TVT - It followed Me Home.....
Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:26 am
The US designed Climax geared locomotives have been in my sights for years, long before moving into garden scale. This is a long story!
A handful of Climax locos operated in Aust., made up of seven of the smaller A type, with seven of the larger B type. There were also seven (1 A type and 6 B type) that ran in New Zealand, which will become relevant to this story.
Two survived into preservation in Aust, the ex FCV 25 ton B type that has been restored to running condition on the Puffing Billy line near Melbourne and one 30 ton B type restored to static condition in the Tasmanian Transport Museum in Hobart.
Of course I'd like a model of the FCV loco., but building a model Climax runs up against a major problem. The prototype design uses skew bevel gears, which are not available commercially in suitable sizes. Kozo Hiraoka has instructions for cutting the correct gears in his book on building a 3.5" gauge Climax and I read it from time to time, but I'm fairly sure that sort of gear cutting is well above my pay grade.
The only garden scale live steam models that have been available commercially are as rare as hen's teeth. The most recent commercial model is from Accucraft, who made a 35 ton B class Climax model around the time I took up garden scale. I looked at one on the Argyle stand at an exhibition, but never got around to doing anything about it. Fast forward to more recent times and a used Accucraft one was on the sale table at the last GSSU before Covid shut everything down and then lo and behold there were two at the next GSSU last Nov. More thought, but still no action on my part.......
A couple of weeks ago an Accucraft example turned up on Argyle's Market Place page and that co-incided with me finding a photo I hadn't seen before of one of the Climax locos that ran in New Zealand. The main reason I hadn't done anything about the Accucraft models I'd seen was that they didn't look much like anything that ran in Australia. The model is a 35 ton B type loco built before WW1 with a wooden cab and a parallel boiler, while all the models I've seen locally were the version with a rather ugly metal cab fitted to the prototype during a rebuild. The largest of the Australian and NZ Climax locos were later 30 ton B types with a large steel cab and a wagon top boiler, which have a distinct family resemblance to the preserved FCV Climax.
The New Zealand photo I found showed a 30 ton loco with a wooden cab and a parallel boiler and something finally clicked. An overnight think and a bit more research resulted in a phone call and then a little while later a day trip into the Dandenongs. The TVT capital account has recovered from building the track and is currently healthy, so the Climax followed me home......
The first photo shows the new model sitting in the yard for a photo before it's first test run on home track. The vendor is someone that I trust and apparently this model had only had a test run before becoming a shelf queen. He gave it a test run and a going over to check that everything worked, before I paid for it and picked it up.
The next photo shows it running on my track as a light engine. The day was warm and sunny, but calm and it was leaving a nice steam plume on it's first test run on this track. It also has an audible exhaust beat at low speeds, although that fades into a continuous roar at higher speeds, like all geared locos. The sun is behind the loco in the photo and helps emphasise the steam plume.
A Climax loco is designed for working on timber trams after all, so the next test run included a load. The photo shows the result in action, probably the first time the loco has pulled a train. It barely noticed the load and maintained speed and pressure throughout the run.
During the last run a goanna appeared in the station yard to sun itself. Actually it is a Garden Skink, about 3" long, but it scales about right for a 1:20 scale goanna. One lived in the workshop for a while and there were a lot less spiders in the workshop while he was around. We also have genuine dragons (Eastern Bearded Dragons) in the local area, but I haven't seen one of those in the garden.
I have to say that I am impressed with how well this model runs. I've been wary of Accucraft models after the problems with the Shay, but this one just worked out of the box. With the burner at minimum setting, the boiler can steam the cylinders continuously without losing pressure.
It will still get a makeover when I get the time, but it will only be cosmetic work. The cab will be replaced with a more attractive wooden cab and the air compressor, air tank, generator and electric head lights will be removed, to bring the model into more typical Aust/NZ condition. The stack and spark arrestor need to be shortened as well, but that will take some care so it doesn't change the exhaust sound.
Specifically, I am after something of the look of Climax no. 522, which ran on the Ellis & Bernand timber tram in the North Island of NZ. The remains apparently still survive in a museum collection in NZ.
