Samson

[Boustrophedon]

My wife has just bought me a Cheddar Samson for Christmas. I am well chuffed to say the least.





I am very impressed by the build quality, Roundhouse are good, but they feel light, Accucraft are heavy but lack the engineering finesse, Samson has both. Bronze bushes on the motion work, thick brass bodywork, a pressure regulator on the gas supply, sight glass and refill valve. Needless to say I love my wife.

[Boustrophedon]

Only problem is I now have three locos with three different couplings.

[MDLR]

Only problem is I now have three locos with three different couplings.

........ and you appear to have an electrically powered one (unless that's a charging lead.....)

[Peter Butler]

You have your wife very well trained. (Trained!!!! get it ?)

[tom_tom_go]

Is it in working order, can we see it running please?

[williamfj]

That's a much better present than a pair of socks, what a machine.

[funandtrains]

The are chunky and robust locos.The bodys are steel not brass.

[Boustrophedon]

The are chunky and robust locos.The bodys are steel not brass.

Ah! thanks for that.

[Chris Cairns]

Very nice Don.

If you do not have them I can send you a scan of the instructions, and I have the Garden Rail review which I can also scan if required.

Yours has the gas pressure regulator valve fitted, and these are known to distemper the controlling spring (mine did it earlier this year). Easy fix, unscrew the 4 screws and remove the top, make sure the diaphragm is in good condition, and stretch the spring. In use make sure you always unscrew the valve fully out (up) at the end of a run, so you are not leaving the spring compressed all the time.

Some experience & advice from Tag Gorton. The lubricator is fitted with a flow control needle valve. Make sure this is fully closed/screwed in at the end of a run/beginning of a run, and close it whenever the loco is stationery (e.g. stopped to fill with water - gas outlasts one boiler fill of water). Otherwise there is a of risk having steam oil sucked into the boiler (no vacuum relief valve fitted) as has happened to several Cheddar locos, including mine & Tag Gorton's when he lent it to a friend.

Unlike Roundhouse or Accucraft, all the bodywork & chassis are steel so any bare metal showing will need to be properly protected against corrosion.

The sprung axle boxes can be very lively with the possibility of derailment on poor track. The recommendation in the Garden Rail review, which came from the head of Cheddar Models, is to remove the springs from the front axle & reverse the axle boxes. Made my Samson a lot less bouncy after doing this tweak.

Love the John Turner style valve gear - momentary set required direction and then just leave it - no requirement to hold over centre sprung radio control joysticks!

For your multi height couplings, these were provided with rod pins which had a hook shaped top - if the multi height coupling is too low for your other coupling, just fit the 3 link chain to that hook on top of the rod pin (too late for a photo tonight - my Samson is in winter storage mode).

Here is the Bagnall catalogue entry for the 'Gibraltar' Class loco which is what Samson was based on (3 were used on the Gibraltar Dockyard Railway), and there is another image of one here on this GBC News item - https://youtu.be/zACeYzGCxsQ?t=2m13s



Chris Cairns

[Boustrophedon]

Thanks Chris, that was very helpful. I have copies of the reviews By Tag, they were in with the documentation that came with it.

I was allowed a test run today, before it gets wrapped for Christmas and it performed faultlessly, beautifully smooth and quiet and so easy to light!

On my simple circle of track the suspension was not too bouncy, so I will leave it for now.

I note the point about the gas regulator spring, I will have a look see later. However there was no problem today.

I am a little unsure of the principle of the lubricator, with the oil outlet at the bottom it cannot be a displacement lubricator. How does the oil get out? It seems to work, in that the oil disappears from it, leaving it nearly empty.

[Marquis DeCarabas]

I am a little unsure of the principle of the lubricator, with the oil outlet at the bottom it cannot be a displacement lubricator. How does the oil get out? It seems to work, in that the oil disappears from it, leaving it nearly empty.

The hole at the bottom is to let the denser condensate out, the oil floats.

[Chris Cairns]

How does the oil get out?

