[ralphbrades]

Given the type of locomotives that I normally build the question has arisen -what would terrify me to build? The answer is this loco... I fell in love with this loco as a 10 year old from a postage stamp in my collection.

As people now know I am experimenting, (quite successfully I think), with Gauge 3 and this will be the third loco for this that I have built. It was designed by Sir Vincent Raven of the N.E.R. and is a typical looking mid wars period electric loco running on the UK std (of the time) 1500 Volts DC.

There however the "normality" of the loco ends...

It is a 2-C0-2 design and uses Steam Era design technique to operate. The loco has 6 feet 6 inch driving wheels with what is a perfectly logical high speed spoke design -which is unique to this loco. The loco used a Quill drive and has 6 radial spokes, which then split into 3 and hit the wheel rim at 18 equidistant points, the split giving a central spoke with 2 forks at 45 degree angles. The reason is to produce a non resonant wheel at high revs -something an express loco would do.

After being suitably robbed by friends at the "plans exchange" I have copies of the original drawings and they are scary. What is beneath that slab sided casing is simply wild. I expected the electric steam boiler for carriage heating, the resistors in their air cooled top hat were well known. But what came as a complete surprise was the switching. I expected air blast switches or sealed bath type. What they used were liquid mercury and oil insulator with plunge carbon contacts. Needless to say I will not be using this system!!!

regards

ralph

 

[peter bunce]

Hi Ralph,


Shame! for the lack of such a switching system being consigned to the bin! - Not suprised though. The electric bits were designed or fitted by Metro-vickers - who were building big transformers I would think, thus they same style of switch gear (for cheapness?), basically that was all they had without some R&D to produce a new system.

I suspect those main driving weheels (to use a steam analogy) also has some springs(?), at 45 degrees from the joins on the triple set that face towrds the wheel rim from the photo, the set facing upwards, and looking rather like a garland if a coplete wheel could be seen.

Best of luck with the loco, it is basically for model purpose (no innards!) and excepting the wheels a fairly simple design.

The quill drives (with 2 motors per axle) was of course used on the GG1, I wonder if they knew about EE-1 thoughthere is a long time between building dates?

Here is a link to a quill drive setup, which also shopws the springs on the driving wheels

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MILW_Quill_half_with_motors.jpg

I am sure you have a photo, or do you want the one in the NERA loco book?

 

[ralphbrades]

I have a few photos of it -but any more sources would be appreciated!!! I have a few of it as a static exhibit in the Darlington Paint Store -but none of it in actual motion. My saddest one of it is from the NER Record Volume 3 -it is sat with an EF-1 awaiting the final trip to Rotherham scrap yard. The wheels I am going to have to "farm out" to Polly Model Engineering in Long Eaton. They are my local model engineering fabricators as I don't have a lathe -or friends with a lathe of the required wattage to turn 95mm driving wheels. Building the actual Qull drive will present no real problems for "Kitchen Sink Engineering" -but compressing and fitting the springs might not be done without quite a few "words"...

The Quill drive dates from Swiss designs (German trans of "Feather") of the early 20th Century -so I suppose that it was known to the Penn RR as a std design as well(?)

regards

ralph

 

[Torby]

Um. I think I'll just watch

 

[ralphbrades]

Well as I have always said "the English do business at the Pub".... Yesterday evening at the Beer Festival five people sat down with half pints of various brews and looked over my drawings for the EE-1, and by the end of the second set from the band on stage -we had worked out a means of building the wheel. So far 4 polite enquiies to local model engineers had resulted in 3 polite -but definate refusals and 1 "You must be mad!"

I cannot post pictures of my new build due to something having blown up at the Virgin Webserver end...

http://www.lner.info/locos/Electric/ee1.shtml

The new method of making the wheels will only require some turning of the final flanges but entails me producing a jig to make the spokes from. These are round lengths bar with the "fork" legs welded at 45 degrees to them. The fork legs will have an M3 tap hole to contain the Quill Drive spring cups -thus giving the "garland" of 12 springs. The completed tridents will then be welded to the central boss, and then the rim and flange array, (simply a 8mm slice of 10mm wall tube), silver soldered to it. This will give a more correct wheel and require very little lathe work.

regards

ralph

 

[Torby]

Utterly amazed.

 

[rangerjoel]

HI Ralph,
You certainly have chosen quite a challenge with those spoke wheels and I’m looking forward to seeing you overcome that obstacle. My guess is that once those are complete, the rest of your build will go very quickly. I’ll be following your thread closely.
Joel

 

[ohioriverrailway]

What a beastie!! Perhaps it they hadn't assigned 13 as the road number . . . . . ..

 

[dana]

ralph dont know if this helps ya
http://www.freewebs.com/nrlym/electriclocomotivesnrm.htm

Electric Locomotive Sir Lislie Wilson
Builder: Swiss Locomotive Works. Electrical equipment by Metropolitan Vickers, UK Class: Initially EF/1, later WCG/1 Year Built: 1928 Service: GIPR (Great Indian Peninsula Railway), later CR (Central Railway) Wheel Arrangement: C-C Numbering: Initially EF/1 4502, later WCG/1 20027 Named: SIR LESLIE WILSON Voltage: 1,500 V dc Rail Gauge: bg (5' 6")

 

[ralphbrades]

Dana,

The WCG1 is on the "To Build List" -but it is not this loco. Sir Leslie Wilson is plinthed and I have some friends who are going back home to India for a holiday who will take some photos of it for me. I don't expect to start work on that particular loco for at least 6 months!!! Building a "krokodil" type loco will definately entail "Kitchen Sink Engineering" buying a Lathe and a Milling machine (and probably a rotary table for the Mill, (ouch my wallet hurts....)

