Fine on new metre of track, but dislikes all other

Hi, have just bought above, which am delighted with, but it dont like my layout. Its DC only, and i have cleaned one track to try. Has anyone the same loco. Do i need more juice, more pickups or what. Reluctant to relay a complete track. Would Droppers help. john

Hi John

Lots of possibilities.  We need more information.

Rivarossi is not a 'top end' brand.  It might be pickups.

Then again it could be dirty wheels?

Do your other locos run OK?

Have you got a pair of droppers for every piece of track?

Hi John,

You have not said if it is new or second hand but I believe these locomotives are not in production at the moment. Rivarossi locos were "notorious" for the tender wheels oxidising quickly so a wheel clean using white spirit and paper towel is a start. If your other locos run well on your track, then the fault is with the Big Boy.

These locos also pick up from the loco and return through the tender so the pin where the tender is coupled to needs to be clean also and the spring wire rubbing against it with a little more tension. If your loco has traction tyres, take care not to get the white spirit on the tyres as they will perish quickly but the tyres are not on the pick up side.

I have not got a Big Boy myself but also check the underside of the Tender where the wipers ride over the axle as they did on earlier models and again clean with white spirit. 

See how you go with that and what others suggest here,

Regards from Oz

Trevor

Thank you both for your replies. On my DC, layout, i have no droppers, that was why i mentionned it. Also, was trying loco without tender, so will clean all and try again. It is an immaculate older model, and runs fine on piece of new track. All other locos run fine on layout, which is 10x5, 6 tracks, no points,  all controlled  by H&m controllers.  It was not bought for daily use, as have some 60 otherDC,  locos, 12, DCC locos, 18, 3 rail locos. Layout is tiered, DC, at bottom, DCC, on first tier,  3 rail, TT, and N, on top tier . Consequently, pretty sure that Big Boy, will not avoid my pillars, holding other layers. I would also like to know what curves it will take.  I have the space to run a 12 foot straight line, in the room, for demo, which may be the only solution for it, as have no rolling road. john

Italians and electricity. Never was a reliable combination and if a half a million pound Ferrari can have electrical problems, what chance has a model loco built in the same country !

 

Anyway, I once had a Rivarossi big boy - two in fact - and neither really run properly and were well outclassed by a Triang Jinty and not much was ever outclassed by anything from Margate !

 

Allan

 

I assume you mean that it does not need the Tender to be operable?  This I was not aware of!!! All Rivarossi's big articulateds were able to negotiate 18 inch radius curves but with the overhang look very out of place!!!  26" and up was the minimum recommended. I have a Proto Budd car a scale 85 ft long which also looks very silly on 18" curves but will get around them.

Cheers

Trevor

Hi, thanks. I ran it without tender, initially, thinking that the less weight the better. However, once attached on my 1 metre of new track, it runs fine with tender. Obviously, cannot try it properly. In addition to my layout i have a helix, which then takes locos some 30 foot around the room walls. I have droppers here, as it used to be a DCC shuttle. Will beef up track a bit, and try there. Thanks for bend specs, as there are 2 in place, that it may not like. Will investigate. Have Turntable on top of helix, but it may be a tad long. john

[user=1879]Yelrow[/user] wrote:

Hi, thanks. I ran it without tender, initially, thinking that the less weight the better. However, once attached on my 1 metre of new track, it runs fine with tender. Obviously, cannot try it properly. In addition to my layout i have a helix, which then takes locos some 30 foot around the room walls. I have droppers here, as it used to be a DCC shuttle. Will beef up track a bit, and try there. Thanks for bend specs, as there are 2 in place, that it may not like. Will investigate. Have Turntable on top of helix, but it may be a tad long. john

Some locos pick up from one rail while the tender picks up from the other rail so both loco & tender need to be used together in order for it to work.
I have one of those locos myself running with sound on DCC but I haven't run it in ages because some of the curves on my layout are a bit tight for the loco.
On the subject of droppers. You can never have to many. Depending on rail joiners to carry track power will sooner or later lead to problems as resistance will build up between the track & the joiners.

Tony.
 

Hi John,
I have a '70s Big Boy, by AHM Rivarossi which I think would be the same as yours.
Don't expect much speed out of it- they were a heavy freight locomotive, and the model was geared to suit.
I have a Hudson- a 2-6-2 with the same looking motor and the gearing is totally different.
They do run quite well on radius 2 track, but radius 3 or better is the better option.

