Member postings for 61962

Bill Carters engine was exceptional as is John Richardson's which won medals at Harrogate a few years ago. See ME Vol 212 No 4478 Page 430.

Eddie

Hi Gary,

If you want a 5" Maisie then you are looking for a GNR atlantic. Blackgates have all of Clarksons of York drawings and most of the castings, and it will be a much more prototypical model than a scaled up LBSC Maisie.

You'll get told that Clarksons drawings are no good, but many excellent models have been built from them, you just some times have to join the dots.

Eddie

Gresley A1, A3, A4 or D49

Eddie

Edited By 61962 on 28/09/2017 23:52:51

Edited By 61962 on 27/09/2017 23:11:57

Neil,

Not really academic. These are the new sizes of the wheels. I don't suppose many model engineers build locos with worn out wheels. If the OP is building a 7' 3" engine I would assume he's looking for wheels for that size or as near as possible, but I'm highlighting the model size he's looking for at 5.08" is nearly 3/8" too small. If he can get wheels within an 1/8th of an inch of what he's after then I'm sure that will be OK, but you have to start from somewhere and the new size is that. It's quite an odd size and it would be interesting to know what prototype locomotive he's modelling.

Eddie

In 3 1/2" gauge 7ft 3in converts to 5.438" . Flying Scotsman's 6ft 8in wheels 5" exactly on tread.

LBSC's Miss Ten to Eight should have 5.125" wheels if they are to scale.

Eddie

Edited By 61962 on 23/11/2016 22:33:00

I have a refinement on Duncan's solder holder. I use a rod like his fitted to a wood handle which has a square of 16g steel sheet attached to the end as a heat shield. Works a treat.

Eddie

If you want to see 5" gauge wagons at work there are a number of videos of the Main Line Rally at Gilling East on You Tube (Just search for Main Line Rally and/or Gilling East). Whilst many are kit built or use components from a number of suppliers including Doug Hewson, there is absolutely no reason why wagons cannot be built entirely from scratch. There are several books ( look for books by Tatlow for a start) containing basic drawings that can be used to work up scale drawings, bearing in mind that most private owner wagons were built to RCH designs and many of the railway companies followed the basic RCH principals for their own stock.

Eddie

Depends on how north you are in the west. Leyland has an impressive 7 1/4 ground level as has Lancaster and Morecambe at Cinderbarrow. If you are seriously north then Carlisle has a raised 7 1/4" gauge railway.

Eddie

It should be simple enough to check the mean drawbar pull. The rolling resistance of the riding vehicles used on our miniature railways is around 1 percent of the weight of the train, increasing slightly due to flange friction on curves with correctly profiled wheel sets and dramatically with parallel treads and square cut flanges. Resistance also increases slightly with the square of the speed and may increase with increasing bearing load. Drawbar pull also increases with acceleration and with climbing inclines. For Neil's benefit the negative effect of drawbar pull does not affect the work done as the dynamometer is designed to record only the positive work done by the locomotive. Given the gradient profile for the track and the weight of the train it is simple to calculate the work done climbing inclines. Estimating the weight of the trains at IMLEC is difficult since we don't know the weight of the vehicles or the passengers. A reasonable guess would be passenger cars at 120lbs for a four seater and 14 people to the tonne, but since the passenger weight is more than 80% of the load, it bears considerable significance in determining the load on the drawbar. If the actual MDL is sighificantly different from the estimate then there must be something influencing the MDL that is not accounted for. This could be passenger weight e.g lots of children on board or a high percentage of heavyweights. Drivers can often be seen leaning on the locomotive despite rules to forbid this. Additional drag on the train may be possible from various sources, although the drivers are not allowed to use the brake at anytime. So Neil is heading in the right direction - drawbar pull is close to being proportional; to the weight of the train - not just the passengers. Incidentally I can recall only one IMLEC where the actual train weight was recorded (Tyneside 1972).

I don't think IMLEC ever used the simple formula of load x distance / fuel consumed to determine the winner, I think there has always been a dynamometer, but we do use this formula for our locally held annual Stephenson Memorial trials (63rd event to be held next weekend). Used against estimated loads for IMLEC the formula gives broadly the same finishing order.

So there are flaws in the WD/NoP analysis but it could be modified to give a more rational check on the results. The more interesting analysis though would be to determine what makes one engine more efficient than another when working a similar train at similar load and speed, which really is what the competition was intended to stimulate.