Thank you in advance for the information!!!

regards

ralph

 

[ralphbrades]

What follows is probably going to reduce "The Professional Engineers" to a laughing heap on the floor -but as a poor newbie to metal working -I cannot see any other way to do it...

At the moment I have a small 2 1/4 inch lathe and a small 6mm milling machine on order. Allied to this, I have ordered a 75mm rotating table and compound table for the mill, a face plate and 10mm drill chuck for the lathe. Both of these are rather small for model engineering work at 150Watts each -but they will be my first, (and probably only), mill and lathe(!)

The Plan

1: Construct the jig to make the trident out of 3mm plate and 4mm bolts. Tridents are made from 35mm lengths of 5mm sq plus 25 mm lengths cut with a 45 degree angle. Start of trident is 15mm from the end. Weld tridents.

2: Construct the jig to make the wheel out of 3mm plate (120mmx120mm) and 4mm bolts -use the pre-bored 3mm holes in the tridents to hold the spokes to the plate. Weld spokes to 20mm AF hex bar at centre

3: Construct a circular plywood sandwich with the spokes in the middle and bolt this to the rotary table. The plywood is used to damp down the vibration. Mill off the excess to produce a 93mm diameter .

4: Make the wheel rim. Find the centre of a 100mm plate of 8mm steel. Place the plate on the rotary table. Mill the excess off to leave a disc of steel 99mm in diameter. Next mill a section out of the rim 2.3mm wide by 6.4mm deep -thus giving me my flange. Decrease the radius of the cutter to produce a 4mm thick ring. Mill out the ring.

5: Place the spoke assembly in the freezer and heat the rim on the Wok Burner. Place the heated rim over the frozen spoke assembly and (hopefully) the spokes have contracted and the rim expanded and the gap is more than 0.3mm -thus I have a fit!!!

6: Weld rim to spoke assembly.

7: "True" and centre completed wheel on face plate of lathe.

(I will let you know how I get on)....

regards

ralph

 

[Torby]

Then, you take the warped, out-of-round mess down to the pub and get some suggestions. The second try will turn out great.

 

[Guest]

Ralph, your still working on this thing???? I mean I noticed the building log stopped....Dang man/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blink.gif
Toad

 

[ralphbrades]

William,

I have finished the EF-1 and the NYC "S" motor. I am busy making track at the moment -I need one more curve to complete my 90 degree turn. In the meantime I am practicing my skills on a few trial runs using 8mm MDF sheet and scrap nylon instead of steel. I have build a few "tridents" from 5mm spruce and I have nearly completed my first test wheel. I think that I will have to spend some time "making the tools to make the tools". I know "roughly" what I want for my cutters and lathe tools. The jig to build the infamous "snowflake wheel" is proving a problem. Most 75mm rotary tables are 40 turns per rotation -this make dividing by 18 a little problematic!!!

It is quite possible that one of the first things that I build for my rotary table will be a set of dividing discs for the crank...

regards

ralph

 

[ralphbrades]

Well after several evening of "flat thumb" I have returned to the problems inherent with building this loco. Having worked out how to build the wretched "snowflake" wheel I was left with the problem -how did I get power to it???? I had heard of Muffett gears from a forum and I downloaded their catalogue, and poured over it. I initially started with the 1 MOD gears (I am a lazy mathematician) and could not find one that worked with the shafts and ratios that I liked. I eventually found what I was looking for in the 0.7 MOD gears... There was the "Bull" gear I needed and a length of 22mm bore copper water pipe would make the tube axle for the quill drive. However, I stilll had to "climb over the edge" and connect it to a motor. The smallest 0.7 MOD gear I could find had a 4 mm shaft -I could connect this to the drive shaft from the motor. None of the motors I had, or could easily source would fit -most of them have (of course) 2, 3 or 3.2mm shafts.

What I wanted was a motor that was no more than; 50mm long, 40mm wide, a 4mm shaft, a torque rating of at least 200 grammes per cm, and would work between 6Volts to 12Volts.

After two days -I found it.

Minimum order is of course 10 -what I do with the rest I will find out later....

regards

ralph

 

[ohioriverrailway]

Ralph, we're all dying for some pictures.

 

[ralphbrades]

I would love to give you some pictures....

Unfortunately Virgin Media has locked all the personal webspaces -it is only NOW after 5 weeks that they have told us so(!) I am looking into purchasing my own domain and webspace from an independant source.

regards

ralph

 

[ralphbrades]

Well I went and did so!

The new home of the Cabbage Patch Railway is: www.cabbagepatchrailway.co.uk (suprise!!!!)

This is the rough drawing and the test trial of the spokes.

This shows the bull gear and the drive motor (don't ask where I sourced them from.....)

Sorry about the quality of the picture -but it was nearly 11pm....

regards

ralph

 

[Torby]

Looks like your new site hasn't dribbled through the DNS system yet. I can't wait!

 

[ralphbrades]

Well "have DNS will URL" seems to have happened!!! I have been building jigs for my wheels.

This is the one for making the tridents.

This is the one for the assembly of the tridents (the M20 washer is doubling for the axle hub in this shot!)

regards

ralph