Not exactly sure but seems to be a variation of a dead leg lubricator, but I get little or no residual condensate after a run. The pipe goes in the regulator housing on the regulator open side. The instructions state to open the valve up to 2 turns, but that is way too much (probably why you had little oil left). Tag recommends starting off at 1/4 of a turn open, and then fine tuning from there. He usually gets about 3 runs out of one fill of the lubricator. On mine it is barely 1/8th of a turn open. The loco will quite happily run initially with the flow control fully closed (i.e. you have forgotten to open it) and you'll know when it is starting to run dry.

I watched an owner about 2 years ago struggling to run his 2nd hand Samson (just acquired it). Going through various checks of the radio control found no faults. Turned out he thought the flow control valve (sorry forgotten what Cheddar called it) was a drain valve, and after checking for any water he had just fully screwed the valve back in and left it closed - a case of RTFM.

The indication of a problem with the spring in the gas pressure regulator valve is it will not build up steam pressure, despite being fully screwed down - on mine (2nd hand) it went after about 6 months of running and refused to raise more than 20 PSI. I painted a line on the wheel and note how much I have turned it - you can reasonably accurately set the required steam pressure and just leave it - no more constantly turning down gas valves as the tank heats up ala Accucraft & Roundhouse, etc.

Look forward to seeing some video in due course - I've not posted any so far because I cannot persuade anyone to run my Samson so I can video it without having to hold an R/C transmitter as well!

Chris Cairns

[KNO3]

Thats really nice of your wife!
I have an almost identical Samson and am very pleased with it.
By the way, I have fitted an anti vacuum valve to avoid the boiler sucking oil from the lubricator. Clevedon steam sells the valve and you can easily fit it to the top of the water gauge.

[Boustrophedon]

Thats really nice of your wife!
I have an almost identical Samson and am very pleased with it.
By the way, I have fitted an anti vacuum valve to avoid the boiler sucking oil from the lubricator. Clevedon steam sells the valve and you can easily fit it to the top of the water gauge.

Just bought one.

[Chris Cairns]

Be interested to hear how you get on with the anti-vacuum relief valve.

I met up with Tag Gorton at the post 2016 Llanfair C Show open day at the Wigfa & Llanrwrst railway. He was running his Cheddar Reisa and commented that the boiler had been contaminated with steam oil as he had lent this model to a friend for an extended period. I was able to show him that I still picked up steam oil off the top of my Samson's boiler water by inserting the silicon tube of my water filler bottle all the way through one of the holes in the baffle plate in the steam dome. We discussed how to remove this steam oil, and I've recently given my boiler a complete flush out again using bike degreaser, plus stripping down the regulator housing. Be interesting to see if the steam oil still returns - I always release the safety valve as soon as possible after a run.

Chris Cairns

[Palmerston]

Hello,

I am in need of a few dimensions of this loco.

Need the width of the cab and height to roof from ground up.

Length without couplers?

Thank you in advance.

[Boustrophedon]

Hello,

I am in need of a few dimensions of this loco.

Need the width of the cab and height to roof from ground up.

Length without couplers?

Thank you in advance.

Width (roof/chassis) 108

Width cab 110

Length (excluding couplers) 252

Height 163

HTH.

[Boustrophedon]

Yours has the gas pressure regulator valve fitted, and these are known to distemper the controlling spring (mine did it earlier this year). Easy fix, unscrew the 4 screws and remove the top, make sure the diaphragm is in good condition, and stretch the spring. In use make sure you always unscrew the valve fully out (up) at the end of a run, so you are not leaving the spring compressed all the time.


Chris Cairns

You are right about that spring, it was never tempered right in the first place, far too soft. Springs if they have not been properly hardened and tempered, may deform permanently under load, but the hardness of the steel is set for all time unless it gets hot.

Also it should have been designed with a longer spring in a taller housing so as to strain the spring less.

I have stretched the spring so it works OK for now. I shall in due course replace it.

[KNO3]

Have you tested the anti-vacuum valve?

[Chris Cairns]

You may be able to get a replacement spring from Jerry at Clevedon Steam (he is a former Cheddar Models employee) - http://www.clevedonsteam.co.uk/products.html#Set of 3 replacement Springs

Chris Cairns