Any plans for battery loco in 7 1/4

Greetings gentlemen!

I live in Norway, and we are in the process of building a track on the site of a museum railway, planned to be driveablesometime in the autumn. It will be dual gauge, both 5" and 7 1/4".

Our club doesn't have any 7 1/4" locomotives yet, or rolling material, as we haven't had a suitable railway built. We only have a couple of 5" steam locos and four wagons. But there are several 7 1/4" steam locomotives under construction.

I'm also interested in buying a 7 1/4" loco, but as I'm not a pensioner, I feel I don't have the time to build a steam loco of any gauge.

But a battery powered loco, either a model of a diesel or electric shunter loco is easier and quicker to build, so I have thought about that for a while.

Are there any plans for the chassis of 0-4-0, or preferably a 0-6-0 battery powered loco available??

The body I can construct from sheet metal, or perhaps mdf as I saw a 5" loco on this forum, was built from.

Thomas

Edited By Thomas Staubo on 19/07/2019 21:35:05

Have a look online for Jan Eric Nystrom in Finland. His "Quickie" battery locomotive design should be close to what you are after.

Our own Ron Laden has designed a nice battery powered UK-style diesel-outline locomotive and he has posted video of it running. Hopefully a forum search will find his pages on it here in the forum.

Hope these ideas help.

I already read Ron Laden's thread. There wasn't that much info about the chassis, but there was some interesting info about the motors he used.

Despite my Google-fu I couldn't find any website or contact information for Jan-Eric Nyström. But it looks like the model railway is situated at the Finnish railway museum in Hyvinge.

Edit: I found his personal website now, he is an animator by trade:  http://sparetimelabs.com/animato/animato/steam/index.html

I did find a picture of what I think is the Quickie:

Edited By Thomas Staubo on 20/07/2019 02:49:44

That's the Quickie! Not sure who the engineer is in the picture, but it's not J-E!

Here's the page about the Quickie **LINK**

It's very simple, maybe a bit too simple? I'm not sure I like the way the chassis is unsprung, only the body.

I'm wondering if there is an easier way to create axle horns and axle boxes, with ball/needle bearings perhaps.

But it's a very nice loco type. I have already thought about a loco of the same type.

I love the way they look almost like a steam loco, with the coupling rods and counterweights.

Some are seemingly constructed by steam loco engineers, like this one:

I have looked on a lot of Hudswell-Clarke and Hunslet pictures and they are very nice looking, but in the end I may go for a Norwegian model.

Either a Di2:

Or a Di5:

Hi Thomas,

Good to see another modeller going electric, there are a number of ways to build an electric chassis from very simple to quite involved, I,ve never looked for any plans so dont know what (if any) are available. I,m sure though you could quite easily design your own and as a first attempt it need not be complicated. Thats how I started with the 0-4-0 shunter, I thought most of it up as I went along and fortunately it worked.

The one thing I would suggest before you make a start is to consider what type of running you want to achieve, is it just pulling yourself and a couple of passengers or carrying more people on a couple of carriages for instance. This dictates how much power you will need and the physical size of the motor/motors and their fit into the chassis. Some may disagree but dont underestimate the power you will need. With the 0-4-0 I was told that 150 watts was plenty for me and two passengers and it probably would have worked but my gut feeling told me that it would have been at the bottom end. The 4 motors I went with totalled 260 watts and the loco will pull 5 adults (4 comfortably) with no issues in starting off, you can always throttle back of course but to be shy on power after spending all the time building the loco would be disappointing.

Some pictures below on how I went about designing the chassis but as I mentioned there are lots of ways of doing it this was just mine.

If I can help any further Thomas just ask but I am no expert by any means.

Thanks for the encouragement, Ron. And for the pictures.

It's interesting to see that you mounted the axle boxes directly in the frames!

What kind of bearings do you use?

I would like to have the wheels on the outside of the frame, and coupling rods. Would probably go for roller chains from the motor(s) to the axles.

With having coupling rods, I would only need chain to one axle (either one or two motors).

One question: If I build a 0-6-0, do I have to think about the middle axle binding if tight rail radius??

Our track will have no less than 10m radius at the smallest.

Thomas,

The axles boxes directly mounted in the frames was just for simplicity and the axle box bearings are shouldered oilite,s.

I dont think you will have a problem with binding if your track is no smaller 10m radius, are you going with 7 1/4" or 5" with the electric loco.

I'm pretty sure I will go for 7 1/4".

What size axle did you use?

My axles are for 5" of course but the main axle is 16mm stepped down to 12.5mm for the wheel and then down to 10mm for the axlebox bearing.

Hi Thomas,

A short book, that my wife got me as a Birthday present is

One Man's Garden Railways, by Chales Carson.

ISBN : 9781511469968

I found it a very worthy and inspiring book which made very enjoyable reading.

His projects were 5" & 7.25".

ATB

Daniel

Ron

I echo Ron's comment about flangless wheels in the centre position. I have a picture in one of my books somewhere of a full size loco with them.

Maurice

OK, that's interesting. I have never heard of that.