Locomotive Annie

Well I need a petrol station that will fit in with the Kotanga Tramway so I thought I'd build this....... Look at the price of petrol on that sign, - read it and weep

It was commonplace here in New Zealand to see the "lubritorium" signage on garages and petrol stations; - mostly the older style Art Deco stucco buildings would have it above their lube bay entrance and as these garages were replaced by more modern buildings or else were given later period signage and paint jobs the "lubritorium" sign writing seemed to just disappear. When I next go out of town to travel to the 'big smoke' I must check out some of the older garage buildings on the way to see if they still have it.

Interesting, - don't forget to take photographs

That's a really good idea Peterab having loco servicing movements to the depot so a loco can recharge. I don't think I will have to many problems around points and crossings as most of them will have the 12volt conductor rails fitted as all my smaller locos will be staying with the 12volt system. There was one operational aspect that I forgot to mention, - the logging branch. This is going to have a fairly challenging gradient because most of the logging trams here in New Zealand did have steep gradients. Basically I want the 12volt locos' ability to climb which is why the locos built to work this branch, the single Fairlie, the small Victorian 0-6-0 and the 'almost' Climax geared loco, are all 12volt locos. None of the trains operating on the branch will be long ones, three wagons plus brake van would be the usual load, but it should be interesting operationally with brake van shunting movements as well as the occasional banking assistance being provided as necessary.

Interesting setup with your shunter JM, but I don't think a plain belt will transmit enough torque for your loco to be useful. It would really need to be a chain drive, only you don't have room to fit a Technic chain between the back of the wheel and the gearbox casing. By the way is this the gear casing part you were looking for? http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=6588 I have this one and I've been trying to think of a way to use it to drive a loco http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=768 I think if you were to try fitting a chain drive onto an extended axle shaft on the outside of the wheel you might have more success. The only problem might be fitting the extra width a drive like this would have on a 6 wide loco.

They look to be seriously useful B n B. I think I will have to get some for research purposes

That's an amazing set of instructions Dan, - I particularly like how you've modeled the diesel engine.

Yes it is a 4.5volt motor Spitfire. It's this one http://www.bricklink...tem.asp?P=6216m All I did was plug the connector onto the motor peg, fit a 5 wide axle into the other end, slide on the worm gear and pop a retaining collar on to hold it in place. I've got two of those battery boxes as well B n B and I was going to build tank cars around mine too. I was going to use the battery tank car plan on the 'L' Gauge website http://lgauge.com/ to build my tank cars, though your one looks very good as well. I own several 4.5volt mechs and it's only right that they should be allowed to come out and play too.

Ah that new set smell.....

An excellent repair tutorial Andromeda. None of my 12volt points are broken, but if anything happens to them I now know what to do.

Spitfire, I used one of these to connect the motor to the worm gear.... http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=32034 I guess I could have used one of these too .http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=6538 , only for some reason I couldn't find one last night even though I know I've got dozens of the things. B n B I found that setting up the worm gear was fairly critical to removing friction too which is why there is all those cigarette paper shims underneath the motor. I think I'm going to have to mess around with it a bit more yet before I'm completely happy with it. Frank, thanks for the link to that shunting loco. There's some interesting ideas being used there and I may borrow some of them before I'm finished with building my own mech.

This evening I was working on putting together a mech for a loco project with the main criteria being slow running and the ability to haul two passenger coaches at the most. I was thinking back to pictures I've seen on the forum of mechs that folk have put together and the main thing I remember about them was the use of a lot of bevel gears. I can't remember anyone using worm gears to build a Lego loco mech, but I'm quite willing to be proved wrong. Basic mech being test run on 3 volts, it runs very smoothly.

If this was a handcrafts forum and the photo was mainly about the tablecloth I would have passed a comment, but this being a Lego forum I didn't. My Mum made some beautiful embroidered tablecloths from fine linen when she was younger. Unfortunately once her eyesight started to fail her Mum had to give up doing it.

Scarey stuff Makes my steam electric look a bit tame by comparison. I used to own a tinplate Schienenzeppelin made by Lionel. It was a nice looking model, but I only ever used it as a display piece. I think i ran it once on the layout out of curiosity, but didn't make a habit of it because it was in mint condition and I didn't want to get any scratches on all that pristine tinplate.

Now that was something I hadn't really considered, - being able to charge the battery pack from the conductor rail, - which does put a different complexion on things. I've still got my doubts, but at least I'm willing to give PF a trial run.

The yellow freight loco is simple to convert because it already has diesel like cooling fans on the roof so all you need to do is remove the pantograph and add a exhaust for the diesel engine and you're done.

Excellent camera wagon Haddock. I love the fact that the camera has a two minifig crew to look after its proper functioning.

Thanks ES, yes I hadn't forgotten the 'bag of ideas' project and I had always intended to try building a steam electric loco. It's just that I didn't think I would be be building such a modern outline looking one. There's still a few little tidy up jobs I want to do with this loco which will happen as the necessary bricks become available, but by and large it's complete now and ready for service. Andy, New Zealand has huge lignite coal reserves so I figured that somebody clever in the way of an engineer must've developed an efficient boiler to use lignite. My daughter who has been to university and has studied such things has informed me that solar cell technology is nowhere near good enough yet to power a locomotive unfortunately.

