MOC: Culdee Fell Engine

[vmln8r]

This hopefully won't need any explanation if you're a fan of the Railway Series books:

More pictures here (the ones above are all clickable).

[JopieK]

how do you do that with the pistons of the engine?! nice construction though!!!

[michaelozzie]

Great work on this moc. I love the piston design.

[WesternOutlaw]

Great design! I'm most impressed with how it climbs. I think this deserves some front-page attention.

Please feel free to introduce yourself in the Train Tech registry as well - welcome.

[AllanSmith]

From a fellow New Zealander, this is a great model and original design.

I have been thinking of building the Wellington Cable Car but not sure how to build / operate the passing loop.

from a fellow

[Cirkit]

Culdee! What a delight.

And his coach Catherine too! Great.

Tilted funnel, cylinders back-to-front.. just like the engine in the books.

I do think Catherine is a tad bit short, but I imagine you were working with limited bricks and limited track space, so it is alright. A minor complaint for a wonderful creation that brings back so many childhood memories. :)

-Cirkit

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Totally cool!

I'm speechless!

[Sir E Fullner]

I love the Railway Series books, and I love this design. By the way, are you thinking about lengthening Caroline a bit?

[vmln8r]

Thanks folks

how do you do that with the pistons of the engine?!

This picture may help:

Great design! I'm most impressed with how it climbs. I think this deserves some front-page attention.

Please feel free to introduce yourself in the Train Tech registry as well - welcome.

Thanks! (and thanks too for providing that extra context)

From a fellow New Zealander, this is a great model and original design.

I have been thinking of building the Wellington Cable Car but not sure how to build / operate the passing loop.

Sounds like a challenge. Despite living in Wellington, I haven't actually taken a ride on it yet

I do think Catherine is a tad bit short, but I imagine you were working with limited bricks and limited track space, so it is alright.

Yup, these are almost all the bricks I own in dark orange (from the Sandcrawler). The engine itself is also truncated, as I wanted to maximise the use of the limited track length.

[epic_red]

From a fellow New Zealander, this is a great model and original design.

Well said! This is great!

[Deeks]

Very well done. I've thought about doing something similar to give my train a boost on an uphill.

[bricks n bolts]

Wow, amazing! Totally original design and the piston action is so smooth. It's fascinating how you managed that VLMNR8R Would make a great Railbricks article

[Mr Benn]

This is fantastic - the Railway series book was the first thing I thought of when I saw this, even before I started reading any text around this!

Does is actually use any rack and pinion mechanism to go uphill, or is the chain in the middle of the track just for show? Would love to see the bottom of the train if it's actually working like this. Might make corners a little tough though!!

[pigpen]

Really cool, Reminds me of the Fell engines between Featherstone and Wellington (Rimutaka incline). Have biked over that track a number of times .

[Man with a hat]

Wow. That's a great design.

[vmln8r]

Thanks again for the nice comments on this.

Does is actually use any rack and pinion mechanism to go uphill, or is the chain in the middle of the track just for show?

Yes indeed - here's a picture:

The largest dark grey gear grips the rack rail. As for corners, the engine will need a pinion gear that can slide across the axle. This is perfectly feasible; however I realised this too late; at which point I just wanted to be done with it.

For anyone who's interested, the gear combinations used were 8:8 > 12:20 > 12:20 > 12:24, which gives a final ratio of 1:5.6. I tried 1:24 (with a worm gear to a 24t), but that was just too slow.

[bricks n bolts]

Found a nice picture of a similar loco in Austria:

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

Edited January 2, 2012 by bricks n bolts

[Hoexbroe]

Lovely-lovely!

[Rook]

Nice job on the “hidden” power source.