West Valley electric locomotive

[polarengrg10]

I need to contact someone who has built or is building the Baldwin-Westinghouse electric locomotive from plans supplied by the West Valley Live Steamers. I have a set of plans that my dad had dated 1981. Questions: current suppliers of bolster casting? updated plans? journal boxs?

[Rich_Carlstedt]

I was a member of that club years ago and built 3 locos in my shop in 1983/84.

The original group of 29 ( 1978-81?) followed the plans exactly.
As a group, they had the patterns made for the wheels, motor boxes,alxe boxes,bolsters, and sand box covers.
The first group used all steel construction and dropping diodes for voltage control with stepping points.

The second group of 10 Locos (1981/82 ) did all the same, except for using Fibreglass cabs and roofs to speed construction.

The third group ( 3 ,at my shop) followed with a number of changes/improvements.
Axle boxes were no longer available at that time , so we substituted the ones made by Mercer in NJ ( out of business I think ?)
Wheel patterns were revised so that Cast Iron could be used ( Originals were Tenzelloy) After turning back in the patterns to the Club, I heard they were lost.??
Motors used by the WVLS were no longer availible, so we had to use a smaller motor. Due to this, we went to Needle Bearings with harden axle pins for less friction than the standard bronze bushings, and most important, used 24 volt electronic chopper for speed control to maximize power and to allow Muing the locos and gain Dynamic Brakes.
We also made the Cab shell and Roof as 2 seperate pieces to facilitate maintenance
In 1991, the motors were changed from surplus 12 volt windshield wiper motors, to 24 volt, 4 brush, wheel chair motors which had 3 times the torque and much less energy loss

Summary:
the original design had a blower channel down the center frame to add cooling to the motors. I never put in the blower or the scale frame / truck diafram. After 19 years of running, heat is not a motor problem, unless you intend to haul long trains. Several times my engine has hauled over a ton of gravel up a 2 percent 1/2 mile long grade without ill effects, but the blower channel makes a great conduit for wires.
I think most all the parst like the Bolster could be fabbed withoutt too much trouble. The hard one is the scale motor boxes, which enclose the motors and gears and are really fantastic in protecting the drive train.
I am not sure if any patterns exist, but if you drop me a email, I will send the name of the fellow who handled the plans, so you can ask him.
Rich

[Brucea]

Hi , I am looking to build one of the West Valley electric locomotive is any new or more current information about the locomotive available Thanks Bruce

[kcjones611]

I know a gentleman that owns 2 of the WVLS Baldwin electrics. Last year he had to replace the motors and found the motors sold by Plum Cove where almost an exact replacement to the originals he removed. Just my .02 for any other owner needing to replace them!

[Trainman4602]

I built and sold 17 of these locomotives. I am planning to build more in Fact I was looking at it today. The motors that I originally used were custom built for me by Jensen Motor in Saladia Missouri. The company was bought out by?? The Plum Cove motors are a copy of my motor. I don't know were they get them from. If your friends locomotive had motors that matched the Plum Cove then his locomotives were made by Mercer about 25 years ago.

There was a group a LALS that built 26 locomotives in the early 80ies. I supplied a considerable amount of the parts for that project.
They were using a bicycle assist motor. The same as the Karlson' little Mac loco. These motors where a bad batch as the magnets came loose from the motor housing. I'm not sure what they did to correct it.

This time around I will be using an electric scooter motor. A 750watt motor and a 25 chain and sprocket to drive it.

On the original I used Martian (steel) gears. The motor had 12 teeth and the wheel had a 80 teeth. it made a 6.6 :1 ratio.
The wheels were 5 inch in diameter. It had plenty of speed and plenty of pulling power. I'm using the chain and sprocket because the Martian gears are well over a $100.00 per set

I used a Curtise PMC controller that I got directly from them and two deep cycle batteries.

[Trainman4602]

BTW

Andy Morrison had a lot to do with the original West Valley project I recently ran into him a this years Cabin Fever Expo. I had not seen him in Years he at one time was a member of the New Jersey Live Steamers.

[Gary Armitstead]

I need to contact someone who has built or is building the Baldwin-Westinghouse electric locomotive from plans supplied by the West Valley Live Steamers. I have a set of plans that my dad had dated 1981. Questions: current suppliers of bolster casting? updated plans? journal boxs?

I have one of the Baldwin electrics from the project at LALS back in the eighties. All of the electronics have been replaced by a system installed by John Smith ( a long-standing LALS member). The motors were replaced about 20 years ago when we found another supplier of new, but "surplus" motors. This supplier is long gone by now, I'm sure.

