GWR OO Gauge - 1930's rural Somerset - Winter 1937

Project - "New Wipers"

 (3) Trial Loco completed and tested

The attached video shows test runs at speed step 005, half that of the previous video before wipers were added. The improvement compared to the "before" situation is substantial as the loco would sometimes stall at speed step 006 in the frog. Even with the Stay Alive (SA) on board that appeared to be the boundary.

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Does this overcome the need for a Stay Alive on this type of loco? No, the limitations of long isolated frog sections, an almost rigid chassis and less than perfectly flat track combined mean that the SA is still required to overcome temporary dropouts. When wipers and SA are combined the results are excellent.

well done Colin - certainly nice & slow.

I dream of getting reliable running at that speed. Nice work.

Thanks Guys,

it is very satisfying to get such good operation out of a cheap and cheerful Hornby Railroad loco. I'm now moving on to the Hornby 48xx Class to put this learning to real work.

Colin

Westown-Heathfield - News from "The W-H Bunker"

   Week 6 - Update

Time flies! 42 days of our Social Distancing in Oz have produced very good and encouraging results despite the added burden of externally sourced infections from incoming Cruise Ships. There is a sense here that infections will continue to decline to very low levels and with just under 3 weeks to go to the next review, we might just see our distancing restrictions eased. Don't expect to be able to visit us any time soon unless prepared to enter self-funded 14 days in quarantine. Our "moat" has never felt quite so comforting.

We've settled into a new and very comfortable regime here. Finding more time for activities together, old movies and TV series, walks, gardening all rather good. The weekly Youtube broadcasts of great musicals an excuse (if one was needed) to break out some bubbles and enjoy. Now past mid-autumn the weather remains kind, time on the patio still pleasant but the window of opportunity narrowing.



Figs and Persimmon remain under the nets, delivering the last of this season's fruit.

All this hints at less additional progress to report on W-H than I'd like and that's true. After success with 2779's wipers, I've returned to the Hornby Class 48xx with replacement centre wheels without traction tyres. Before moving to add wheel wipers I decided to do some further testing with the SA reattached. Then I started hitting some issues with binding somewhere in the drive, it is a very tight squeeze to get the existing DCC and SA combo all inside as there's virtually no room above or forward of the motor. So a rethink is in order, I must have found an ideal setup that I can't recapture now!

 

Hi Colin,

When I had one of those Hornby 14xx's I found the best place was behind the motor and in the cab/bunker. Delegged driver and fireman at the windows.

Nigel

[user=1632]BCDR[/user] wrote:

Hi Colin,

When I had one of those Hornby 14xx's I found the best place was behind the motor and in the cab/bunker. Delegged driver and fireman at the windows.

Nigel

Thanks Nigel,


I was coming around to that POV myself. If I can get the running smooth enough I might even invest in a nice thin combo of a ZIMO chip and SACC stay alive, my currently installed gear is very bulky even behind the motor.


Colin

[user=1632]BCDR[/user] wrote:

Hi Colin,

When I had one of those Hornby 14xx's I found the best place was behind the motor and in the cab/bunker. Delegged driver and fireman at the windows.

Nigel

Picking up on this suggestion from Nigel, I've fixed the locations of DCC chip and the SA control circuitry.



The DCC at back reaches up to the top rear of the bunker in a snug fit, held in place with some hot melt glue. Likewise the SA Diode / resistor control are now neatly held along the side of the motor. There's room for a modest capacitor in front of the chip and those legless crew, one each side.

Following on from this I've turned my attention to improving the wipers. The existing ones worked well for about 15 minutes after careful realignment so it's on to adding a new set. Nowhere as easy as on 2779, the in situ brake rodding obscures access from the keeper plate and there's zero room to bring wires / wipers in from above, so snug is the fit between the chassis and the body. As a first stage I've built in the brass mounting plates and wiring of the power feeds. There'll be some experimentation required to get the pickup wires aligned and working.








 

Hi Colin,

Looking good. 

Nigel

The Class 48xx Saga Comes to a Happy Conclusion

Saga it has been indeed! Ask those who know me well and they'll confirm that if anyone can find a dud in the marketplace it'll be me. Why I even bought an expensive new mixer tap recently made by that famous quality German producer Gr*h* and mine was the one badun' of the batch.

My foray into finding a decent GWR Class 48xx has been no exception; having first dodged a bullet by avoiding the DJM-Hattons which was plagued with operational issues, I tried my hand with the 2018 Hornby re-release. This proved to be a case of them fixing something (badly) that didn't need the treatment it received. Perhaps if they'd just replaced those traction tyres instead and left the rest..? Then I moved on to briefly explore the older Airfix "classic" only to confirm its limitations; two down.

A good compromise appeared to be the earlier (2008) Hornby carrying the GWR shirt-button logo, and as luck would have it, one popped up Pre-owned on Hattons. By the time of that release, Hornby had moved on to a more modern motor and had the Centre of Gravity well arranged (unlike DJM). With a Stay Alive of some size (4400uF) added to my purchase, I got good operation but the limitations of those traction tyres (TTs) and wipers meant it was a nightmare to maintain in good running order.

Fast Forward to 2020 and the decision to do a "right proper job".
 1) buy an Airfix for spare driving wheels so I could swap out the Hornby TT drivers - Oh! too bad, my "Airfix" purchase turned out to be a K's!
 2) try again, success second time but it leaves me now with 3 Class 48xxs in varying degrees of dismantlement!

So, here at end April 2020 the story comes to its satisfying conclusion for the Hornby. As shown earlier, the groundwork for the wipers has been put in place. The full wiper set are now installed and all the electronics fitted snugly in the cab.








