Sweet William steam locomotive discussion

[Tom Wood]

Thanks Harold.
Here goes

[Fred_V]

looks great Tom.

[Tom Wood]

Looks like it's ok so here he is at work.
We use a lot of anthracite coal here which is very hot but produces very fine ash which goes through the spark arrester, the deflector on the chimney stops it getting into the childrens eyes but dusts up the loco.
Regards
Tom.

[Benjamin Maggi]

My plans are ordered, the frame steel has been priced, and once I get my two other projects out of the shop (battery engine and wooden riding gondola) in June I will begin my engine.

[Harlock]

Tom,

I like your tender. It allows for guest engineers with room for an experienced engineer behind.

In regards to the use of various fuels in a marine boiler:

You can can use all three.

My similarly sized MEG Wendy has backhead attachments for both coal and propane. You can swap them out in a matter of minutes the way I have it. As we get closer to completing the engine, I will provide some pictures. I'm currently rebuilding the grates for the coal backhead attachment.

For oil firing, you can do this but when you are constructing the boiler you need to include a small pass through pipe for the fuel and atomizer that comes through the bottom front of the firebox. An example of this successfully working is the Venice Miniature Railway #2 engine built by Johnson Machine Works, more commonly known as the "two spot" at the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad in Los Gatos, CA. (18" gauge) That engine has a marine boiler with the described oil firing setup.

--Mike

[Benjamin Maggi]

The original Sweet Pea (5" gauge) only has a screw-style parking brake, but that is most likely because the trailing engineer's riding car was equipped with full brakes. For 7.25" gauge there are two options as I see it: (1.) install full brakes on the engine, or (2) install full brakes on the riding car or tender.

Which option seems the best? What have you guys done?

[Tom Wood]

Ben.
The original William, like the Pea had only a parking brake acting on one axle and with 20 children up you did not stand a chance of stopping in an emergency. I looked at the various systems on other club locos which were mechanical lever operated and efficiency depended on effort, (not much good to the juniors). Not wanting to break into the steam supply I came up with a simple electrical system (drwg attached) which works instantly, never needs adjusting and will stop me, fully loaded in a short distance. It works as follows:- If you look at the picture of my tender, you will see a lever on the side, at the front. Pulling the lever rearwards closes off a valve and makes the switch, starting the tyre compressor, the air has no where to go except to the cylinders and a relief valve maintains the pressure at 40-50 psi. When the gauge indicates 50, (almost instantly) the lever is released and the spring in the push switch pushes the lever away from the switch, breaks the circuit and stops the compressor. There is enough overlap in the valve for it to remain closed and hold the pressure for about 10 mins without operating again. to release, the brake the lever is pushed forward, opening the valve to atmosphere.
My cyls operate on each tender bogie. The cyls are 1 1/2" bore x 1 1/2" stroke. The tyre compressor costr £5.00 and the battery £12.00 in the U.K. the rest is workshop.
One way to do it, there are many more.
Tom