RE: What on Earth = ordinary 0-4-4 tank engine
Sam, Thank you for the detail about the Forney wheel arrangement and the added lateral motion to the truck. I had been curious about why the Forney, as a 0-4-4, became so popular for urban transit systems. Your info about the modifications to the original Forney design provided the answers. Steve
Re: Coupler height
Vance and all Seems fair to me, we leave the defacto truck mounted coupler height as a 'universal' standard and the various scale groups work with the NMRA The end of all this is that there should NOT be one > standard height, but that each scale should use the height that's correct for > their prototype, and the folks who are into running trains as moving toys rather > than modeling railroads can stick with truck-mounted couplers. It's a fairly > simple system, when you think of it, and it gives everyone what they > need/want in terms of interoperation with other equipment in their chosen > scale/nonscale.
Re: Ruby Races
In a message dated 11/4/00 3:01:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Don't laugh too hard. A hobby shop out here has two 300' long #1 gauge > "drag strips" for just that reason. The "rocket train races" are a big > draw, which he holds two or three times a year. They don't use CO2, but > real model rocket engines. We set up a live steam track whenever they > have big days at the store, and toyed with the idea of "Ruby races," but > decided against it - this year. Sounds great. Remember the Shay 'races' at the national railfan convention in Sacremento? You could race the Shay vs Climax, Ruby vs Sammy, etc... Pete
Re: What on Earth = ordinary 0-4-4 tank engine
Vance No, the UK locos were were not Forneys. A Forney would not have water tanks forward of the cab. The idea of the Patent was to have a constant weight available on the drivers, viz just the boiler and its water. The water was supported on the four wheel bogie and was not supposed to contribute significantly to the adhesive weight. The running as a 4-4-0 was also part of the patent. If I recall correctly the patent was originally intended for street locos, and Forney felt that the 'rearward' running gave the engineer a better veiw. I believe Forneys were used on the 'El' before electrification. Also running 4-4-0 gave better tracking, but the early Forneys had a fixed bogie pivot. The arrangement of 4-4-0 is not brilliant for going round curves, particularly street rly curves. The early Forneys had a flangeless (blind driver) next to the bogie. This arrangement can be seen on the Bedford and Billerica's 'Puck' & 'Ariel', and another early Sandy River Forney (Butterfly?). These were prone to derailment so were rebuilt with lateral movement in the bogie and all drivers flanged. As a point of interest the 0-6-4 locos designed for the Austrian Ybbstalbahn by Golsdorf were similarly fitted as original, and also similarly rebuilt. Sam E VR Bass wrote: > > Thanks, Pete. I think they were, in effect, Forneys then. Matthias Forney > intended his 0-4-4s to be run bunker first, too, though most railroads > eventually turned them around to run "conventionally". I'd never seen one that > big before, though there were of course standard-gauge Forneys on some > US railroads (mostly, I think, interurban lines). > > regards, > -vance- > > Vance Bass > Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA > Small-scale live steam resources: http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass
Re: OTP: CO2 powered locomotive?
Hi, I have a replica SV Compact Carry for AirSoft gaming. It is a gas blowback pistol and each mag takes a charge from a large filling bottle, along with 25 or so 6 mm 2.5g plastic BBs. The gas used seems to contain a lubricant, and as it is designed to move objects in tubes I imagine it could be suitable as an alternative power to live steam. Hopefully somewhat more reliable than CO2 as one doesn't have the problems with keeping the original in a cold enough state so that it doesn't boil off. Cooling due to expansion will still happen, although the starting temperature is higher. Overall power per volume will be less as one is going from a liquid/compressed gas rather than from a solid as is the case with CO2 Dry Ice. However easily refilled with a squirt from a bottle. Your local hobby or sports adventure store may have some further info, and there are lots of AirSoft sites in the 'net. As to making a pressure vessel to experiment with, I would suggest copper water pipe fittings and tube. Braze rather then solder, and use the stuff without the solder ring inside. Check that the water fittings are rated to a suitable pressure. Although domestic pipe is normally 15 or 22 mm (here in the UK) larger sizes are available for industrial plant. Using a threaded blanking end one could also try out the Dry Ice for comparison purposes! N.B. I am looking at using these fittings to make a small scale boiler for testing purposes. Best wishes, Susan.
