Cushendall "Tramcars"

[IrishPeter]

I spent last night making the underframe for a model of a Cushendall tramcar.  I have decided to make one of the shorter composites from the 1886/7 batch - the ones with a 31'10" body on a 37' chassis.  One big compromise is that instead of the almost rigid wheelbase of the originals I am planning to run them on 3'6" wheelbase bogies at 24' scale foot centres.  This should give them the flexibility to get around my worst curves.

The nice thing about the Cushendalls is that they had a big seating capacity so they usually ran alone or in pairs.  When it comes to the 37' stock, the compos seated 12/24 and the all-thirds 40.  They were also some 40/41' carriages which held 44 third class passengers. One nice feature was that they were also fitted with heating in the form of little coal stoves. However, I have never been able to find out if, when the NCC rebuilt them, they acquired steam heating.

My longest vehicle so far was a scale 30' x 7' with 22' bogie centres. It made it around my bends, but the wide body and relatively widely spaced bogie centres made it track sensitive. It has to be the last or second last vehicle in a train or it bowstrings and tips over. Ballasting has not made any difference.

The Cushendall will make it round my bends, the worse being 5' radius.  That said, does anyone have experience running near 2' long vehicles around fairly sharp curves?  What do I need to do and not do to ensure smooth running?  I assume ballasting it fairly heavily would be a good move.

As the S&CLR&T usually runs mixed trains so I am wondering how longer vehicles - for example, the Accucraft Pickerings - ride with a string of goods wagons behind them.

Peter in AZ

[Marquis DeCarabas]

for example, the Accucraft Pickerings - ride with a string of goods wagons behind them.

very well indeed - I watched a long mixed with a Pickering as the 'fitted head' with about 30 wagons behind trundling round Llechfan during one afternoon snooze down there.

[MuzTrem]

That said, does anyone have experience running near 2' long vehicles around fairly sharp curves?

That's going to be a monster coach! My longest vehicle is my W&U coach, which IIRC is just over a foot long, 27cm between bogie centres. That will just about go round an LGB R1 (2' radius) curve. So I reckon a vehicle just under twice the length, on curves just over twice the minimum radius, should in theory be fairly comfortable! The only thing I've found with B1 on curves is buffer-locking, which I've overcome by using special 5-link coupling chains.

[IrishPeter]

I gave 'the Beast' the shove and clearence tests this lunchtime and it passed. The underframe alone weighs 15.7 oz which is nice and heavy.

The shove test consists, as the name suggests. of shoving it along the track and seeing where it derails.  The only place turned out to be on the sharpest bend, and repacking the outside of the curve cured that by eliminating a low spot on the outer rail.

It passed the clearence test as well, but I think being only 91mm wide was a BIG help there.

This afternoon I will strap 16 oz of batteries to the frame to bring it up to its playing weight, sandwich it between a rampant 'Millie' and a string of wagons and see what happens.  Hopefully I have not built another ballast plough!

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

The only problem with the hauled test was that of buffer interlocking, coupled (pun intended) with the Norwegian fling.  The combination of 'Millie's' hauling power and a derailment immediately behind the Cushendall coach's frame led to a fairly destrcutive derailment, so Sunday afternoon was spent dealing with a fairly full RIP track as bouncing along the sleepers at close to full tilt tends to have unfortunate effects on my home-brewed stock.

FWIW I had less trouble with the relatively heavy eight-foot wheelbase wagons, when compared to the 7'6" wheelbase jobs, which still have plastic wheels and are a lot lighter.  I think the relative weights are 13oz and 9oz. The weight of the 8' w/b stuff is sufficient for the full range of lateral movement in the Accy chopper couplings to be deployed which meant we could grease it around the sharp bend at the summit without too much trouble.

For the time being I am going to change out the choppers for Roundhouse H&C couplings, which will cure the problem for the time being, and put attaching a set of Norwegians on a short swinging arm on the growing Rountuit list.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

In the end the decision was that the Cushendall would be far too big despite the fact I had the coupling problem under control. At 22" the underframe was twice as long as my Millie. However, I shortened the underframe to 420mm and it is now being built as a T&DLR style closed vestibule saloon. It will be fitted out as a composite to run with the brake-third I already built.

Chalk one up to experience!

Peter in AZ