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MOC: Ewings Steam Monorail Loco for the Kotanga Valley Posthole Co.
Locomotive Annie posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
Yesterday I wasn't feeling well at all so rather than lie in bed and be miserable I decided to see if I could give myself a Lego project to take my mind off it. I've always been fascinated by the Ewings System steam monorail locos, the most famous and well known being the surviving and fully operational locomotive that formerly belonged to the Patiala State Monorail Trainways. When I dreamed up the Kotanga Tramway back when I was still modelling in 16mm scale I started to build a Ewings System loco for the Kotanga Valley Posthole Co. for working trains to and from the posthole mine. Only I got too clever and managed to work myself into a corner with the model and it's still sitting in its box awaiting the day when I might feel inspired enough solve to its problems and finish it. For this loco though I decided to move away from building a loco with a spindly and lightweight appearance and build something fairly chunky that looked like it was used on a mining company branchline. On completion I discovered that I'd built myself a 15 wide loco, but one that seemed to be quite nicely balanced over its double flanged wheels. Oh and I cheated because I originally built it as an 0-3-0, only I couldn't get sufficient sideplay to allow it to negotiate Lego 12volt curved rails so I took the centre wheel out and left the axle and outside cranks in place. It's just about impossible to see if the centre driving wheel is there or not when the loco is sitting on the track so I'm not going to worry about it. This is the wheel that I used as driving wheels...... http://www.bricklink...Item.asp?P=2994 I found that I could fit two thin section O rings into the groove between the two flanges without raising the flanges too high relative to the rail head. I did try a single thicker O ring first, but this was nowhere near as effective as the two thin section O rings. A 4.5volt motor lives in the wider sidetank and drives through a worm gear to a two stage drive to the rear driving axle. The final drive gear is visible as I wanted to represent a geared type locomotive with the cylinders somewhere in the cab which has the added benefit of not having to fit connecting rods and visible cylinders in the traditional place. The loco is pretty much complete now apart from having to sort out some spacers for the coupling rod pins, but while I was building it I was having real problems finding enough 1x2 black bricks as well as black slope pieces for the boiler. I know I've only recently built five black steam locos all with classic Lego octagonal boilers, but I'm sure I had more bricks that that. Oh well, time to put in an order for more bricks (sigh).....