7mm US model dabblings

mickoo

Western Thunderer
If anyone was going to guess it right it'd be you :thumbs:

Sadly no glass or ceramic existed on the site, plenty of glass broken parts, but none complete. The pot insulator is rubber.

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Several more modern posts were on site.

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As were the cut down posts and other fittings, I'll process those photos later.

Regarding photos, you're always welcome Dave, I will host them elsewhere but not publicly any more, I got bitten on my Freightliner wagon detail shots by a commercial concern, I only asked for a free test build, I didn't even get a thank you.

MD
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Slowly processing the remaining images, some roster shots from West Colton.

Snoot SD40-2
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One for James, a big yellow EMD bruiser.
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Ugly is as ugly does, but the pillbox windscreens give the face a no nonsense brutish look.

Another ball/squirrel moment, may have posted this before.
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On the left a eastbound manifest heads around the outside of the balloon track, it'll turn right shortly and pass under the westbound manifest coming down off the Palmdale cutoff; from there it'll head out on the old SP sunset route down toward Mexico and along the southern edge of the US toward Tuscon and thence Texas.

The GEVO is coming down from Cajon on the Palmdale cutoff and will run past West Colton and onto Los Angeles.

The SD40-2's are running out of the classification yard and through the departure yard with a long manifest, before setting back into the classification yard to pick the tail end up. The departure yard is not long enough to hold a full train, so half will sit in the departure yard and the rear half in the classification yard. This does block the throat until the train departs, but that won't be long as the head end power will soon arrive and thence depart.

On the right the light engines have been serviced and run down the south side of the departure yard and are ready to back onto a previously assembled train.

West Colton seems to assemble two or three trains at once, each with it's own triple SD40-2 switcher set, light engines arrive and couple up and then all depart. After that it dries up for a few hours, no doubt the next trains are being made up in their respective halves before being joined and the process repeating it's self.

I did not seen any arrivals at this end, only departures west on the Sunset route and north on the Palmdale cutoff, nor did I see any trains made up with FREDs on the end ready for departing toward Los Angeles.

One thing I have noticed looking back through the photos, is how shabby the armour yellow paint becomes, turning first to a muddy mustard colour and then a pale washed out almost white affair. The official colour for the running gear and under frame is now light grey but many older units are brown from years of brake dust which has stained the whole underside of the engines.

A pair of nearly new BNSF ET44C4 engines, less than a year old I believe and still relatively clean.
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These are new Tier 4 engines with enlarged split cooling radiators and raised engine cover. One way to improve emissions is to run the engine hotter, however that requires larger radiators. On the Class 66 the only way EMD could meet Tier two was to do just that, however the larger radiators and increased water capacity put them overweight for the UK axle limit. To claw some of this back they simply reduced the size of the fuel tank, thus the easiest way to determine a Tier 1 or Tier 2 class is the size of the fuel tank.

BNSF are also unique in that they run the C4 truck from GE, there are several ways to gain adhesion, one being more weight which CSX and UP both employ on their 'heavy' GE's.
Another is complicate electronics which induce wheel slip at a given rate, it has been found that adhesion rises when wheel slip begins and at 7% slip there is maximum adhesion available, at 8% it drops right off and you get wheel spin. You can tell when an engine is in super slip mode, the wheels hiss and scream with an ear piercing noise and emit smoke, it's different from sand dust and brake dust and easy to spot, but the noise is a certain give away. The electronics measure the actual speed with doppler radar and then increase axle speed to be 7% above actual speed.

One other way is to increase the weight on the wheels but still retain the overall weight. To do this the BNSF six axle engines do not have six traction motors, they only have four, thus are A1A-A1A. To increase traction, BNSF C4 engines employ a linkage on the outside of the truck which effectively lifts the middle axle and thus adds more weight to the remaining four powered axles. It must work, as to date as far as I know, all BNSF engines are now delivered with C4 trucks.

In this pace shot along Goffs road you can see the rams fully extended and lifting the middle axle to give maximum traction up the grade.
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I've had a quick look through the Cajon photos and have not seen any with it employed, yet out here on a lesser grade it is clearly applied. In the West Colton roster shots 3752 does not have it deployed yet the trailing 3750 does, the train was beginning to power up and pull and I think the system is automatic and probably linked to super slip as well, thus each truck may be working independently and applying what ever adhesion level it thinks it needs.

MD
 
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mickoo

Western Thunderer
Dave,

I did and to answer your next question, EMD uses a square mesh, GE uses round hole mesh, I didn't take any measurements from the GE engines as they were all operational and in public areas.

ES44DC
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SD40-2
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MD
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
Thanks Mick.

If you saw the gap by the left hand between the radiator surround and body on a model everyone would think it wasn't built properly !
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Ugly is as ugly does, but the pillbox windscreens give the face a no nonsense brutish look.MD
I sure do like them!:thumbs::cool: Although I somewhat prefer the sd40-2's a bit more.

Eventually I'd love to see any shots of the plow on the nose of the UP sd40-2 at the museum, but especially any of those detailing the backside between the plow and the pilot sheet. I'd like to get it right, I've got a drawing or two of the front, but precious little else, and it's hard to find that type of tall EMD plow on locos these days. Especially in the east. I think they were mostly a western road detail.

Thanks for all the great posts over the two weeks or so. Some beautiful shots in there.

Cheers,
Jim
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Great detail shots! :thumbs: I really need to find something similar around here, in a museum environment, where I could really spend some quality time with a tape and camera.