Eddie

The dynamometer car doesn't generate the load. It is a measuring and recording device capable of collecting all sorts of data from the locomotive. Its primary function is to measure distance and drawbar pull and by integrating these to calculate the work done at the drawbar. With the introduction of time to the calculations it is possible to derive the instantaneous power being generated at the drawbar by the locomotive. Load is normally generated by attaching a train to the dynamometer car, although the North Eastern Railway testing department had counter pressure locomotives available and BR had a train capable of absorbing considerable power using electrical generators driven by the wheels, the energy being dispersed as heat through banks of resistors. The use of these devices allowed the locomotive the work trains down inclines at the same power output as they used up them.

The point of testing is normall the determination the efficiency of the locomotive in producing useful work at the drawbar. Given the amount of fuel used from the starting point of the test to the end and the work produced at the drawbar by the locomotive in the same period it is possible to calculate the efficiency. Only the positive work is measured. If the train pushes the locomotive then no work is being done by the locomotive at the drawbar, although it continues to use fuel, so there is no deduction from the useful work done by the locomotive and of course no fuel is recovered, and therefore the dynamometer does not need to record the negative work done by the train.

Locomotive testing was done by some very clever engineers and scientists, and a lot of written material is available on the methods and results of those tests, culminating with the series of BR Bulletins which were produced in conjunction with tests carried out on the static test plants at Rugby and Swindon, and supported by on the road dynamometer car tests. Well worth a read for budding dynamometer car builders.

Eddie

I agree with you Julian, I've never seen any connection between Curly and Freemasonry, although in his day it was very much a secret society and you would have to know someone very well before he would admit to being a member. 'Bro' is much more likely to have a trade union connection.

Neil, A jimmy is a device that drivers would fit across a locomotive blast pipe to improve the draft. Most were made by the shed fitters for a small consideration. The drivers would never leave a locomotive with a jimmy in place because the use was a disciplinary offense, hence being frowned upon by management.

Eddie

I agree with Bob and Mike, your first loco should be one you really want to have. Forty odd years ago I said I was going to build an A4 for my first loco. The club said don't try it, you should start on Tich or Juliet. I said it might be the only loco I will ever build so it's the A4, three cylinders - conjugated motion, streamlined casing, all of which were considered to be impossible for someone with O level metalwork. I never looked back and the A4 is still running 38 years later, albeit with several new shafts and several new heads, although the main frames are OEM.

Tich, Juliet and the like are fine and I know of more than one that gave the builder a lot of fun, but these are people with good engineering skills and who are dedicated model engineers and railway enthusiasts. I also know there's a lot that stayed the course and were disappointed with the end result, (It takes a magician to keep a Tich going) and went off and did something else, lost to this hobby. And how many made the start and realised how little they were going to get for their efforts and just gave up?

Although I've moved on to 5" gauge now, I still keep two 3 1/2s running and use them regularly on raised and ground level railways. The big difference with the smaller gauge is that on the right railway you can open them up with confidence and enjoy the excitement of a loco that needs lots of skill to keep the fire and water right at speed. If I want the quiet life I bring out the 5" gauge.

Eddie

Neil.

Jim Nunn of Crawley built a 5" LMS Garrett in the early 70s. I last saw it at Gilling seven or eight years ago. There was a 7 1/4" LNER Garrett at Harrogate last year. Brand new, very impressive and kind of hard to miss. The late Geoff Gregson of Urmston built an East African Garrett in 5" gauge during the eighties whilst he was living near Sunderalnd. It ran in IMLEC a couple of times with Geoff's son Nigel at the controls. Brian Hollingsworth (who wrote LBSC His Life and Locomotives) owned one of two or three African Garretts that appeared in the mid seventies. They were I think 7 1/4" but were very big being of narrow gauge prototypes. I first saw Brian's Mount Kilimanjaro on exhibition at Shildon for the 1975 S&D 150.

The full size LMS Garretts were build for coal haulage to London and were concentrated at Toton I believe. I know they sometimes worked into York in the fifties.

I would be surprised if these were the only model Garretts to run here and I'm sure there will be more information from other members to follow.

Eddie

Neil,

Full size dimensions for buffers are 3'-5 1/2" above rail level and 5'-8 1/2" apart. The diameter varied, but the smallest were 13" diameter going up to around 24". Time to get your slide rule out and scale for 3 1/2" and 5" gauges. Or you could get hold of a copy of Martin Evans "Manual of Model Steam Locomotive Construction" which has all the dimensions you need.

