Contractors Loco Project
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Wow! What an achievement. I assume the visible chain drive is cosmetic.
It does look good!
Rik
It does look good!
Rik
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Thanks Rik
Noo.. it's functional, in that the front axle is driven and the chain links to the rear axle for 4-wd. I'll put up an upside down pic tomorrow ( if I don't forget!).
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
I've been looking at the pic again and I think the angled piece of metal is part of a mounting bracket for something. It looks like the edge stiffener on some sort of bracket, maybe one edge of whatever supports the brake wheel shaft.
Early locos had no brakes at all, the 'Rocket' being a prime example. Stopping power relied on the guards applying whatever brakes were fitted to rolling stock and the driver reversing the loco., which wasn't easy in the days of gab gear. Australian timber trams were typical of other industrial railways here and until they disappeared after WW2, stopping a train relied on the loco handbrake, plus primitive handbrakes on some vehicles in the train. There are rusting wheelsets still to be found in the bottom of creeks in the hills behind Melbourne, to testify that the limited brake power sometimes wasn't enough. I would think the same applied in the UK on construction railways.
Hudsons sold skips with handbrakes as an optional extra and a loaded skip probably had more braking power than a very small loco like this one. I doubt a small homemade job would have had anything except the handbrake, although bigger locos from someone like Hunslet, may have had a steam brake as well as a handbrake. It wouldn't surprise me if the brake is a crude track brake, ie the baulk of timber between the rear wheel and the rear headstock. The loco is too light to provide much in the way of brake power anyway and the crew probably had to rely on keeping speed low and hoping the bloke riding the skip with a handbrake was awake when they needed him.
The model is coming along well, looks like you are on the last stretch. You'll have to keep a copy of the photo with the model though, to prove to onlookers that something like that really did exist.
Your next job may be to knock up a couple of skips with the extended frames for fitting brakes.
Graeme
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Re: Contractors Loco Project
Catching up on this thread - bloody brilliant work.
Regards,
Aaron - Scum Class Works
Aaron - Scum Class Works
Re: Contractors Loco Project
I understand what you are saying, but I'm not totally convinced that an undertaking that could only run to this contraption as motive power would spend the extra money for 'complicated' braked tippers.GTB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:55 am
Hudsons sold skips with handbrakes as an optional extra and a loaded skip probably had more braking power than a very small loco like this one. I doubt a small homemade job would have had anything except the handbrake, although bigger locos from someone like Hunslet, may have had a steam brake as well as a handbrake. It wouldn't surprise me if the brake is a crude track brake, ie the baulk of timber between the rear wheel and the rear headstock. The loco is too light to provide much in the way of brake power anyway and the crew probably had to rely on keeping speed low and hoping the bloke riding the skip with a handbrake was awake when they needed him.
Your next job may be to knock up a couple of skips with the extended frames for fitting brakes.
I'm assuming that you are thinking of these? : I'm not sure of the date of this illustration, but that brake mech and the wheel bearings look to be a lot later than I think the loco is.
The frame and mechanism wouldn't be difficult to print off. In fact there are a set of stl's on Thingiverse for exactly this type of frame in it's standard format and it would be pretty easy to stretch it. I actually printed one off, years back when I first got the printer and was experimenting to see what it could do, but never finished it. I was intending to get steel wheels for it and it never quite happened so the bits are still sitting on the shelf.
I've had a number of attempts to find pictures of 19th & early 20th c construction works of any kind but they are very few and far between and mostly show horses and carts and men with wheel barrows. The ones with rail tracks usually have nothing on them!
Anyway, this is another rabbit hole that I am NOT going down!
The other thing that I'm vaguely aware of is the buffer situation, in that it has none! That seems to suggest that it was pushing and pulling dumb buffered vehicles, because if not, the loco coupling hooks wouldn't last 2 seconds. Plus the big heavy wooden buffer beams have a sheet metal face.
This might suggest that they were only using it for timber built waggons?
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
That illustration is in the 1915 Hudson Catalogue, but I think it probably goes back further.philipy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 6:57 am I understand what you are saying, but I'm not totally convinced that an undertaking that could only run to this contraption as motive power would spend the extra money for 'complicated' braked tippers.
<snip>
I'm not sure of the date of this illustration, but that brake mech and the wheel bearings look to be a lot later than I think the loco is.
I was thinking of the O&K skip brake arrangement, which Hudson copied, but maybe not until after WW1??? There's a scan of an O&K Catalogue from about 1900 on this link. https://www.zelmeroz.com/album_rail/eur ... t600-T.pdf
To be honest I'm not sure just what this little loco was used for. If that was all they had for moving spoil they'd still be building the reservoir today, 100 years later.
