Hi all,
I've ran my coal fired engine tonight and finally feel happy and relaxed around it. I build it based on the roundhouse lady Anne chassis with lots of mind changing throughout the build from having inner side tanks to a tender. I've been unhappy with it since it being "finished" earlier in the year. I found that I was struggling to run it longer than 10 minutes and felt I should be getting more like 20 minutes like a riverdale engine. I also found the engine blew off too much an the axle pump was not keeping up with the boiler. For a time, I blamed this on the axle pump but could not find any problems with it and also thought this was also due to the "short" running times. On speaking with Paul Bailey at Djb engineering, it became apparent that I had unrealistic expectations of what the engine could do any anything 10 minutes plus was considered acceptable. We also discussed the load and type of railway and how this could affect the engine.
Since this useful conversation, I have considered my railway with its steep gradients and radius 1 curves were mainly derailing the engine and also causing it to work too hard rather than gentle sweeping curves and a level track! I've resigned to the fact that I would not probably have a good run on Llongfordrailway and this changed the way I was looking at the performance of the loco. I think if I build another one (there will be another one!) there will be things I would do differently and also have clearer expectations and understandings of the running of the engine. Although the principles of running a coal fired engine are the same, my fowler runs very differently than my 5" coal fired engine!
I've since had several successful runs on the rolling road and feel confident that the engine would run well on other railways. Here is a short clip of the engine running. I had it running continuously for 45 minutes all in all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDQ4kzMvJ_M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Regards
Daniel
I've ran my coal fired engine tonight and finally feel happy and relaxed around it. I build it based on the roundhouse lady Anne chassis with lots of mind changing throughout the build from having inner side tanks to a tender. I've been unhappy with it since it being "finished" earlier in the year. I found that I was struggling to run it longer than 10 minutes and felt I should be getting more like 20 minutes like a riverdale engine. I also found the engine blew off too much an the axle pump was not keeping up with the boiler. For a time, I blamed this on the axle pump but could not find any problems with it and also thought this was also due to the "short" running times. On speaking with Paul Bailey at Djb engineering, it became apparent that I had unrealistic expectations of what the engine could do any anything 10 minutes plus was considered acceptable. We also discussed the load and type of railway and how this could affect the engine.
Since this useful conversation, I have considered my railway with its steep gradients and radius 1 curves were mainly derailing the engine and also causing it to work too hard rather than gentle sweeping curves and a level track! I've resigned to the fact that I would not probably have a good run on Llongfordrailway and this changed the way I was looking at the performance of the loco. I think if I build another one (there will be another one!) there will be things I would do differently and also have clearer expectations and understandings of the running of the engine. Although the principles of running a coal fired engine are the same, my fowler runs very differently than my 5" coal fired engine!
I've since had several successful runs on the rolling road and feel confident that the engine would run well on other railways. Here is a short clip of the engine running. I had it running continuously for 45 minutes all in all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDQ4kzMvJ_M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Regards
Daniel
