Virgil

The photo is of a private garden railway somewhere west of London and it's probably not appropriate to highlight where exactly it is, but the loco is floodlit at night so that the owner can admire it from his bedroom window!

I don't recall the B1 4-6-0 but this must be the loco, named "Lady Patricia".

Thanks, I have all four side frames with just one needing attention. The TTRCA unfortunately don't do brushes for the Lilliput motor, as you can see one of the pair is too long, that's the one that needs replacing and the other's OK. Doug

Indeed I remember that, but were they Trix/Lilliput or Hornby Dublo or Triang? My thoughts as to the wear - possibly a large O/H electric club layout or even a shop window display?

Thanks for the suggestion and yes the holes for the various gears are in situ. even the trailing bogie axle holes are worn upwards though not quite so markedly but it should work ok as the drive bogie side to side wear is not present so the gears should mesh properly. For such a well used loco the lilliput motor seems good and strong and just needs a replacement correct size motor brush. Doug

Here's my latest purchase, a Liliput AL1 in dire need of restoration but cheap so well worth it. Looking at the wheel bearing holes in the Mazak chassis the amount of wear is remarkable, this loco must have racked up a lot of mileage in its life. The widthways bearing hole wear wear at the main driving gear end is allowing the gear train to disengage whilst running in one direction. It may be possible to bush the bearing holes though redrilling so close to the bottom of the chassis will be problematical, any thoughts on the problem would be welcomed. Doug

I like the quote for £2.75 for postage!! 😄

Could be a good buy for the right person but I'm sure that a lot of potential buyers will miss out on this. It's always worth looking out for misdescribed items, some of my best buys came this way.🙂

Now on Ebay and the seller doesn't have a clue. It looks like 5inch gauge to me, could it be live steam, doubt it though! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225331517375

John, as I cannot guarantee that the N20 I tried is to the same specification as the ones that you supply as I got mine direct from China I am interested, but do you supply sans worm? Doug

CJL I did indeed try an N20 motor driving a KMT gearbox ( not sure of the reduction ratio but true to my experience of these motors it ran excessively hot, it's a K's Ci Atlantic by the way so probably asking too much of it. Mind you the K's Mk2 is currently running hot on my rollers! DCB Thanks for the informative answers to the thread, sounds like quite a layout you have there! I do have the original K's motor which came with the loco, it has longer armature pole pieces and is physically longer too. It has neither brushes, springs brush holders or the insulating brush spring top hat bushes unfortunately. I'd like to try using the assemblies from the Mk2 but I'm wary of trying to remove the insulating bushes from it as they are easily damaged. Any suggestions from anyone please?

Sound advice I think, the problem for me is that the loco which it powers is very tight on space and the narrowness of the Mk 2 allows it to partly fit between the frames (the lower pole piece) and the body. I as yet haven't found a suitable replacement motor type.

Sounds like a good solution to me! However I have been running the motor using T Cut as a lubricating fluid at both bearing ends of the motor shaft - so far with no improvement but I'll keep trying for now.

Any thoughts on this, I have one of the original type K's motors (Mk 2?) with the pole pieces/brush holders glued to the magnets and the motor shaft passing through both magnets, this ones a 5 pole and hardly used from new.. The darn thing acts like there is considerable stiction as it will only start with a burst of revs, the controller can be turned down and it will run reasonably slowly but always shows an unwillingness to start. I'm using an old H&M Duette and interestingly the motor will start at slower revs on half wave but runs more slowly at full power due to the setting. I've seen this problem before on similar K's motors and never really got to grips with it. Has anyone ever got over this problem wit these motors?

Link included for above!

Arrived today, the result of my query to David Wilshaw of DC Resin Replicas and available to all. I'm very pleased with them and at £5.00 including postage they're just the job! PS photo doesn't do them justice!

This is me and our 1957 Chrysler Windsor at Cheltenham Registry Office around 1990 providing the wedding car for good friend Tim Soos US Airman from RAF Fairford. The car was built in Windsor Ontario and was last used in Vancouver; apparently carrying Burger bar advertising on its side. Great car but a little big for Gloucestershire roads!

For 4mm scale drawings of Southern locomotives and tenders I recommend “Southern Locomotives to Scale” published by D Bradford Barton Ltd with drawings by Ian Beattie. The Q class is covered and also the L1 class, both favourite candidates for conversion and upgrading. I consider the book to be a must for all like minded SR modellers.

Now there's a surprise - another OO Graham Farish Black 5 on EBay, this one revealing its motor and drive arrangements, with one bid at £9.99! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373918750412?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Thank you for the input, I think you are correct and this is not a Bachmann C1 chassis though listed as one. The review by Class47Peter shows the parts diagram for the Locomotion Models C1 and the chassis is not the same and even appears to have the rear truck axleboxes and springs attached. So whatever I've got is not the C1 chassis! Whoops, my bad!

I received a few Bachmann parts from EKM Exhibitions this morning, one part being a GNR C1 Atlantic mainframe, bought out of curiosity and also as it was inexpensive (£2). The idea being to compare Bachmann's take on the GNR chassis with K's already discussed on here effort. The big surprise to me was the difference in coupled wheelbase between the two, Bachmann's frame measuring at 33.35mm and K's at 28.88mm. I also have an unmade DJH LBSCR Atlantic which presumably shared its coupled wheelbase with the GNR C1 and that measures at 29.28mm. The only drawing of a C1 that I could find showing measurements is on Wikimedia Commons, (GNR 4-4-2). The coupled wheelbase shown (in meters) is 2.083 meters = 6.834 feet = 6 feet 10 inches. Which in 1/76 scale I make 27.34mm coupled wheelbase. So K's are closest at 28.88mm, DJH next at 29.28mm and Bachmann at 33.35mm seemingly 6mm out. K's driving wheels scale out across treads at 6 foot 6 inches compared to the full size 6 feet 8 inches so are gratifyingly close to scale. Not owning a Bachmann C1 I can't comment on the driving wheel sizes but I do wonder why the coupled wheelbase seems to be out so far, or am I missing something?

Ha, Ha, I wonder if he was reading the last few posts here!

John, valued comments, thank you. I bought my Atlantic ready built but the builder had clearly never run it on a layout, (motor polarity and lack of bogie movement the give away) so my input is sorting it to run on a layout, I'm enjoying the challenge. I did have an experience with an HP2M motor some years ago and ended up binning it. However I discovered that the motor had failed due to the brush coil springs getting overheated under load, softening, shortening and losing their springiness. In effect the fine wire coils were heating due to excess current flowing through them, a thicker gauge of spring wire would have allowed more current to flow without damaging the spring. Another notorious motor to suffer the exact same problem was the original Mainline/Replica pod motor, there are probably others cursed with the same weakness of design. So there we are, I still intend to use as much of the original kit as I can, financially it makes sense and as already stated I enjoy the challenge!

John, thank you for your response and comments. The intent of my original post was to show that K's in this instance seemingly failed to address the problem of the frames fouling and preventing the front bogie from swivelling freely. I don't know if this kit ultimately was provided with etched frames by K's which would presumably have corrected the mistake But my example has the earlier fitment Mk 1 motor though with D axles and wheels but as the photos show a late example with shrink packaging and later HP2 motor still had the unusable unless modded frames. The necessary mod is not difficult using a bench grinder, (thick brass) but removes the front frame spacer which also doubles as the front chassis to body mount as well, so not quite as simple as it would seem. It hasn't changed my liking for the kits and I get that they were of their time but I remain surprised that they never saw fit to change such a major design flaw. Doug