Meccano based Shay

Annie · Post by **Annie** » Wed Dec 30, 2015 1:34 am

This is not mine I just found it on You Tube. I think it's delightful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAl8JwPKgso

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOapXPEhsiY

tuppenced · Post by **tuppenced** » Wed Dec 30, 2015 7:24 am

That's a really special Shay, Annie, because it's left=handed! Only four were build, all for a firm in Mexico.

Here's the last of them en route - and look, Annie, it's on wooden rails!

Here in contrast is the "blind" left hand side of my 1/24 scale Shay (converted from an Aster by Graham Harding and painted by Brian Coldicott):

There's a three-truck Shay behind it showing its geared right hand side.

David

Annie · Post by **Annie** » Wed Dec 30, 2015 9:25 am

Wow! I really like your Shays David. Fascinating too about them being right handed except for those four Mexican Shays.

For some reason Shay locos never worked in New Zealand so I can't really justify having one on the Kotanga Tramway. Then on the other hand there's lots of homebrewed bush tram locos I could build that never worked anywhere else but New Zealand

I guess what interested me is how effective such a simple loco made from found materials could be and I'm going to look into that further to see what I could make from bits and bobs that are just lying around the house waiting to be repurposed.

tuppenced · Post by **tuppenced** » Wed Dec 30, 2015 6:27 pm

Annie, Shays certainly worked in Australia, and although that's a heck of a long way away from where you are, to me in England they are both kind of Somewhere Underfoot. So as I love both New Zealand and Australian bush trams, on one day my tramway is in one country and another day it's in another :-)

(My problem is that I also juggle scales - so one day the track is 2' gauge, another it's 3' gauge and on a third day it's 3' 6" gauge - when it's not being boring old 1435mm gauge.)

David

Annie · Post by **Annie** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:07 am

I hear what you're saying about gauges and scales David. I've pretty much decided that if I include any 3ft 6" government railway tracks on my layout they will be 45mm too, even though the 2ft 9" gauge Kotanga Tramway right of way is also 45mm gauge. Life is too short to start getting picky over a few millimeters difference in gauge.

Ages ago now I did build a live steam bush tram lokey, but it ended up being one of those things that were sold when I got ill and had to give up my job. I should build myself an electric powered copy because it was pretty darn corker even if I do say so myself.

Just now my daughter was about to tidy up an empty energy drink can I had amongst my modelmaking things. 'That's a boiler, I want that,' I said

tuppenced · Post by **tuppenced** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:37 am

VERY Bush Tram, Annie! D

Annie · Post by **Annie** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 8:45 am

Ah here's what I've been looking for the Johnston 'B' built 1911, New Zealand's answer to the Shay

Two were built and one worked on the Cape Foulwind Railway until 1927. I don't know where the other one worked.

tuppenced · Post by **tuppenced** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 10:53 am

And, compared with a Shay, it's a South-Paw. D

Annie · Post by **Annie** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:22 pm

I guess we did things a little differently down here in the Southern Hemisphere

tuppenced · Post by **tuppenced** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:58 pm

Coriolis Effect :-)

kɒrɪˈəʊlɪs / noun / PHYSICS

An effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force (the Coriolis force ) acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. On the earth, the effect tends to deflect moving objects to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern and is important in the formation of cyclonic weather systems.

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