There is no standard for the foot boards for raised tracks - you need to make them compatible with your chosen railway. For ground level I would advise using those on the GL5MLA website - http://www.gl5.org/standards which should ensure clearance on all lineside obstructions.

Eddie

Ron,

Well, there's a modicum of success from gunging up the smokebox, we've now got 15 psi instead of 10 - that's plus 50%.

So where's the water going? I thought the smoke coming out of the chimney was just smoke from the charcoal, but I suspect now that it must have a lot of steam in it, so I think you should be looking at the steam pipes in the smokebox. The possibilities are limited. Check any unions in the steam pipes are actually tight. I think you must take a look at your new superheater and make sure you have done a good job with the joints. If the regulator is as you say leaking only very slightly then I would take a look at the joint where the main steam pipe comes through the tube plate. There could be a leak directly from the boiler. One thing you could do is to put a blanking disc in the main steam pipe joints to prevent the steam from going to the cylinders. If steam is still escaping into the smokebox that narrows things down.

I'm bemused by your apparent surprise that the fire went out when you removed the electric blower. Of course it went out, there's no natural draught. I'd have turned on the steam blower and got to work with the hand pump to see if I could get some more water into the boiler and I'd have been pushing more charcoal in to keep the fire bright. It's possible to bring a hot boiler round with charcoal and it's own blower from virtually no pressure at all.

For your sake I hope Colin is wrong. Difficult repair if he's not. Halton Tank has a point. A quick hydraulic test would reveal any leaks but I would blank the cylinders off to do that. I doubt the clacks are blowing back into the tanks, Steam into cold water makes a lot of noise. You'd have noticed.

Keep trying. You will find the answer, and you'll be learning a lot about boiler management.

Eddie

Ron,

I'm in agreement with Stan on this. You need to look for air leaks in the smokebox. Check the door joint, around all the holes for pipe entries, particularly the steam and exhaust pipe(s). See that the chimney is sealed to the smokebox and the boiler/smokebox joint is tight. Get some bathroom silicone sealant and gunge them all up if you think there's the slightest possibility of an air leak. The electric blower should raise 30 psi inside of twenty minutes on the biggest of 5" gauge boilers with a good charcoal fire, and a bit of a steam leak at the regulator won't affect that. The only steam leak that does affect steaming is from the steam pipes in the smokebox, or the superheaters, but only once the steam supply is on them. You can test for that possibility as well by opening the smokebox door when you get a few psi on and you will see or hear steam escaping into the smokebox or you can use a lighted taper and you will see the flame being blown by the steam from the leak.

Don't dispair, steam engines a really quite simple, and it doesn't usually take long to solve problems.

Eddie

.

I do like the idea of this Association, but I wonder why the subscription is so much. What is all this money going to be used for?

I have membership of a number of organizations that have fees of this order. One of them in model engineering runs a rally around the country on more than one occasion each year, has stands at a number of exhibitions and for £20 gives me four glossy A4 magazines and a website with a forum. Another has a fee of £25 a year of which £5 goes to a fund for our preserved full size locomotive and items of rolling stock. I receive an A5 magazine four times a year full of well written articles, invitations to talks around the country and access to a large historical archive of documents and photographs. Reference to the accounts of both organizations show the majority of their costs are related to printing and postage of their magazines. The 2 1/2" gauge Association's fee is £17 and gives members printed journals and newsletters and a range of valuable services. I'm sure there are many other such organizations that contributors here can tell us about.

£14.99 seems to me to be a lot for an e-mailed newsletter, unless the editor is expecting to pay good money for articles. Imagine if there were 500 members - not beyond the bounds of possibility, What is this Association going to do with £7500 per year? What is being offered here that will cost this and what return are members going to get for their fee?

Eddie

Terry,

The advice is that a boiler should be examined unclothed at around ten yearly intervals at the boiler inspector's discretion. Most will be relaxed about this if there are no signs of leakage from under the cladding and no signs of movement on visible surfaces. Ten years fits well with the four yearly hydraulic test intervals as you can see. If the boiler hasn't been steamed then my fancy would be that you would just need the routine hydraulic and steam test, but if it has been used then expect the inspector to want the cladding off. Unless it shows signs of having had repairs then 1.5 x wp with the fittings on will probably be acceptable, otherwise a full 2 x test.

If this is a wide firebox with nothing hidden between the frames then you might get away with removing the cladding and leaving the boiler on the frames.

Talk to your inspectors before you do anything.

Eddie