And it runs delightfully very much like the 2779 down to speed step 006 across those long insulfrogs on the curved points.

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The residents of Heathfield, especially the youngsters, have been keenly awaiting the return of 4869 to operations on their daily Autocar service. It had been up at Tawntown shed undergoing major works for far too long. Why, they might even throw a party for its return.

Success indeed Colin but what a journey !!  Brilliant creeping over those dead frogs.  :thumbs

Hats off to you for your perseverence - and for having the idea in the first place.   :pathead

Your efforts have inspired me to learn how to remove the body from one of my locomotives and see what's inside - I thought it was a boiler …………… :cheers

Yes, VBG

Westown-Heathfield - News from "The W-H Bunker"

    Week 7 - Update

Good news from Oz, just 79 new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days nationwide, and now there is a positive albeit cautious tone to official updates. Several "closed border" States and Territories have recorded no new cases for many days now. Maybe by end of Month 2 there will be no need for further updates from YT.

April has rolled into May and here in Melbourne we've had almost as much rain in 4 months as in all last year! Good job the bunker's in a house high on a slope or modeling activities might be threatened!

The bad weather had us turning our attention to the kitchen, fresh pasta manufacture on a cottage industry scale! Just did a "food drop" of lasagna over to the Melbourne troup for our weekly "hello" from a distance.

 
Stay safe, Colin 

I thought we had all the rain here Colin - the winter flooding of fields around our house is back with a vengence.  The rain does however, have the advantage of removing any guilt feelings about spending time on the layout ……………

Very relieved to hear things are moving in the right direction re Covid19 but I think we all have to watch what happens in Germany over the next week or two.  Apparently, having been super-efficient in controlling it up to now, they are seeing something of a spike as rules relax.

Restrictions are scheduled to be eased here after May 11th but I suspect it won't be as easy a run as many think ………….

Keep safe yourselves too.   :thumbs

Hi Colin.   You are made excellent progress , as for me I am at the other end of of the scale.I have ground to a complete halt. Best wishes Kevin 

Westown-Heathfield - News from "The W-H  Bunker"

      Month 2 - Update

It feels much less like confinement here now, not that much has changed so far but the prospects are getting ever brighter ahead. Less "bunker", more like "rest - cure" and we're both getting rather comfortable with a modified lifestyle.

So much to do around the house, those jobs you never found time to catch up with and new activities to engage us so that there never seems to be an idle moment, albeit at a slower pace.

The main task on W-H has been to focus on Class 14xx #2, the old Airfix I bought as a non-runner for spares. With the Hornby 4869 a beneficiary of those useful bits and ending up as a fine runner, I decided I quite like this tinkering with locos and that I'd explore what could be done to the donor.

The non-running was down to three things, plunger pickups coated in 40 years of grime and gunk. Motor commutator not much better and for good measure, centre wheels minus traction tyres, all wheels very corroded.

The first two were easy fixes and I can add wipers to further improve pickup. The wheels required serious attention, with incoming axle ex Hornby also TT'd, all four wheels needed grinding down to a smooth rim. A few other tweaks and the loco runs as smooth as silk under DC input.



It's interesting to compare this with the much newer Hornby (Post # 170) so little change in all that time. The massive motor of the Airfix rules out DCC so I'll keep this as an interesting historical loco perhaps giving it the occasional outing on a DC plank.

 This is interesting stuff Colin.

How did you clean the brushes and commutator - a dunk in something nasty or something more sophisticated ?

Hi Colin
I am embarrassed that I missed all your posts about the 48xx conversion.:oops: I am so glad it was successful……the video of it crawling across the points was very impressive. What decoder did you install?

I was lucky with my DJM purchases one was good and the other was ok ish but they both suffer from the centre of gravity issue and extreme sensitivity to uneven track. Zimo decoders plus SA have moved them up to brilliant and good.

There is a saying you can never have too many panniers on a GWR layout……I am inclined to think that applies to 14/48xx as well

I have a bunch of Dapol/Hornby 14xx in the graveyard box…….after reading your very helpful posts I am seriously tempted to try a conversion myself.

Best wishes

John

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

 This is interesting stuff Colin.

How did you clean the brushes and commutator - a dunk in something nasty or something more sophisticated ?

Just alcohol did the job. This is an old fashioned motor and everything is accessible and dismantles

Hi John,

better late than never!  ;-)

There is a postscript to the Hornby Saga which addressed the one thing I was not totally happy about at the first try. My mentor on this project had melted his brass contact strips into the plastic keeper plate, something I was uncomfortable doing so I made do with careful dabs of hotmelt glue and a snug fit.

This proved less than ideal and also required extra wires to somehow run from beneath around the chassis sides. The refinement I came up with was to use micro screws to hold the plates in place, carefully positioned to puncture the brass strips inside the keeper plate and remove the need for extra wires. "Two birds" with one stone.

 Ever "Le Glaneur", I had been dismantling a whole load of old Iomega Zip drives (remember them?) for disposal to find they were very nicely engineered and held by 4 micro self-tapping screws of ~1.5mm * 4mm, viz perfect for the job. My motto should be "every chance discovery is a resource in search of a need"

This is the reworked underside which is rather more tidy now.



  

The DCC chip is nothing special, just a DCC Concepts Zen Nano direct, useful as it has the Stay Alive wires already attached.
 
In addition to the two 14xx Class I still have the third one. My K's kit which has its own topic on here, is dormant while COVID-19 runs it's course and I can safely get together with the kindly fellow who will help me assemble the Highlevel Gearbox I've bought. By then I might even be game to build a whole new chassis, who knows?