A college professor friend and I started a Baldwin electric "build" in the early nineties, as a teaching tool for learning MasterCam software. We used some of the drawings from West Valley (I have an old set of prints from the LALS Electric Project) and then redrew most of the prints for the cab and roof in MasterCam (also used the cab from my original electric to double-check dimensions). Made a lot of changes. The cab work was done by CNC brakes and shears/punches. Our journals were CNC "hog-outs" from aluminum billet stock, as were also the truck bolsters and the frame truck bolsters. No castings or pattern work. Done from MasterCam Solids drawings.

We are just now finishing those seven engines and they are all running. We have MU'ed my original Baldwin with the seven new ones and all off of ONE controller. All eight running together.

One thing to be aware of......the original West Valley electrics were NOT Baldwins. If you look at a photo of the original prototype Baldwins purchased by Pacific Electric and earlier by Central Pacific to run in the Oakland/San Francisco area, you will notice a big difference in the front and rear window arrangement AND the shape of the roof. The Baldwin-Westinghouse have the distinctive Baldwin shaped roof, similar to their steam engines.

As a side note on my original Baldwin made during the LALS project (as Dave Scalavi commented before), there are many of his products on this engine including headlamps, sand casting lids and bases, pantagraphs and trolley poles, the shorty couplers and the coupler pockets and the poling pockets.

[Harlock]

As Rich Carlstedt and others have commented on (over the years - this is an old thread brought back to life!) there were many variants from the three West Valley build series to the LALS ones to the ones that Dave did.

There have been many improvements over the years and I would say that the LALS models represent the latest and the best in terms of both electronics and CNC cut cab pieces. These make very fine looking models when completed with all of the details, and with a modern electronic speed controller they are easy to build and maintain. None of the original castings for the motor housings or wheels are available from the West Valley build - and I am not exactly sure where the wheels originally came from. They are small spoked wheels with no counterweights - so think Shay drivers or spoked pilot truck wheels from some other casting set, if you were looking for a set to buy without making your own pattern.

I recently helped get an unmodified second series (mid-80s) West Valley engine up and running. It had the original relay-based stepped speed control that bled the excess voltage off as heat through a series of power diodes. Extremely inefficient but fun to watch. I made repairs to that setup and got it running for historical purposes, but I also installed a modern SyRen 50 motor controller to make it easy to run and very efficient. The SyRen has regenerative braking, so when you turn the speed control down the motors become generators and put power back into the battery. The range is extended quite a bit by this, and the fact that you are not burning off a lot of power through heat at lower speeds. It also has smooth and powerful continuous speed control.

The original surplus windshield wiper motors were also junk and were replaced with the largest 24V motor that would fit from electricscooterparts.com. (I think part MOT-24150) We now have four 24V 150W motors and with the SyRen controller it really gets up and goes. I put in a set of switches so you can switch back to the analog control if you want to use the old MU setup to connect to other West Valley engines. (the modern LALS MU setup and the West Valley analog one are incompatible however)

This one did not have the vent line for the motors metioned in a previous post. We did what another builder did and drilled a bunch of hole patterns in the motor housings to vent them. That solved the overheat problem.

Anyway, if building a new one, follow the LALS practices and do not try to re-create the analog controller setup, and use good motors.

-Mike

[Steamingdanny]

Are there any photos of this engine?

[jcbrock]

Here's a pair of original West Valley units, built by Richard & John Croll and currently owned by Mike Mattioda. This is Mike at the Train Mountain Triennial 2015. As always, Mike Massee likely has better photos of some of them.

[Rich_Carlstedt]

Here is a 1925 Baldwin-GE Steeple cab that was built as the third group of the West Valley . You can see the Baldwin rolled roof and the cow catcher trucks with outside air brake cylinders. Also the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad had both pantograph and trolley poles



Here is the 24 volt 4 pole wheel chair motor snugly mounted in the motor box in 1991~.
The 3 inch diameter made it the largest that could be used . The hose clamp is used to hold the motor to a "form fitted" block that is keyed to the inside key machined in the motor box. Using heat transfer grease transfer heat to the box efficiently and the key allows parallel gear adjustment


The top of the motor box showing the cooling holes in the front and the "plenum " large hole for power ventilation ( not used )


Rich

[Adirondack]

Bringing this thread back to life again...

There was a recent discussion on Facebook regarding these engines and a number of us would like to revive the project and build our own. Would anyone be willing to share copies of the drawings so we can accomplish this goal?

Happy to pay costs and postage.

Thanks!

Chris