The BNR (another way)

[Bigmet]

Ideally steel tyre on steel rail; it's the smaller coefficient of friction that has the larger influence. But if it works well enough for your requirement, well and good.

I would love to try steel rails and tyres, but rust would be a threat in my unheated outbuilding location; the old MGW wheelsets on most of my kitbuilt wagons and coach bogies look very realistic after anything between 25 to 50 years on my layouts, the mild steel tyres properly rusted other than where they are polished by rail contact. (The axles in stainless steel still bright, where not painted.) I scooped up all the suitable MGW wheelsets in stock when KX models closed, and am very glad of it, finally used the last a year ago.

[Mountain]

The track gangers finally found some free time to install steel rails on the BNR's steepest gradient. Steel rail apparently has a greater coefficient of friction than nickel silver rail and it was hoped that this might improve adhesion, allowing some of the less powerful locos to work on the branch to Pewsley. To test the hypothesis trials were first run on the existing nickel silver track using a lead weighted wagon. The wagon was weighted just to the point where BNR's loco No. 1 was unable to progress.


SteelTest.jpg


Some speedy tracklaying then took place, along with some adjustment to the pre-used fishplates. After tea and chocolate biscuits No. 1's crew took on the challenge...

It also makes a massive difference in the hillclimbing abilities of older "Magnadhesion" locomotives, as when I had steel track on an incline, I could manage six coaches with the hall class and the pannier could do at least four or five and it was quite a gradient.
But then after much saving of funds I replaced all my track with Peco nickel silver flexible track and the hall class could only pull four. I only needed four as that was all my run round loop at my high level branch line station would not take any more. But I was checking my locos wefe ok as I forgot about the magnetic qualities adding to traction. One could put the pannier onto a section of steel track (E.g. the old Hornby R 601) and pick up the loco and the track would stick to the wheels!

[GeraldH]

Well sadly I have to report that the track replacement made no appreciable difference to haulage . Although there seemed to be more friction when cleaning the steel railhead, perhaps the tea and biscuits changed the driving behaviour of No1's crew? Nevertheless in the wheel world loco No 1 still ground to a halt on the gradient. There's only one remaining loco on the BNR with Magnadhesion (well the engineers think it has) an E2, but rather surprisingly even that didn't seem to be greatly affected. So the original nickel silver track has been reinstated and the older steel track will be placed in reserve for a (non) rainy day .

[pete12345]

Well sadly I have to report that the track replacement made no appreciable difference to haulage . Although there seemed to be more friction when cleaning the steel railhead, perhaps the tea and biscuits changed the driving behaviour of No1's crew? Nevertheless in the wheel world loco No 1 still ground to a halt on the gradient. There's only one remaining loco on the BNR with Magnadhesion (well the engineers think it has) an E2, but rather surprisingly even that didn't seem to be greatly affected. So the original nickel silver track has been reinstated and the older steel track will be placed in reserve for a (non) rainy day .

Any railway has to carry out scientific tests and trials, and yours is no exception! It's a shame the experiment didn't work out this time.

What we need now is a 00 scale working dynamometer car to accurately test drawbar pull...

[Ken Shabby]

https://www.dccconcepts.com/product-cat ... nd-pickup/

I've not used this product , but it looks like a smart idea.

Ken

[manna]

G'Day Gents

There is another product that helps loco's, that's 'Bullfrog Snot' I haven't used the product, but I've been told it works.

manna

[Bufferstop]

After hours spent cleaning track and wheels, the thought a spreading some gloopy gunk over them doesn't sound at all appealing. I'd stick to gradients of one in twenty at worst, free turning axles and double heading if necessarry.

[glencairn]

I read sometime back that regular running of rolling stock keeps the wheels and track clean. Thereby less time cleaning track.

Glencairn

[Phred]

glencairn wrote:
I read sometime back that regular running of rolling stock keeps the wheels and track clean. Thereby less time cleaning track.

I read that as well, and it makes sense that the friction between the track and wheels would wear the dirt away.

However I also read that the electric current passing from the track to the wheels causes a reaction with dust, etc, which results in that black gunk we remove with our cleaning pads. That also sounds right since you don't see the black residue anywhere except on the track.

So running trains cleans the track, while running trains makes the track dirty.

Disclaimer: I'm no kind of electrical guru. I bet Bigmet would be able explain the process.

[GeraldH]

There is another product that helps loco's, that's 'Bullfrog Snot' I haven't used the product, but I've been told it works.
manna

I believe that this is for replacing worn out traction tyres on locos that have a groove in the driving wheels? The BNR try to avoid traction tyres as a rule, although there are one or two diesels on the line that do have them and they have no difficulty on the line's fearsome gradients.

[GeraldH]

The latest loco the enter the BNR's workshops is a fairly recently arrived K1. It always had fairly floppy valve gear on one side and there was a mysterious loss of plating on the associated connecting rod. Trainspotters on the platform alerted management to the possibility of impending failure and fear of disaster led to the locos withdrawal from service. An attempt to tighten up the valve gear on the floppy side resulted in catastrophic failure with the cross-head becoming completely detached. As spares are not available, the K1 spent sometime laid up, but it was eventually decided to attempt a repair using parts lying around in the BNR's works.

[GeraldH]

After a lot of head scratching and breaking two drill bits (0.3mm) the workshop team managed to drill two holes into the crosshead where the previous cast fixings had partially disintegrated. The first hole was drilled all the way through the bottom of the crosshead, while the second was drilled partially through, inside the remainder of the damaged pivot. Trying to get these holes centered without a drill press required a certain amount of patience and a bit of luck.

The plan was to glue some steel pins into these two holes with the pin heads holding the valve gear in place. It turns out that pin heads are not always symmetrical and care was needed to select good ones. Cutting the pins did sometimes result in the head or the remaining shaft shooting off across the workshop! As a result Bluetac was put on the head of each pin before cutting to improve workforce safety.

Finding a pin the correct size for the partially drilled hole for the connecting rod proved particularly difficult as the hole tapered in. Attempting to turn down the shaft of a stainless steel pin proved too difficult and in the end a pin rather shorter than depth of the hole had to be used. This didn't look as elegant as the pin at the bottom of the crosshead, but being on the inside it is not visible to passengers.

The whole assembly has now been placed back on the K1 which has re-entered service successfully... so far

[Bufferstop]

A tricky job neatly done. I await the pictures of it attacking those fearsome gradients.

[GeraldH]

A tricky job neatly done. I await the pictures of it attacking those fearsome gradients.

Thank you Bufferstop. To reduce drag and slightly improve performance on the gradients, the pickups on the centre tender wheels have been pushed away from the wheels. 10 wheel pickup has to be enough, even with the BNR's trackwork .

[Mountain]

After hours spent cleaning track and wheels, the thought a spreading some gloopy gunk over them doesn't sound at all appealing. I'd stick to gradients of one in twenty at worst, free turning axles and double heading if necessarry.

Actually a raidio controlled loco can act as a banking loco and push from behind. Can also be done with DCC and if clever, using DC with careful positioning of switches fortrack sections.