All I can come up with is that it was built for carting maintenance workers, tools and parts around the site when needed and was kept on for that use after the contract finished, until either the track was torn up, or it was replaced by something like a Lister RT, or maybe a Simplex.
I worked in quality control for a time and there is a basic principle that 10% of the problems take up 90% of the available resources. I find modelling projects are similar, the last 10% of the project (mostly the detailing) takes 90% of the time .......
Graeme
Re: Contractors Loco Project
From my days as a teacher, this sounds very familiar of the classroom.....
Rik
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Not far off reality, KG V was started in 1908 but the 2nd reservoir of the pair wasn't finished until 1951.
Ain't that the truth. Even on this I keep spotting things. Yesterday I was looking at how the couplings were fitted when I spotted two whacking great nuts, bolts and packers on top of the front buffer beam.
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
As promised, pictures of the underside. Actually I've shown the chassis from top and bottom, for interest, although it's all fairly simple and pretty conventional apart from using self adhesive copper strips on the underside to join the 2 halves of the battery pack.
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
You have done some excellent research and design on this project Philip - I think you could be an excellent experimental industrial archaeologist! I hope you grace us with more pictures and maybe a video once you have completed it.
Phil
Sporadic Garden Railer who's inconsistencies know no bounds
My Line - https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... 41&t=11077
Sporadic Garden Railer who's inconsistencies know no bounds
My Line - https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... 41&t=11077
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Yes please! A remarkable model of a remarkable locomotive...
I'd forgotten you'd included sound - I wonder what such a beast would have sounded like?! I hope you've chosen something recorded on a loco with lots of cylinders, even more wheels, and a huge loud chime whistle...
Re: Contractors Loco Project
On the assumption that the engine was begged, borrowed or stolen from a steam launch, thats what I've gone for - ripped the soundtrack from a Youtube video. It was difficult to get one that didn't have lots of gricer types yacking over the top, or sounds of water slooshing past!
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Good plan!philipy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 1:20 pmOn the assumption that the engine was begged, borrowed or stolen from a steam launch, thats what I've gone for - ripped the soundtrack from a Youtube video. It was difficult to get one that didn't have lots of gricer types yacking over the top, or sounds of water slooshing past!
The water might have been OK, for a reservoir line...
Forgot to say, by the way, but that stretch of line in the pond photo is lovely, looks just right...
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Re: Contractors Loco Project
That is a very neat set of printed components! Really impressed with the way the filament printing and resin printing have come together in a really quirky little loco. It is going to look brilliant when its painted.
I am interested in what you are using for the sound card?
Trevor
I am interested in what you are using for the sound card?
Trevor
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Based on one of Rik's developments, from his Peckforton blogs. The sound card he was using only had 30sec recording time, but he found a way of hacking it to repeat play. The Chinese seem to have changed their electronics now and that hack doesn't work ( at least not for me!). However they now do a 4minute one. A bit more expensive, but I figured that 4 minutes is a long tme for this little beastie to be ambling about. So this is what I've got:Trevor Thompson wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 2:13 pm
I am interested in what you are using for the sound card?
Trevor
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07KTWLXPL? ... ct_details
I changed the speaker for a 26mm diameter one to get it inside the boiler, and chopped the PCB to remove the button cells and physically reduce the o/a size and then linked it to run off the main battery pack.
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Thanks, but unfortunately that pic is several yeasr old and sadly it doesn't look nearly as appealing as that now.
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
I found the hack by grounding some of the connections on the board to see what happened. However, the boards I used were less than £1.50 each so I figured it wouldn't matter if I fried a couple. As it happened, I didn't fry any and found the right connection after about two attempts. If you don't mind risking your £10 investment, you could try tinkering to see if you can get it to loop after each 4min cycle.philipy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 3:43 pm Based on one of Rik's developments, from his Peckforton blogs. The sound card he was using only had 30sec recording time, but he found a way of hacking it to repeat play. The Chinese seem to have changed their electronics now and that hack doesn't work ( at least not for me!). However they now do a 4minute one. A bit more expensive, but I figured that 4 minutes is a long tme for this little beastie to be ambling about.
Rik
Re: Contractors Loco Project
Yeah, I've tried it but no good. It did go completely dead at one attempt but came back after I switched it right off and on again. Figured that 4 mins would be enough, after that.
Philip
Re: Contractors Loco Project
I'm shortly going to have to bite the bullet and weather it, which fills me with trepidation. Weathering is a subject which I've never been any good at.
I've been reading through your posts about rusting and using iron powder. It all makes sense and I did get some powder quite a while ago when something you wrote inspired me, but I've never plucked up the courage to use it! The only thing I'm not clear about is how you actually apply the powder evenly to the wet paint? If I did it I'm sure I'd end up with big piles and bare patches, rather than an even distribution.
Philip
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