The Home Machinist!

I bought an Allen that was built in 1983 and it needs a lot of tlc. I have and will have more questions. It has brass bearings on the tender. Does it need some kind of waste in the journals or just give it a shot of oil. More questions to come. Goal is to have it running in time for some of the Florida meets.

Rod

Rob,

Just a little oil on the brasses every now and then should be sufficient. Not too much or else it starts running out the back of the journal box, down the face of the wheel and then it starts lubing the track! If they are the old half brass type, do make sure that the brass is seated properly in the journal box and on the axle itself. From picking up the tender after a derailment etc., they can occasionally get out of alignment.

Peter

Rod,

Use felt for the oil wick. Use the hard type felt that hats are made of. Cut it in strips and roll, then place in the journal box perpendicular to the axle/brass. Waste cotton (or fluffy felt) will very possibly get between the brass and the axle - creating drag - and also a 'hot box' (a bit of miniature scale humor if everyone here wasn't so somber and so serious about themselves here - that is.... stuffy!!!)

BC

I used blocks of felt, cut with a razor knife to fit under the axle bearing surface.
Then oil can wick from the box onto the axle bottom and then to the bronze bearing.
Remember that the bearing radius should be slightly larger than the axle radius, so that the oil will get "squeezed" between the axle and bearing.
Prototype lube action. I've got over 500 real miles on those Allen friction-bearing arch-bar trucks, with no apparent bearing surface wear!

I am currently rebuilding the old Allen arch bar trucks from friction bearing to sealed ball bearings.
My goal is to eliminate the lubrication maintenance, and resulting oil on the wheels and tracks.
Steve Alley (of Allen Locomotives of Nevada) sold me the required new axle boxes, bearings, and spiral-back wheels.
I'm making new wheel sets with the newer axles for the sealed bearings.
These will go under the tender of my 90-ton Mikado, replicating the as-delivered trucks of Polson #90, (minus the friction bearings.)

Now that I think of it, the wheel/bearing/axle box sets that I'm removing are available if someone wants them.
They should be available in a month or so, after I remove the snow piles to get to my shop!
BIG storms this year: more snow here than in the past 25 years.

Make me an offer.
~RN

Just a personal point from my own point of view. They are NOT "friction bearings" they are plain bearings. The term "friction bearings" was an advertising slogan created by the Timken Company when they were trying to give a bad reputation to plain bearings. Plain bearings are perfectly good bearings, but yes they are higher maintenance. But they do not have a dramatically higher coefficient of friction.

Keith

LVRR2095 wrote:Just a personal point from my own point of view. They are NOT "friction bearings" they are plain bearings. The term "friction bearings" was an advertising slogan created by the Timken Company when they were trying to give a bad reputation to plain bearings. Plain bearings are perfectly good bearings, but yes they are higher maintenance. But they do not have a dramatically higher coefficient of friction.

Keith

I've heard from one of the guys at TVRM that plain bearings actually have marginally less friction than roller bearings at track speed. Where the difference comes in is starting. Usually, a roller bearing train will start even with all of the slack pulled out where as a plain bearing train will most likely need to have the slack bunched up and then jerked out to get the train rolling.

Soot n' Cinders wrote:I've heard from one of the guys at TVRM that plain bearings actually have marginally less friction than roller bearings at track speed. Where the difference comes in is starting. Usually, a roller bearing train will start even with all of the slack pulled out where as a plain bearing train will most likely need to have the slack bunched up and then jerked out to get the train rolling.

Hi Tristan, in my days as a locomotive engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Conrail I can tell you I had to take slack on trains that were 100% roller bearing equipped. From an engineers point of view I found no difference in starting trains equipped with either type bearing. What I do know is that the only type of cars that are still allowed to use plain bearings in interchange service are ore jennies. This is because they are the only bearings that can support the weight of a car load of iron ore pellets.
Keith

LVRR2095 wrote:

Soot n' Cinders wrote:I've heard from one of the guys at TVRM that plain bearings actually have marginally less friction than roller bearings at track speed. Where the difference comes in is starting. Usually, a roller bearing train will start even with all of the slack pulled out where as a plain bearing train will most likely need to have the slack bunched up and then jerked out to get the train rolling.

Hi Tristan, in my days as a locomotive engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Conrail I can tell you I had to take slack on trains that were 100% roller bearing equipped. From an engineers point of view I found no difference in starting trains equipped with either type bearing. What I do know is that the only type of cars that are still allowed to use plain bearings in interchange service are ore jennies. This is because they are the only bearings that can support the weight of a car load of iron ore pellets.
Keith

Yeah, Ive heard about the ore jennies from a friend whos an engineer for CN. He had to get rough pulling a string of them from storage.

Bunching slack on trains our size especially if you are doing it on other peoples'
cars will get you some really bad feedback.

Not only is it not necessary but can break couplers and shanks, and cause jerking which
can throw passengers off balance.

Tom Bee reportedly stopped making spring shank couplers because people were
damaging equipment. Having no springs in the draft gear and engineers bunching
slack can only lead to more damaged equipment.

Just my two cents.

Brian

makinsmoke wrote:Bunching slack on trains our size especially if you are doing it on other peoples'
cars will get you some really bad feedback.


Just my two cents.

Brian

Brian,
I was talking about "taking slack" on 15,000 ton coal trains that are a mile or more in length. Not on scale model trains.
Keith

While taking slack in for a real train was one thing during the day, don't think it's necessary for our model trains. If you have to take slack in for a model train...you're be better off shedding some train load (reduce the number of cars). The flip side to that...there's no sense starting something you can't control or stop!

As for the Tom Bee sprung couplers...I have 3 or 4 pairs of those. Wish they were still available. Not for the reason you cited. 1st of all...that was a great idea to take a loop shank coupler and close the bottom off so the springs could NOT FALL OUT! However, I realized quickly that using Tom's standard gray spring...was too soft. The train behaved more like a slinky going down the track...and yes, that feeling is annoying. I replaced the grey springs with Tom's purple springs (highest load rated springs he supplies). This was done primarily for hard coupling where those switching cars did not sneak up on the coupler...but instead hit the coupler at "ramming speed". The purple spring would absorb the high impact of rough couplings, but would otherwise behave as a (near) solid shank coupler. Seemed to me the best of both worlds.

Tapering the front/read ends of the coupler shank provided as much side swing as possible too. Believe that was a later improvement before the couplers were removed from the market.

Wouldn't say that was the result of poor design. Perhaps more so...a less-than-desireable result based on component selection or application. My 2 cents. Carl B.

Hi Keith,
Yes I understand. I have seen slack taken on lots of 1-1/2" scale equipment though, either because of accident or just lack of experience or
respect for others' equipment.

Carl,
I agree that Tom's springs needed a heavier wire gauge. Using the purple is a good idea. I will swap mine out. I do miss the availability.

If one pays attention to grades and works at it, the effect of slack can be planned for and minimized just as in the full size trains.

As in hooking up a steam loco, many practices of the full size trains applied to our scales not only allow for better and safer operation, but add to the enjoyment.

There is so much more to be had than just running laps at speed!

Take care,
Brian

Ps: sorry if this is seen as a hijack. Not my intention