Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

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Post by LNR » Sun Jan 29, 2017 10:50 pm

I do hope you find the time to re-build your garden railway, that wonderful loco truly deserves a railway to run on. I have always liked the Falcon 4-4-0's, and if I build a tender loco it would probably be one of those, although I had trouble with a four wheel truck with outside frames on my last loco.
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Post by workwright » Sun Jan 29, 2017 10:55 pm

Killian hi, There is a link between Merlin and my loco.  He published in an early "Merlin Messanger" a reasonable drawing of the loco I built.  In fact it was one of the reasons I got into 16mm. You know how it is, the look of an engine just gets to you - daft is'nt it? But a harmless passion I think.
When I built the loco I changed the chimney from the spark arrestor it really had to that of a sister loco built for a 2' 6" gauge line in India.  This 4-4-0 loco had the chimney with the two Roscoe luricators on the bracket.  
The loco in the advert is the first loco supplied to the Gwalior Light Railway  by Kerr Stuart.  It was the Maharajah of Sindh's personal loco.  It still exists outside the palace in Gwalior (google images- search - Gwalior Light Raiway)
You will see why I wanted the 4-6-0 above.  The tenders have the same strange articulation. I look forward to seeing them pull a decent train together. I wonder if it will be possible to find  some nice figures to populate the coach and van roofs!
LNR hi, the front bogie is fully equalised ie the beams work and there is spring controlled side swing(this got it round 6' 6" radius. A pal suggested moving the pivot point back from the bogie centre (5mm) and I did this on a double link so it looks in the right position. It can get round 5' 6" after the mod. The main problem was balancing the springs to get loco level and powerful.  I wish in retrospect I had built the coupled wheels compensated.  We learn by our efforts.
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Post by Killian Keane » Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:33 pm

Interesting to hear the connection to merlin, it is a very pretty little loco, pity they never got into full scale production, wouldn't mind one myself! :love10: glad to hear the real one is still with us, hopefully there is some possibility of a restoration in future years
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Post by LNR » Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:35 pm

Would I be guessing that you are running on 32mm gauge, as I use 45mm gauge, I found clearance to be a problem between cylinders and axle boxes. I have 7ft 6" radius on my line, but points are sharper.
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Post by workwright » Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:56 am

Hi Grant, yes you are correct the Burnside railway was/is 32mm gauge
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The Beira 4-4-0 in better times when the line was in good condition. The mistake I made was to lay the track on parallel pressure treated wood battens. These were nailed to deep driven posts. The whole lot has rotten after 15 years so now the track is all over the place.
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Post by GTB » Mon Jan 30, 2017 2:54 pm

workwright:122455 wrote:Hi, finally a bit of time to write about troubles with the Beira loco.
It's a nice model. I looked closely at building a model of the larger Falcon F4 a while back, but like Grant, I wasn't sure I could get a 45mm gauge one around tight curves and through #4 turnouts.

Do you have any photos of the loco to tender pipe connections on your Lawley?

I ask, as I'm contemplating fitting an axle pump to my next loco and putting the gas tank in the tender. The water connection shouldn't be much of an issue. I don't see a need for a hand pump, and the bypass valve can be in the cab feeding back into the pump inlet, rather than back to the tender. Therefore only one water tube and it will be under suction, rather than pressure.

The gas connection is another matter and you mention using copper rather than rubber. I'm no fan of silicone tubing based on experience, but I'm not paranoid about Viton and was thinking about using that for both the gas and water.

Regards,
Graeme

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Post by workwright » Tue Jan 31, 2017 1:10 pm

Graeme hi, the gas pipe on exiting the gas contol valve is taken back to the tender centre line. Here there are 2 coils approx 2.5cm diameter.These coils are in the plane of the tender floor, below and in front are 2 coils in the plane 90' to the first. This is all about3 inches behind the tender draw bar. The loco connection is supported by a strong bracket below the draw bar. The connector is a small olive type union. The pipe is 1/16 OD, in total there is about 9- 10 inches of the pipe. It has been on the loco since the start and shows no sign of fatigue. 1/16" pipe is large enough- just think how much smaller the jet hole is. I have never understood the use of 3/32" or even 1/8" for gas! Having had a friend badly burnt with a model that used some form of plastic pipe to connect tender to loco. I would never trust anything but metal.
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Post by GTB » Fri Feb 03, 2017 6:33 am

workwright:122513 wrote: Having had a friend badly burnt with a model that used some form of plastic pipe to connect tender to loco. I would never trust anything but metal.
Thanks for the info.

There are polymers and there are polymers, but I understand what you are saying. If you look at the model loco photos in Mark Horovitz's book, there were some horrors around in the early days of butane firing. Probably still are.....

I use 1/16" copper for gas, especially if cab space is restricted, as it is much easier to form and tuck out of the way. The bore is about 4 times the jet size, so there's no measurable pressure drop in the few inches of tubing.

I've never used 1/8" copper for gas in my scratchbuilds, it's bad enough using it for steam, as it's a pig to bend.

I had thought about using copper for the gas connection, we'll see. I might try and track down some 1/16" stainless.

Regards,
Graeme

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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by HE589 » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:52 pm

I recently bought the second of these locos and can agree about the quality of workmanship, however mine is missing a few details compared to this one. A feature mine still has though is working single eccentric valve gear for each cylinder operated by a reverser lever in the cab, it doesn't have an axle driven pump. It has what appears to be an electronic water level warning alarm which I'm somewhat sceptical of. It's manual control at present but I will have r/c fitted and possibly have the alarm replaced by a gauge glass at the same time and when it's running reliably have it repainted.
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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by LNR » Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:29 am

Another beauty, welcome to the forum.
Grant.

