Octrainber 2021 and lots of coke

[KvadratGnezdo]

A BIT OF INTRODUCTION

Well hello. So octrainber 2021 is a thing and that's great! Although at the beginning of the month I've suddenly went on a shipbuilding tangent (check my flickr page for the results), that would mean me completely not noticing that it was time for the building challenge. To be fair, this years theme overwhelmed me at first for a number of reasons: firstly, I prefer my Russian/Soviet rolling stock. Why? Because even at this day and age it's really out there for most western people, lumped together with Сhinese and Hindu vehicles into this pan-asiatic mess that no one dares to properly translate and/ or keep track of. Second reason is generally derived from the first: due to NGG being it's own thing and planned economy to some degree being very prevalent to my homeland for the last 150 or so years, the peak of small scale vehicles just came and went unnoticed, because standartisation is a thing. Most of the experimental vehicles were mostly huge mainliners and you can read about the elsewhere, small scale shunters with intersting design were the TGK and TGM lines and I've made two of the most unique ones last year. So no narrow gauge, no small shunters and also I wanted at least some documentation on the stuff I was building. So then it hit me - coke quenching industry. No matter the part of the world - it was the cause of very odd and interesting vehicles, so I've decided to look there.

THE EK SERIES

Elektrovoz Kontaktniy aka Contact Electric locomotive was a series of electric vehicles specifically developed for industrial purposes. Why was (and is) contact put into the naming - easy, because these vehicles didn't need to have batteries to store their electricity which was one of the two ways to power and electric shunter. This time it was used becuase the rail network of each individual factory was not that big to make servicing the contact wires an expensive issue, and because batteries at the time tended to last way shorter and were prone to constant problems with heat and capacity leaks. Smaller vehicles could be fitted with batteries but here it was not needed and making a twin-system loco was proven to be a terrible idea:

VL26 (nicknamed "Scheiße") electric heavy shunter which used both the contact network and batteries.

Then it was up to me to decide which model to... well... model. Out of the three more or less known types, those being 13, 14 and 15 I chose the 13. Because 15 is just visualy boring and doesnt look as tall as the two other ones, 14, the one in the first picture could fit, but the cab was kinda boring and the whole loco felt just too boxy, so left was model 13 - the one with rounded hoods and most cab windows. Schematics of the 15 and the 13:

 

EK15 is longer by 1.5 meters and, unlike with the 13, you can clearly see the contact pads underneath. The main function of these is to move cars loaded up with coke from the oven to the coke quenching tower. The interesting bit is the coke, which, during the entire process, is heated around 1100 degrees C, so both the engine and the cars are meant to withstand higher heat levels, than their mainline colleagues.

BUILDING:

So here is the summary of my first thoughts of this in an easy to understand graphic form:

So, yeah, fast forward a bit and this is what I got:

As you can see, I, ve mostly used the photo from the previous picture as a refference (which is notable with modified windows and side ladders which were only one way on the original).This model is easilu motorisable thank to it being (basically) a giant shell inside of which you could probably fit a 9V motor unit or a 3rd party battery piece connected to PF or whatever else small motor. More renders later,

[XG BC]

nice looking model and welcome to the competition! nice to see some electric locos i thought i was almost the only one doing one!

[KvadratGnezdo]

 

 

 

[HoMa]

Heavy industrial stuff on rails :-) Does the waggon carry melted ABS for new LEGO bricks?

[ivanlan9]

Be still, my beating heart.

I love this scene:  the engine, the wagon, and the minimal but dead-on scenery.

Close enough to perfect.

Metta,

Ivan

[Paperinik77pk]

Very nice render and prototype(s) - the "diorama" fits perfectly! 

[KvadratGnezdo]