Contractors Loco Project

[GTB]

I'm probably way out of my depth here, but could there have been some kind of transmission brake system acting on the drive chain?

Possibly. Early road vehicles often had transmission brakes, model T Fords for instance. A bit problematic with a chain drive though, as a shock load can cause the chain to jump off the sprocket, then there is no braking at all.

Graeme

[philipy]

Progressing slowly with drawing up bits and pieces. Its a bit of a struggle trying to get the proportions correct, but I think I'm gettig there now. I'm now ignoring the derelict photo since I think it was just confusing things, and I'm just going with the original large photo's and the two together.

I have cobbled up a sort of generic schematic 2 cyl, vertical engine, based on various photo's. It is completely lacking any fine detail, including valve gear (!), but in the cramped gloom inside this thing, I'm hoping it will give the right sort of general impression.
The attached screen shot shows a detail from the large photo,plus my current drawing posed at the same sort of angle.
( I still have to add detail to the front of the firebox and ash pan etc and try to guess the dome, safety valve etc.)

Screenshot 2022-01-07 06.39.55.png (660.74 KiB) Viewed 2590 times

[GTB]

( I still have to add detail to the front of the firebox and ash pan etc and try to guess the dome, safety valve etc.)

Looks reasonable to me........

If you prop one of the crew against the engine, you won't see much of it.

The boiler has a Salter spring safety valve on top of the dome, mostly under that polished brass trumpet cover, but the spring column is just visible beside the cover. Presumably there's a hole in the roof for steam to escape, unless the loco doubled as a mobile sauna.

There also seems to be a peanut whistle on the roof more or less above the dome. There's visible steam near it, so either it was being blown while the photo was being taken, or the safety valve opened.

Graeme

[philipy]

( I still have to add detail to the front of the firebox and ash pan etc and try to guess the dome, safety valve etc.)

Looks reasonable to me........

If you prop one of the crew against the engine, you won't see much of it.

The boiler has a Salter spring safety valve on top of the dome, mostly under that polished brass trumpet cover, but the spring column is just visible beside the cover. Presumably there's a hole in the roof for steam to escape, unless the loco doubled as a mobile sauna.

There also seems to be a peanut whistle on the roof more or less above the dome. There's visible steam near it, so either it was being blown while the photo was being taken, or the safety valve opened.

Graeme

Thanks Graeme, Yes, I agree with what you said here.
I've also drawn up a short intermediate drive shaft ( at least I think thats what it is ) which is just visible between the engine and boiler in the derelict shot. I assume it was a double chain system to transfer the drive down to the axle through a hole in the floor. I'm guessing that the chain hanging out of the side is from this.
It will just add a bit more 'busy-ness', I think, plus some bits of pipework.

I'm also planning on the water tank at the back being a battery box, either 4 or 5 Eneloops.

Screenshot 2022-01-07 11.27.12.png (55.78 KiB) Viewed 2578 times

[Phil.P]

Just to throw a spanner in the works :

Could the 'derelict' have had axles, etc. removed, and what was left, dropped on something-like a skip/tipper chassis?

Just thought it might explain the disparate axle spacings.. It would seem a lot of work to have made the changes.

Phil.P

[philipy]

I guess it's possible Phil, but I still think a rebuild is more likely. There are too many other discrepancies that wouldn't be accounted for by that.

[philipy]

or there is a control wheel in front of his right knee. I thought it might be a handbrake wheel, but there is no evidence of brake shoes on either version.......

I noticed that too, ...

I've been playing with enlarging and then adjusting the contrast, etc, settings on the big photo. Actually I was trying to see what sort of underframe there was and the conclusion seems to be that there was no real underfame/chassis at all, because you can see right through under the footplate level. If there is something though, it must be a very small section U or L steel.

However as an aside, a couple of other details became apparent from this:
The chain that runs under the footplate to the front wheels, and which I assumed was a drive chain, can't be that at all because it seems to head above the front axle and disappears up under the ashpan somehow, apparently heading above the rear axle, plus there is no return loop chain. So, I wonder if the loco only had a single driven axle? Then, I wonder if that chain is actually a brake operating chain, somehow?
I tried playing with the photo of the other sde and there just might be a chain between the axles on this side but the picture gets so pixelated that it's impossible to be certain of anything.

Anyway, I've been pushing on with drawings, and printing things, and I should be able to start putting it together shortly.

[philipy]

Monday morning update:
Most of the components are now printed, although they all need cleaning up to a greater or lesser degree.
This is the kit waiting to be worked on.

DSC_0001.JPG (1.91 MiB) Viewed 2488 times

[Peter Butler]

Now that's impressive! Working out what the components are is one thing, but making them fit is quite another... good luck.

[GTB]

The chain that runs under the footplate to the front wheels, and which I assumed was a drive chain, can't be that at all because it seems to head above the front axle and disappears up under the ashpan somehow, apparently heading above the rear axle, plus there is no return loop chain. So, I wonder if the loco only had a single driven axle?

