Yankee Tank etc.

HR Yankee Tank slide-bars and cross head detail

 

Progress on my Yankee Tank has not been rapid hence the dearth of recent Blog postings, I've waited to post some photos until I had something that looked like an engine rather than post a picture of a messy desktop. This is really a scratch building project rather than a kit building one, I've abandoned the etchings supplied in the kit altogether. It is some small source of consolation that there are some good castings with the kit that I can use. The slide-bars and cross-heads shown above are the nearest I could find for the engine, they are from Laurie Griffin's range ref: 10-11 ; they needed a good deal of modification to look anything like those of a Yankee Tank and even more modification to work properly. There are no driving wheels on the market that exactly suit the Yankee Tank, the nearest I could find were dimensionally correct though the oversize throw of the cranks resulted in the cross-head fouling the front and rear mounts. I had to reduce the width of the cross-head and modify the piston rod before the assembly ran freely.
 

 

HR Yankee Tank chassis

The inside motion I fitted is designed for Martin Finney's Adams Radial Tank and fits the Yankee Tank without modification. The connecting rods and coupling rods were made from my own patterns by Malcolm Wright of Wrightscale. they need detailing. The connecting rods of a Yankee Tank are inside the coupling rods which doesn't leave much space for the rear bogie wheels to move when cornering, I have not addressed this problem yet. The chassis seems to run smoothly without binding under finger power; putting the motor gearbox in place and adding the pick-ups is the next step.



Safety Valves modified.

The safety valve castings supplied in the Lochgorm kit looked very nice on first examination but when I matched them to the drawing to my annoyance I found they were oversize. I cut the base in half, removed a slice of metal and soldered it back together. The resulting shape was then filed to shape. A new lever had to be made too which slotted into the spring casting, the lever protrudes into the cab through a slot in the cab front plate and still needs a little more refining to look right.

This is my second HR fish wagon, I completed it recently as light relief from the Yankee Tank project. There are only a few additions and improvements needed to the Lochgorm kit to build a good scale model of a Jones d.12 fish wagon. It's a good addition to my on-going Highland Railway train which now numbers four wagons, two coaches and a choice  of either of two goods brake vans or a passenger brake van.

I hear that Andy Copp at Lochgorm Kits is releasing a kit in September of a HR open goods wagon which will build several variants...I'll have one of those Andy!

I returned briefly to a project that has stalled at the moment for lack of an engine. This is my LNWR 1800gall. tender which is still sitting in a siding in my studio looking forlorn. I found some little padlocks on Martin Finney's website and added them to the tool boxes as a finishing touch.

Yankee Tank chassis

Yankee Tank; structure of chassis

 

Only one of the original three turned brass 25.5mm frame spacers is still in place and this will be removed when the cylinder cross pieces, which slot into the frames, are soldered in place, these replace the turned spacers which can then be re-used. The third cross piece, behind the cylinders, is the motion plate, which extends beyond the frames to form the support for the rear of the slide-bars. The front steps are attached to the ends of this which makes it difficult to see what's going on in this area, though there is a 3/4 front photo of HR52 extant which helps clarify the shape of the support. The valve spindles are in place between the frames; these are part of the Martin Finney kit for the inside motion of his Adams Radial Tank which fit the Yankee Tank very nicely and which I hope to make work.

I'm using a 3-point suspension system based on the ideas illustrated in the late Geoff Holt's book "Locomotive Modelling", the suspension points being the rear fixed axle and the front bogie pivot point, the front driving axle moves in Slaters' brass  hornblocks in slots in the side frames. I was at the G0G show at Cleckheaton recently and discussed this method of suspension for a 4-4-0T with the man on the G0G Technical stand, Nigel Smith no less. He didn't think much of it and said that he prefered to compensate all four driving wheels, which he thought would give better hauling power. Well I've opted for Geoff's method now so we'll just have to wait and see.

The coupling and connecting rods are a project in their own right which is underway at the moment. Malcolm Wright of Wrightscale in Aboyne is machining a set of rods from a pair of oversized patterns that I made. These should enable me to get the engine up and  running soon.

Yankee Tank progress

HR54 Yankee Tank. Inner side tanks in place.

Progress on my HR Yankee Tank has been less than spectacular, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm treating the kit simply as a starting point in my quest for a scale model of a Yankee Tank, so to this end I've re-made some of the parts rather than use those in the kit, which is a time consuming method of progress. My mate Bob Goodyear, in nearby Dumfriesshire, has a lathe; he turned me a set of frame spacers which are designed to temporarily hold the frames in position while nickel silver spacers are soldered permanently in place, these are 25.5mm wide and will result in an overall width of 26.9mm for the frames providing negligible side-play on the driving wheels. The rear axle will be rigid and carry an ABC Mini Gooch gearbox fitted with an M1824 motor mounted upright that should just allow space for a small flywheel. The front driving axle will be sprung and the bogie pivot point will be solid to provide three-point suspension.

