Navy now has a decoder fitted and has been weathered:

I have a large number of American outline diesels from Proto2000. They have amazingly smooth and powerful drive trains, and were revolutionary when introduced a quarter of a century ago.(at the time British diesels still sported Ringfield drives to one bogie only...) Anyway, they all suffer from the problem you mention, namely hardened grease on gears and critically on the worm bearings. A complete strip down, clean and re-grease is required. Worth it though, as you then get to enjoy that silky mechanism and immense hauling power. If I am being completely honest, I just love fiddling with locos... Tommo

John, the defective gear was on the shaft you refer to. Namely the intermediate shaft driven directly by the worm. Thankfully removal of this shaft is easy, unlike some Bachmann mechanisms I have on my American steam locos. The binding on the valve gear was caused by the eccentric crank on driving wheel being out of true, I have shown it in this photo below. The key thing is to make sure that the tiny crank pin linking eccentric crank to crank rod is perpendicular to the wheel face. If it is on any kind of angle it will bind at some point of revolution. Just handling the loco can be enough to put it out of true, an unfortunate consequence of having nicely scaled valve gear.

I see these are mostly older posts but thought I would add my own findings. Although I mainly model American outline, I have always had a soft spot for Bulleid Pacifics and hve recently acquired three of them from that well-known internet auction site. All of them have had issues, but they were all curable issues. The dreaded split gear was present in one loco, namely one of the gears on the shaft driven by the worm. The plastic it is made of just isn’t strong enough to stand up to the force exerted by being push-fit onto the shaft. The new replacement gear was reamed out slightly to make it not such a tight fit and secured in place with a drop of adhesive. Interestingly my early version (MN R2169) has a brass gear, very much a case of progress going backwards with moving to plastic gears. This loco also ran poorly though, in this case it was down to one of the eccentric cranks being slightly out from perpendicular which caused a binding of the valve gear. Runs very smoothly now that has been fettled though. Hopefully this is useful to someone.