Interesting to see that this unit has the extra jacking pads out by the pilots. I've seen that on 4 axle units but never an sd40-2. Also interesting that it doesn't have an anticlimber. I always thought that even the older units had the simple small anticlimber by default, and later units had even larger ones. Learned something new.

Thanks again,
Jim
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Guys,

Just a quick request for help from me - I've got plans and some parts (including a base model) to do an MLW-built (Alco) RS-3. Have any of you guys found any decent shots of the bonnet top of an RS-3? I'm trying to work out whether I can or should open out the vents and walkway over the engine cover...

Thanks,

Steph
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Nothing on hand Steph. A pair of Central Vermont/Grand Trunk rs-3's, are on my long range horizon, but I don't have any research accumulated yet.

Jim
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Thanks Jim,
I was looking at the Weaver 'shell yesterday and realised that there wasn't much point having roof top vents and a winterisation hatch as the heated air would escape from the engine compartment. I can see that I'll end up doing some educated guesstimation and perhaps draw more than one vent detail set/walkway. I was just trying to work out what I needed to do. The list so far starts with 'doors and grilles', I've also got a speculative early 'windscreen frames and wipers' noted...

Steph
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Mick,

I'm still unconvinced about late-phase MLW units with winterisation hatches - but greatly appreciate you and others coming back to me with leads. Y'see this photo looks as though there aren't any top vents and the walkway covers the whole panel over the engine. I think. Maybe.
Xooimage

The Kalmbach Cyclopedia does have roof shots of the RS-3, but they look like shop mods with most of the vents blocked off!

Steph
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Yeah, there's no vents on that CP one, looks more like the BN one I posted.

Makes sense that the more northern climes ones would have some sort of cover really.
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Never having bought a US style brass model before I was interested to see how the Protocraft boxcars looked in reality. Prompted into action by the Australian government announcing they would start collecting GST (VAT) on overseas purchases below $1,000 at the beginning of July I ordered one of the Canadian Pacific boxcars in P48 from Norm at Protocraft. The package arrived while I was away, fortunately it hadn't been sent back before I could collect it. Some of these 1937-8 built boxcars survived to 1980, and beyond in non-revenue service. I haven't found any photos showing this type (with flat panel roof) painted into the Multimark scheme so it will be painted in the early sixties scheme as it would have been in the mid 1970s.

It is basically an assembled etched kit with very nice stamped ends and cast brass doors and other detail. I have moved the tack boards on the doors and ends down to their later position (moved during 1960s) as it will end up being painted as it would have looked at the end of its life, but still need to fill the redundant fixing holes. The solder used is a bit strange, definitely not 60/40 and there was quite a bit hiding behind the end tack boards. Everything looks very good, although I think it rides too high. By my measurement the model is somewhere around 2 to 2.5mm taller than the GA says it should be and it looks like the extra height is all in the bolster. I think the trucks look too far from the body and am working out where to remove the couple of millimetres from, probably by taking the pivot bearing out, milling the bolster down then replacing the pivot bearings at the right height. Unless someone tells me that I have the dimensions wrong somewhere. There won't be any other changes made before it is painted.

PC cp1.jpg
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Protocraft were out of the plastic coupler pockets so I can't fit the couplers until they arrive. The boxcar rolls well on tiny ball bearings. It seems a bit noisy so I will experiment with filling the inside with something light (don't want to add any more weight) to reduce the reverberation.
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
Mmmmmm. Tricky one.

I see the floor is screwed into the body. Is there scope to 'push' the floor further into the body to try and reduce the ride height and shim the coupler mounts.

Otherwise the it would be a case of removing some material from the body bolster as the trucks have insufficient material to remove.

Any chance of a photo with a truck removed to see what's there?


The boxcar rolls well on tiny ball bearings.

Seems a bit anachronistic given they are journal rather than roller bearing trucks :confused:.

It seems a bit noisy so I will experiment with filling the inside with something light (don't want to add any more weight) to reduce the reverberation.

As a thought I wonder if a thick masking, electrical, carpet or duct tape stuck to the inside of the body (sides, roof and floor) would work in a similar way to the Dynamat used for sound deadening by car enthusiasts.
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Mmmmmm. Tricky one.

I see the floor is screwed into the body. Is there scope to 'push' the floor further into the body to try and reduce the ride height and shim the coupler mounts.

Otherwise the it would be a case of removing some material from the body bolster as the trucks have insufficient material to remove.

Any chance of a photo with a truck removed to see what's there?




Seems a bit anachronistic given they are journal rather than roller bearing trucks :confused:.



As a thought I wonder if a thick masking, electrical, carpet or duct tape stuck to the inside of the body (sides, roof and floor) would work in a similar way to the Dynamat used for sound deadening by car enthusiasts.
Hi Dave
The underframe unscrews from the body easily. I have already removed the inner etched 'wooden' floor, saves 18thou or so of height, as I won't be running the car with the doors open (I didn't mention that the doors slide). I don't want to go any further or the visible parts of the underframe won't be in the correct position relative to the body. I am expecting to need to adjust or remove the coupler mountings to mount the couplers at prototypical centre height which is just under 1mm above the Kadee recommended height.

Not very good photos -
pc cpb2.jpg
pc cpb1.jpg
And an extract from the GA -
cpbox section.jpg

I think the extra height is due to the bolster being too thick below the centre sill and a few gaps that aren't there in the prototype. The current plan is to mill the centre of the bolster down to the centre sill height then put the detail back in thin brass sheet.
 
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