"What do you think you're doing woman?!" said Harry the guard throwing his hands up in horror (Harry lost his leg in a nasty shunting accident some years ago). However young Wally thought the new loco looked really cool and he wondered how fast it would go. Somehow through an ordering mistake a few months ago I ended up with a High Speed Train locomotive that I didn't really want. I assembled it in an idle moment and it's been hanging around ever since. Being a steam type of girl I didn't see myself laying out poles beside my tracks for overhead wiring and I don't like diesels, but I did like the idea of having a 'modern' passenger train to run services on the main line as a contrast to my older preserved steam locos.. This particular historic steam electric locomotive has always been a favourite of mine and one day I might go so far as to build a model of it in Lego. Following this line of thinking though I found myself wondering, 'What if...." What if The steam electric locomotive had worked out and they had continued to be built into the modern era? Anyway to cut a long story short I dismantled the loco and rebuilt it on a white RC underframe I happened to have. Fortunately I had a brand new RC motor block as well so that was wired in at the rear of the loco. At the front I assembled a 6 wheel bogie, but if this loco works out I might just hunt down a second RC motor block and make it dual powered. White bricks are something I don't have a great deal of as I rarely use them. Most of the ones I have arrived in job lots purchased at various times, so I wasn't holding out a great deal of hope that I would have enough bits to complete the loco. But the brick pixies must've been in a good mood with me because I was able to find everything I needed. I deliberately used bricks that were yellowed and grubby on the back of the loco, but even so it's still a bit too pristine. I suppose Bricklink traders will think me nuts if I start asking for well yellowed and gubby white bricks and bits, but it would be awfully nice if I could lose some of the gleam on that boiler. I still have another RC underframe, - a black one, - so I wonder if I could build a freight loco next?

True enough B n B I thought I'd give PF a try during the building stage and see how it works, but more than likely add in 12volt pickup bricks as well for normal running. It wouldn't be too hard to fit a resistor into the loco's circuits to protect the motors when running off track power.

I purchased Tony Sava's Garratt plans recently and I was going to build it up as a 12volt loco, only since I have a couple of PF motor blocks in the spares box and some medium BBB wheels I thought I might build it as a PF loco instead for experimental purposes. If I don't like it I'll just convert it for 12volts, but it works Ok then it can stay on the roster as a PF loco. A Garratt is likely to be my only 'big' loco for the Kotanga Tramway even though Tony Sava's plans are for a very small Garratt so it seems to be the most likely candidate for a PF installation.

Thanks B n B, I wasn't sure at first if that red crankpin piece would work with Zephyr's rods, but it does just fine. Some of the old bits take a bit of finding though it's always worth it as I enjoy working with this really well made older train stuff. More than likely the type 1 motor will get re-used on a small tank engine, only I haven't made up my mind as to what it will be just yet. I hadn't used the sliding bogie parts before either, but now that I have I'm keen to try using them on something else as they work really nicely. When I first tried fitting a conductor rail to the brown Enlighten track I thought it looked a bit odd, only after a little while of just letting it sit there I'm finding that I'm getting used to it. I'll take some photos later and post them in the other thread.

Thanks Spitfire No it's not I just had a look at it again. I think it was from a Cogo fire engine set I purchased some years ago. However I will be using the Lego part in the link when I build the log bogies for this little loco to haul.

Out of interest I checked how much 12 wide was against my 15 point something mm scale 0-6-0 tank engine that I built with the idea of having a large scale Kotanga Tramway in the garden and guess what, - it was 12 wide. So that means those magnificent locos that Alex built must be pretty darn heavy and they must have used up a lot of bricks. My tank engine is RC operated and its side tanks can swallow up a huge amount of batteries. I don't run it as the garden railway never did get built, it sits on display in my room and I won't ever sell it because I like it too much. With the garden gauges like 'G' & etc I had to face the fact that I just plain didn't have the room for a railway that big; - which is why I turned my attention to Lego and 'L' Gauge. When I first started building trains with Lego I did some experiments to see what size I wanted to build to. I tried 10 wide, but it was getting too much towards being like my garden railway loco and the few wagons I'd built for it. In the end I settled on 8 wide as having the right amount of width to build a steam loco with nice proportions, but at the same time not to be too hungry on bricks when building anything. I took the track gauge as a given and decided not to mess around with custom track gauges even though I've still got a huge amount of '0' Gauge track that I could have used. When I was young and keen I did the whole finescale, exact gauge thing and I really can't be bothered with it now. I just want to run trains and have fun. When I was building the 'almost Climax' I experimented with hiding AA batteries inside various parts of it and trying to make a battery loco of it, but in the end I find myself agreeing with Carl Greatrix when he says he doesn't like wanting to use something only to find that the batteries are flat. As far as I'm concerned flicking over the wall switch and the whole layout comes alive is very much my thing and I feel that the old 12volt system will do it for me best.

I'm a terrible photographer and I think the flash washed out the blue. It's the same blue as some of my other Lego railway staff minifigs, but then I'm no expert. Thanks alainneke, that was exactly what I was looking for. And thanks too JopieK for your advice about the capacitor.