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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by tom_tom_go » Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:40 am

Please keep us updated as this is a great looking loco.

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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by workwright » Mon Sep 18, 2017 8:19 pm

Hi, thank you so much for posting pictures of your Gwalior 4-6-0. Obviously you are the guy who was lucky enough to see it on John Sutton's site. Your loco is I think in better condition than mine. Very interested to hear yours still has the valve gear. I would love some between the frame photos to see how it was put together.

Since last posting the Deeside line has been rebuilt. It took a long time because the nice timber trestle bridge had rotted away at the bottom of all the bents. It had to be demolished and rebuilt with marine ply bases to each bent. Lots of the timber was also rotten so a big job.

My Gwalior has been in the wars. I decided to use it to test the new track. Everything started OK but then the front bogie de-railed. Then four days work to sort out the consequences.. I do not know how but the derail destroyed the valve timing and I could not reset it. There was just too much slop in the rather Heath Robinson valve gear. So the 1/16 wire eccentric rod and the ball joints were scrapped and replacements made much more in keeping with the prototype. I will post pictures tommorow. One odd thing , if the valves were timed to crack open at the limits of the piston stroke as I normally do, she would not run well. Talking to her previous owner and some experimenting found that swiss watch running in both directions was only achieved with the valves cracking open at the moment of the piston direction changing. Should you ever want to get into the works the brass lubricators on the valve chests unscrew. I hope you have better luck than me. I removed the valve chest covers without problem but found on re-assembly that the retaining bolts had stripped out their threads to a greater or lesser extent. Luckily I had a 9BA tap and die and the right sized hex so that was sorted out. Adjusting the round slide valve was easy. Very nicely designed. I do think that the inlet ports (2 small holes) instead of a rectangular port are undersized. However since it runs well and is powerful who am I to say. Thanks again for re-uniting the engines. I wonder if this was one of the locos they made 3 of ???
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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by workwright » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:52 pm

Hi, As promised a couple of photos of the re-built valve gear on the Gwalior loco.
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The eccentric sheaves had there 1/16 wire "rods" removed and new rods were milled from steel and half relieved to allow a good joint onto the existing sheaves. The drive was then taken through the frames, the outboard crank required a slot being cut and filed in the foot plate. The drive was taken to the valve rod by a link. THe link was milled from 3/16" NS bar that I had to hand.
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It is a little overscale but does copy what was on the prototype. The valve rod had to be reworked. The ball cup end was removed and a bush silver soldered on instead. This was thinned down after soldering to be an easy fit into the new forked link. Assembly was with roll pins.
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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by workwright » Wed Oct 11, 2017 8:40 pm

Hi, since the last post the Gwalior 4-6-0 has been totally rebuilt at the front end. During the steaming session pictured above the loco did not behave well for long there was still too much blow by and this got worse. It got so bad that more steam was blowing by than the boiler could generate. So being a fool I thought that it was the valves. For the upteenth time valve covers came off and the valves were inspected ( seemed 0k). The valve faces examined using engineers blue (not so good). In the tight space of the valve chest they were carefully scraped flat That took about five hours! (wasted time as it turned out). Put it back together and tried it on the air line - still a bad blow by! Clearly I was missing something.
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It was time to pack it in, goindoor have a whisky and bed. Sleeping on things is supposed to help and it worked. Next morning it was into the workshop and disconnect the con rods. Slowly rotating the driving wheels showed a problem at once. The left piston went back and forth without much power and the right piston did not move. So out with the tools. What was revealed was on the right side, the piston rod was badly pitted and the black nitrile? ring was cracked in 3 places and brittle. The Left side the ring looked OK but was no longer flexible.
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So new piston rods, new packing and new red silicon rings. All done and dusted in 3 hours. The loco is TRANSFORMED. Powerful, slow running, NO blow by ,good chuff and so economical in steam that today the gas lasted 70 minutes not 25! The loco was used today to open the re-built Deeside Railway (private opening) A full public opening is in the offing.
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All the photos in the post just taken. In one I think you can see the plume from the cosmetic whistle. The railway looks a bit raw but nature will soon soften the setting again.
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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by tom_tom_go » Wed Oct 11, 2017 10:35 pm

Glad you got it sorted.

Any chance of a video of it running please?

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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by LNR » Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:21 pm

Glad that you got the loco fixed, and that your railway is back in operation. Looks good too.
Grant.

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Re: Something for myself - A Gwalior Light Railway 4-6-0

Post by Hydrostatic Dazza » Wed Jan 31, 2018 8:32 pm

Snipped for clarity
[quote=workwright post_id=121940 time=1483302526 user_id=1321]
There is one in particular that he has owned for many years that had long taken my fancy. This 4-6-0 tender locomotive was constructed in 1909 by Kerr, Stuart in Stoke-on-Trent for the Gwalior Light Railway - no 16. Maharaja Madhav Roa II decided that the development of his province was hindered by the lack of good transport. Being an Anglophile he had followed with interest the development of the rail system in India and so naturally he chose British engineers and the Kerr, Stuart Co in particular to supply him with a system. At its peak, the system had well over 300 km track. To make construction cheap and speedy, it followed the trend of the 1890s for such railways to be built to narrow gauge. The gauge chosen was 2' but the length of the railway demanded large tender locomotives. The construction, therefore of the line plus all the rolling stock must have been an interesting challenge for the Kerr, Stuart designers. Their solution, in GLR no 16, is a very elegant and purposeful-looking engine.
[/img]
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Does any one have more pics of the prototype loco and or the works drawings, works, there are features of this loco I wish to include in my freelance first time build. The Tender is especially appealing to me.
Cheers from Dazza, The Hydrostatic Lubricator 8)
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