As I hinted in the Harman loco post, if you have a Harman loco, you need a Climax loco to do the real work.
Regards,
Graeme
A handful of Climax locos operated in Aust., made up of seven of the smaller A type, with seven of the larger B type. There were also seven (1 A type and 6 B type) that ran in New Zealand, which will become relevant to this story.
Two survived into preservation in Aust, the ex FCV 25 ton B type that has been restored to running condition on the Puffing Billy line near Melbourne and one 30 ton B type restored to static condition in the Tasmanian Transport Museum in Hobart.
Of course I'd like a model of the FCV loco., but building a model Climax runs up against a major problem. The prototype design uses skew bevel gears, which are not available commercially in suitable sizes. Kozo Hiraoka has instructions for cutting the correct gears in his book on building a 3.5" gauge Climax and I read it from time to time, but I'm fairly sure that sort of gear cutting is well above my pay grade.
The only garden scale live steam models that have been available commercially are as rare as hen's teeth. The most recent commercial model is from Accucraft, who made a 35 ton B class Climax model around the time I took up garden scale. I looked at one on the Argyle stand at an exhibition, but never got around to doing anything about it. Fast forward to more recent times and a used Accucraft one was on the sale table at the last GSSU before Covid shut everything down and then lo and behold there were two at the next GSSU last Nov. More thought, but still no action on my part.......
A couple of weeks ago an Accucraft example turned up on Argyle's Market Place page and that co-incided with me finding a photo I hadn't seen before of one of the Climax locos that ran in New Zealand. The main reason I hadn't done anything about the Accucraft models I'd seen was that they didn't look much like anything that ran in Australia. The model is a 35 ton B type loco built before WW1 with a wooden cab and a parallel boiler, while all the models I've seen locally were the version with a rather ugly metal cab fitted to the prototype during a rebuild. The largest of the Australian and NZ Climax locos were later 30 ton B types with a large steel cab and a wagon top boiler, which have a distinct family resemblance to the preserved FCV Climax.
The New Zealand photo I found showed a 30 ton loco with a wooden cab and a parallel boiler and something finally clicked. An overnight think and a bit more research resulted in a phone call and then a little while later a day trip into the Dandenongs. The TVT capital account has recovered from building the track and is currently healthy, so the Climax followed me home......
The first photo shows the new model sitting in the yard for a photo before it's first test run on home track. The vendor is someone that I trust and apparently this model had only had a test run before becoming a shelf queen. He gave it a test run and a going over to check that everything worked, before I paid for it and picked it up.
The next photo shows it running on my track as a light engine. The day was warm and sunny, but calm and it was leaving a nice steam plume on it's first test run on this track. It also has an audible exhaust beat at low speeds, although that fades into a continuous roar at higher speeds, like all geared locos. The sun is behind the loco in the photo and helps emphasise the steam plume.
A Climax loco is designed for working on timber trams after all, so the next test run included a load. The photo shows the result in action, probably the first time the loco has pulled a train. It barely noticed the load and maintained speed and pressure throughout the run.
During the last run a goanna appeared in the station yard to sun itself. Actually it is a Garden Skink, about 3" long, but it scales about right for a 1:20 scale goanna. One lived in the workshop for a while and there were a lot less spiders in the workshop while he was around. We also have genuine dragons (Eastern Bearded Dragons) in the local area, but I haven't seen one of those in the garden.
I have to say that I am impressed with how well this model runs. I've been wary of Accucraft models after the problems with the Shay, but this one just worked out of the box. With the burner at minimum setting, the boiler can steam the cylinders continuously without losing pressure.
It will still get a makeover when I get the time, but it will only be cosmetic work. The cab will be replaced with a more attractive wooden cab and the air compressor, air tank, generator and electric head lights will be removed, to bring the model into more typical Aust/NZ condition. The stack and spark arrestor need to be shortened as well, but that will take some care so it doesn't change the exhaust sound.
Specifically, I am after something of the look of Climax no. 522, which ran on the Ellis & Bernand timber tram in the North Island of NZ. The remains apparently still survive in a museum collection in NZ.
As I hinted in the Harman loco post, if you have a Harman loco, you need a Climax loco to do the real work.
Regards,
Graeme