As far as running qualities go, they're not too bad.
As for the "slow to move" issue-
They run an older design motor, needing more juice to get going.
Unfortunately, that's how they are. There are options for remotoring, but trust me on this- you do not want to dis-assemble a Big Boy.
I started to, but soon realised it wasn't worth the heartache.
So mine remains just as it is- and I love it for what it is.


Hope this helps

Laurie in Melbourne.

I would heed Laurie's advice about not  stripping down a Rivarossi Big Boy. I once stripped down a Bachmann Shay and wish I hadn't and that's only a third the size !- you not only end up with a loco that will never run again but enough bits left over to build another one that also won't run again.


  Allan

I have read through your thread again here and on RM Web.  Is it possible you are dealing with two different rail sizes? The early Rivarossis did not run on any track lower than Code 100 so if you had say Code 83, the flanges would lift the wheels off the rail ever so slightly and cause the contact to be intermittent with the wheels and you may get erratic performance. Also this lifting could occur if your track was overballasted for example or you are using a new Peco length, where your older (laid) track may have thicker spike heads for example.

Just a thought or two trying to read between the lines,

Regards from Oz

Trevor

hi, interesting about track. Because i was not certain about it missing the piers on my  3 tier layout, i initially ran it on some elderly flexi(hornby), with each metre soldered to a DC Bus. This is still where it runs the best, although tis much quicker, backwards. Is this to do with  Tender pickups. I have since tried it on my layout, the outer  oblong of which, is  hornby large bends and peco flexi straights. Yet again, it runs more quickly in reverse. I have added a second feed to this oblong with little effect,  The Brighton Belle, which is normally there, is far quicker. I have just bought 25 peco flexis, and am toying with relaying this oblong. I would prefer, a Big Boy, only circuit, but do not have the room to add. Have just taken delivery of new Morley controller, with 2 walkabouts, so will be able to monitor irs progress more accurately. Very open to suggestions. Am Delighted with loco, and understand, it will never be a usain boult, just trying to ease the old girls path around the track. john

In real life the UP Big Boy was certainly no sprinter in fact, quite a slug as it hauled five mile long trains up the Sherman grade out of the Cheyanne yards all the way to God knows where.
One was supposed to have blown up and bits of it were found miles away. A tall story perhaps but then maybe not. I also read somewhere that you could be stuck at a crossing for a good quarter of an hour as a full length coal train passed by. 


 Allan.

There was also an apocryphal story doing the rounds a while back about a Big Boy being used as a helper at the rear of the train, and crushing the caboose.  The fix was to put the caboose behind the loco.  Don't know if it's true, but it sounded good.  :roll:

Hi Max

Not necessarily just a Big Boy as the C&O articulateds in the East were more powerful. Wooden Cabooses/Cabin Cars were placed behind helper engines because of the forces of pushing long heavy trains mandated by an ICC safety law. It was partly because there were no radios so the lead driver/engineer would sound the start whistle but hold the brakes until the rear engine or  engines heard the whistle, released their own brakes and started to push. The front engine would then release its own brakes and start pulling when it felt the pushing. The change of forces was hard on drawbars and the caboose itself which although it would have been steel framed was made of wood for insulation purposes.  The earlier steels were not much better particularly in the war years and may have crystallised under such stresses so the rule continued.

A bit of history…

Trevor

Thanks, Trevor.  It sounds diabolical. 

With the Big Boy weighing in at 600 tons little wonder it reduced a caboose to matchwood !


 Allan

How did the big boy get it's name?

 The story is, when the first one rolled out the shops some railway work men said wow that is a " big boy" so one of them wrote "big boy" on the smoke box with chalk and the name stuck.

I did read somewhere that big boys were capable of hauling long heavy loads at 70mph but often much longer loads at much slower speeds which did them no good over a period of time.

How true I don't know.

 Google big boy steam loco. A lot of info is there.

 Cheers
 Ian

And they devoured so much coal that they had to be mechanical fed from the tender.

Allan.

Not so much devoured so much coal… which they did… but the length and general area (150 square feet) of the firebox was such that one fireman or even two could not have landed coal at the front of the firebox. One was converted to burn oil as a trial and even the oil sprayer could not get heat to the front of the firebox!  The firebox of an LNER A3 is about 41 square feet!

Cheers

Trevor