Parallax makes it hard to determine from the photos exactly what the drive arrangement is and exactly where the chain is located. Photographers never consider future modellers...........

The logical arrangement (Occam's Razor again) is that each driving axle has it's own driving chain from the counter shaft beside the engine and that the front one runs behind the ashpan and under the boiler to the counter shaft on the cab floor. Presumably the axle boxes were part of a pedestal that could be adjusted back and forth to keep the chain tensioned. It looks overdue to be tightened in the photo.

I think the chain is likely over towards the smokebox side of the loco and the axle sprocket is fairly small, which would fit what can be seen. The upper part of the drive chain is lost in the gloom up near the floor. Unless they used a couple of jockey sprockets, it would have passed at an angle through a slot in the floor, under the boiler.

Two individual axle drive chains would mean it would have to break both chains to be completely disabled. The wee beastie is small and light, so single axle drive would make it hard pressed to move much more than it's own weight.

None of which is of much relevance to a working model, where you have to fit things in where you can find the space.

You are certainly making progress and it will be an interesting model when complete.

Graeme

[Lonsdaler]

Hi Philip,
A fascinating build and some excellent research on a difficult to track project. The origin of the steam engine fascinated me and drew me down a veritable rabbit hole
I have found many excellent pictures of various launches, but none with the arrangement of a horizontal firebox/boiler. However, one in particular yielded some excellent detail photographs of the various elements of the drive train. I've pasted a link below; whilst it is a vertical boiler, the rest of the components should offer inspiration for any further detailing you choose to do. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product!
https://www.stationroadsteam.com/steam- ... screen/11/

[philipy]

Thanks Phil. I have investigated that particular rabbit hole myself! I looked at the StationRoad Steam site as well. TBH, I'm not aiming to get that detailed, as long as it looks something like, that will be good enough for this one. It's only a bit of fun and I'd guess won't really get much of a run.

[Lonsdaler]

Fair enough if you've already been there But just imagine the detail that could go into the same subject at 5" or even 7 1/4"

[GTB]

I have investigated that particular rabbit hole myself!

I finally found the entrance to the rabbit hole I was looking for............

http://www.consuta.org.uk/workshop/Technical.html

At 50', with a 100hp steam plant and a water speed of +20 knots, the preserved Consuta is a bit bigger than the machinery in the little loco, but it shows the sort of thing I was suggesting.

This is not a putt-putt work boat like the African Queen with a vertical boiler and a single cylinder engine. More an expensive toy for the late Victorian chinless classes to hoon around in on the river.

The printed engine looks about right to me for what it needs to do. Unless we keep our inner finescale modeller on a short leash we never finish anything.

Graeme

[philipy]

Thanks once more Graeme.
Yes that does look generally similar to what I've printed. The backhead also looks very similar to the loco, which is reassuring. I've been trying to draw the pipework ( a representation again) based on the photo. It's drawn, stl'd, and sliced, but awaiting printer time later on today hopefully, to see if it works. However the slicer kept objecting to the fineness of what I was wanting to print, so I don't have a lot of optimism.

[GTB]

However the slicer kept objecting to the fineness of what I was wanting to print, so I don't have a lot of optimism.

There are reasons why I use soft copper wire for pipework, not all of them because of my allergy to CAD software.......

If all else fails, print out a bending jig for shaping the basic pipework parts and print separate fittings like flanges and valves to thread on the wire.

Graeme

[philipy]

Yes, I was planning something on those lines. Printing the whole thing was always going to be optimistic, but worth a shot.

[philipy]

I've been playing, with somewhat amazing results.

In the last year or two there have been a number of fairly well publicised 'colourisings' of black and white films and photo's. You may or may not know that there is a Family History/Genealogy site called My Heritage and one of the tools that they offer is a colourising service for old family photo's.
Now I've been musing about what colour to paint 'the beast' when I get that far and it suddenly dawned on me that the crew in the photo might be ancestors of mine who need a bit of colour in their lives and if they did, their chariot might get accidentally coloured at the same time!!
There is also a 'sharpening' option which I applied as well.

So this is the result. I have to say that I'm mightily impressed at the entirely plausible result, just starting from the standard big picture that Rik posted originally.

jpeg2.jpeg (228.4 KiB) Viewed 2162 times

I don't have a clue how the algorithms work, but the faces look entirely plausible and so does the vegetation, so I'm assuming that other colours are reasonably close to reality ( although the front guy's trouser leg changes colour from blue on one side of the post to a greenish grey shade on the other!). If that's correct then the basic colour of the loco would seem to be black.

[Andrew]

Wow, that's incredible! It really brings it to life - it's sometimes easy (well, for me, anyway...) to forget that the relatively distant past did actually happen in colour!

I was wondering what colour you'd paint it - I'd thought black looked most likely...

[ge_rik]

That really is impressive. I hadn't realised there was a tool that did colourising automatically. I thought that the loco was standing beside a road, I hadn't noticed it was a water course. Given they're building a reservoir, a water course makes a lot more sense.

Rik