Howdy all. A short background. Here at the house we have now had three different Accucraft C-16's operated. The first was from Seattle during my annual steamup. Much to my and the owners surprise and consternation, the engine was leaking steam oil out the piston rod packing glan so bad that in one lap the steam oil tank was emptied and the contents wound up on railhead of my outside track loop. The car wheels then spread the oil out evenly. It was so bad that any engine that ran the rest of the weekend slipped it's drivers with ease.
Well time and weather cleaned the track and all was well. Enter the second and third C-16's purchased by local Las Vegas Live Steamers. Both of those engines had their first run on my track. Again oil was coming out in gross quantities. On these engines the excess oil was winding up in the smoke box, draining out the hole in the bottom, dripping on the pilot truck pivot arm, working it's way back to the pivot pin, traveling across the front brake stiffening rod and onto the brake shoes and then directly onto the rail head. If you wanted to make an oil to track delivery system this was the very best. In one lap around the track you could coat the entire track with an even film of steam oil. If we are having this problem here with 3 different C16's I'm sure that there are many more out there doing the very same thing. Lou Banning, owner of the #2 C-16 to run here, and I have been studying on this problem and yesterday we found a partial fix. Lou removed the stretcher rod that goes between the front brake shoes leaving the brake hanger just dangling. We then ran the engine for 1 and 1/2 hours (3 different runs) on the Las Vegas Garden Railway Society's modular railroad Christmas time setup in the Sprint Telephone Co. main office lobby. All the oil was now being deposited in the center line of the track instead on the rail. We were very pleased with this development as both steam and electric trains are run on the modules. We didn't have to clean 200 feet of track after every run now. The bad news is the engine is still using excessive steam oil. My guess is that the pickup tube in the running board oil tank reservoir is placed too low in the tank which allows straight steam oil to be discharged into the dead leg connecting line until the oil level is even with the outlet tube. At this time it begins to regulate normally. I suspect that when the regulation point is reached, most of the oil has already been discharged into the connecting line, gone through the cylinders, collected on the inside of the smoke box and drained out and onto the track via the route described above. So remove the stretcher rod between the front brake shoes and the rail oiling problem will go away. If you want the brake shoes to show, just put a nut on the back and attach the shoe to the hanger without the rod. Now to figure out what to do about the excessive oil usage. Also be warned that any C-16 that intends to run on my track will have to have the stretcher rod removed before running here. A clean track is a happy track. Best Wishes for the Holidays Ya'll Clark