Several apparent similarities between the Yankee Tank and the Adams Radial Tank were pointed out to me by Sandy Harper which prompted me to compare drawings of these engines. I found a drawing of the Adams engine in J N Maskelyne's "Locomotives I have Known" and realised while perusing this that the inside valve gear was not only Stephenson's in both cases but also that the works from the Adams engine should fit the Yankee Tank. I promptly ordered a set of Adams valve gear from Martin Finney,who sells this item as a separate kit. The space between the frames beneath the Yankee Tank's boiler is very visible and I think Martin's finely engineered kit of parts should fill it nicely.

The boiler itself is 4' 3" diameter according to my drawing and this is the diameter I made it despite reading in Cormack and Stevenson that the maximum diameter of the boiler was a quarter inch under four foot. I presume this latter misleading measurement to be without the cladding.

I've added window surrounds inside the cab front and rear plates (a necessity rather than a luxury) using Geoff Holt's method, which I derived from his recently published book on locomotive modelling.

My next next task is to get the engine up and running and first of all I need to address the coupling and connecting rods, which need to be re-made...



            

HR OCT and Chummy.

HR d.47 OCT with Austin 7 Chummy c.1923

The Austin 7 Open Tourer known affectionately as a "chummy" was in its first year of production in 1923 and here's one being delivered by the Highland Railway on an Open Carriage Truck. The car's number plate begins with SO... the S being for Scotland and the second letter denoting the area, in this case Morayshire. The wagon plate lettering reads silver rather than white and as I couldn't dry brush it to read white, I relied on the weathering to simply dull the metallic lettering which I hope works. On Saturday the model's bound for Carlisle to the CD0GG meeting, for a run on the layout, a few photos in the scenic section and entry into the annual modelling competition.

HR Yankee Tank Project

HR Yankee Tank 4-4-0T front bogie.

My Yankee Tank kit arrived from Lochgorm Kits a couple of weeks ago and though I've not made a great deal of progress yet I have been able to assess the merits, limitations, omissions and faults of the kit which will be evident as description of the build progresses. I've no doubt that the kit built straight from the box produces a reasonable Yankee Tank, however my intention is to use the parts provided by the kit as the starting point of a fully detailed scale model of the engine based on available photos and the drawings in Peter Tatlow's invaluable "Highland Locomotives". For the prototype my choice lit on HR 14, built in 1893 and renumbered 54 in 1900 and it is in this latter guise that I'll build her. There is a superb photo extant of the engine as HR14 which provides most of the information I need to supplement the drawing.

The bogie illustrated has been built using the parts supplied with some modification, in particular I had to adjust the width of the spacers. An 0.7mm washer outside each axle box allows the wheels to revolve freely without fouling the centrally mounted bogie spring which protrudes beyond the frames slightly. I'm not sure what effect widening the bogie frames will have on the loco main frames which are I think rather narrow at a bare 26.4mm overall and may need wider spacers in turn.

 I will sign off for now as I need to order some scratch building materials!



 


   

HR Fish Truck

HR Fish Truck from a Lochgorm Kit

I decided to build this wagon in a short interlude between loco projects which presented itself before the Glasgow Show in February where I intended to buy a "Lochgorm" Yankee Tank kit which I knew, once started, would be a time consuming project and leave little time for this kind of indulgence. It's a Jones Open Fish Truck d.12 and is the second I've built to add to my Highland Railway train of mixed goods and passenger stock. However, whereas the first was finished in HR passenger green livery I intend the second, as there is much uncertainty about the actual colour of these vehicles, to take to the rails in goods wagon oxide. It needs a few more details to complete and an interesting and appropriate load of the fishy kind to bring it to life. I'm considering the possibilities... 

A NW Tender in search of an Engine.

LNWR 1800 gallon tender c.1885
 

The 1800 gallon tender was introduced to the LNWR by F.W. Webb in 1874. From 1882 these tenders were built with a single side plate 14ft long in place of two shorter ones and it is this version that is the subject of the "Gladiator" kit which was the starting point of this model. At this point in time it remains a tender in search of a locomotive. However... there is a suitable locomotive kit in the pipeline and a good deal of development work has been done already, and though it's still under wraps...watch this Blog for news of developments.

 

LNWR 1800 gallon tender c.1885

Some additions and improvements were made to the basic Gladiator kit, the tool boxes and their plinths were a particular trial and took a good deal of work before they were acceptable. The handle below the spoked brake wheel operates the water scoop which I have yet to model.

It's a busy place underneath an 1800g tender.

The outer brake pull-rods can be disassembled to enable removal of the wheels. The outer rods are held in place by 14BA screws which pass through spacing tubes and thread into the rear pull rods which are soldered to the inner chassis and tapped to accept the screws. The bushes carrying the center axle slide in a vertical slot and are sprung by a wire attached to the chassis, otherwise the suspension is solid. The tender is arranged for the American pick-up system by having the wheels on one side shorted out.