Yankee Tank January 1

HR54 Yankee Tank approaching completion 

January 1st seems an apt day for a progress posting on my Yankee Tank project, the saga of which began back in February.... it's almost complete, just a few details and I'm there....however I'm much tempted to replace the front bogie with a new sprung or compensated one. At the moment the engine is staggering along with the bogie I built from the parts in the "Lochgorm" kit that was the starting point of the project. The bogie was the first thing I constructed before I began to jettison the offending parts of the kit to the extent that the engine became a scratch building project. I think the bogie will probably join its fellow miscreant components in the scrap yard and be replaced by one based on the principles expounded by Geoff Holt.

HR54 Rear of cab with coal rails and mesh over windows

In 1901, along with several other changes, coal rails were added to HR14 to increase the coal capacity of the bunker and the engine was renumbered HR54. A protective wire mesh cover was put over the rear windows and in addition, as the rails overtopped the windows slightly, wooden boards were placed in the bunker against the mesh to further protect the windows from damage from the heightened coal load.    

HR54 showing work on the cab interior in progress.

Cab and backhead details are generic though the reverser and brake standard are in the right place as can be confirmed by glimpses of them in photos of the engine. Some guidance for cab details can be gleaned from Eddie Bellas' article in "Steam Railway" of May 1984 in which he says that "injectors were mounted on the boiler backhead". He prefaces this with... "steam feeds for the various auxiliaries were taken from a large steam fountain inside the cab". Though I've modelled the injectors, I'm floored by the fountain! Control rods, such as the whistle operating rod and the sandbox operating rod, that protrude through the cab front plate have, or will be given, suitable hand wheels or operating  handles inside the cab.

The vacuum ejector pipe enters the cab on the right hand side and remains at the moment just a loose end, I'm not sure what to do with it?

The water fillers on the tank tops are cast at home from my own master patterns and are available to fellow Yankee Tank builders on request.

Chassis showing cylinder drain cock mechanism.

The cylinder drain cock operating rod leads back to a small lever mounted on a rod below the motion plate, the rod leads across to its opposite number on the r.h.s. Between the frames, protruding through the motion plate, are the valve rods/spindles, which are all the inside motion that I've modelled. Now that I've moved the motor/gearbox onto the front axle this is no longer available to mount the eccentrics on. You could say that I've sacrificed some of the inside motion for a flywheel and improved running characteristics.

Unfinished... but nevertheless it's a busy place under the cab.

A curved balance pipe sits in front of the brake cylinder and joins the side tanks, it only just clears the rear wheel flanges with the aid of a cut-out. In front of the cylinder there is a vertical support for a horizontal cross rod on which is mounted the brake operating elbow, still in its roughed out state. The brake pull rods will be attached to this elbow. I cannot see the horizontal cross rod on the Bellas drawing, nor can I fathom the drawing at all in the area below the cab, so I've followed the details in the GA drawing of a "Loch" class engine in Tatlow. Despite Bellas' assurances that his drawing was taken from an original Dubbs drawing of 1891, its detail of linkages beneath the cab seems implausible.

The cast w/m springs are from my own patterns and castings.

Superstructure and chassis united in harmony.