Has anyone tried this?

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jscarmozza
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Has anyone tried this?

Post by jscarmozza »

I have a 1/2" scale locomotive and no place to run it, has anyone tried to make an adapter/treadmill contraption that would allow a small gauge engine to run on a larger gauge track? I have an idea that I starter on, then ran it by a few guys at my club; they offered some worthwhile ideas and now I'm questioning my my plan. So before I go any further reinventing the wheel, has anyone done this before, and how did you do it? Thanks, John
Pontiacguy1
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

You have 1/2" scale, 2 1/2" gauge? That is cool! I have about 4 locomotives, in various stages of completion, and about 5 or 6 cars, in that scale/gauge. Not many people at all working in that scale anymore, at least not in North America.

What I thought about doing was using our club's elevated track in the steaming bays. I would just clamp another temporary rail in place beside the other one and that would allow me to run back and forth for about 75 feet or so, so I could at least test it out. Gotta get something finished enough to test, though!

I have seen something like what you are talking about before, but can't remember where. It was basically a small 0-4-0 car, the locomotive was strapped or retained on top of it, and then it rode around on the 7 1/2" or 7 1/4" gauge track. You'd need to do a double reduction setup so that the locomotive isn't going in reverse when you're going forward, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Might have to use a different water supply and leave the tender off so that you can get to the controls easier, but it should do fine.
GregE
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by GregE »

I've considered building something to let me run my 3-1/2" gauge 0-4-0 on the club 4-3/4" ground line instead of the elevated.
The prototype example I know best is the Guinness brewery railroad 'haulage wagons' that adapted the 2' gauge locos to broad gauge track for switching cars.
This gentleman built a nice model in garden rail scale:
http://forums.mylargescale.com/18-live- ... ne-16.html
Greg Easter
jscarmozza
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by jscarmozza »

I've had a very nice 1/2" Hudson for about 12 years and never had it running, my buddy coaxed me into getting it tested, cleaned up and steamed over the winter. We did it and it's a sophisticated little engine that runs like a Singer sewing machine, smooth. Unfortunately there aren't too many 2 1/2" gauge tracks around, I was thinking about adding a third rail to my backyard track, but I'm a 1" guy and I don't want to fool around with multi- gauge switches. That being said, my 'treadmill' idea was inspired by my horizontal band saw. I came up with a design similar to a tank track that the engine sits on which in turn drives a 0-4-0 4-3/4" gauge bottom. The tank track idea wasn't too popular at my club, a few guys offered alternate drive schemes. Although they had simpler drives, once into their ideas they had their own problems to overcome. Hence, I was curious if anyone ever built a successful such a contraption?
Pontiacguy1
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

I actually built a dyno for my 0-4-2 chloe in 7 1/2" gauge for a college course project on instrumentation and data measuring. The locomotive sat on 4 wheels which chain-drove a brake wheel with a shoe on it and a strain gauge on the rod that pushed the shoe into the wheel. We then had a strain gauge on a fixed flat plate that was used to measure the pressure, and we measured RPM with an emitter-detector pair and four holes machined in the brake wheel. The locomotive used the shop's compressed air supply, and the pipes were such that it couldn't keep more than 60 PSI on it when running. We were able to do pressure/RPM/torque and that gave us the ability to calculate HP. If I remember correctly (20 yrs ago now), the locomotive calculated about 0.75 HP at 60 PSI and running around 500 RPM or so. Could have been more if we could have fired it up or kept higher air pressure in it.

Same principle, though: the locomotive rode on a set of wheels and was fixed to the dyno chassis so that it wouldn't move. There was a few issues of slipping between the two wheel sets, but it wasn't too much of a problem with only 60 PSI on it. Might have been a bigger problem with more pressure.
jscarmozza
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by jscarmozza »

The dyno sounds like a neat device, I'd like to know my engine's horsepower. Looks like I'm blazing a new trail with this thing, I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks, John
Mr Ron
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by Mr Ron »

Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
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NP317
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by NP317 »

I was hoping someone would post that picture!
I wonder what drugs they had available for their designers, then?
~RN
Pontiacguy1
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

Call it an 1800's version of overdrive, applied to a Locomotive.
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Short Line Tom
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by Short Line Tom »

HP. Landenberger from Switzerland built the pictured "adapter vehicle" in the early 70th.
With it, he was able to run his uncommon 9 1/2" gauge "0-4-0 N° 2 Florian" on 5" gauge club tracks.
I have seen it running several times.
One thing I could remember was, the engine was in the back gear, to run forward.
I will try to find some better pics.

Cheers!
Tom
CCI_000341.jpg
jscarmozza
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by jscarmozza »

Tom, that's exactly what I was looking for, thank you. In your description, the builder went from larger to smaller, I want to go from smaller to larger. The builder must have gone with some type of direct friction drive, hence the reverse rotation of the driven wheels. My plan employs an idler gear to cause the drive and driven wheels to rotate in the same direction. What turned everyone off at my club was that only one of the two axles on my contraption would be powered thereby cutting the tractive force in half. Their alternative friction type drive, similar to the one in the photo but with an idler wheel, was a simpler mechanism and developed the full tractive force but it would be more difficult to equalize the suspension. If you can find more information on this 'adapter vehicle' I'd be grateful to see it. Thank you, John
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Benjamin Maggi
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Re: Has anyone tried this?

Post by Benjamin Maggi »

I have a picture somewhere of a track car that someone built to run his 7.5" gauge steam locomotive on I think 5',8.5" gauge track.
"One cannot learn to swim without getting his feet wet." - Benjamin Maggi
- Building: 7.25" gauge "Sweet Pea" named "Catherine"
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