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For those of you who have been to either of the last two NMRA National Train
Shows, you might have seen my
Hiawatha train set,
You may have also noticed that the steam locomotive was more often a static
display, giving way to diseasels. I was stumped because the Hi derails way too
often at shows but runs just fine at home. Because I ran it so infrequently at
shows, it took a while to diagnose the problem as arising from uneven track: 3
to 4 points of contact in a rigid plane, with two points of horizontal rotation
simply does not glide over the wavy crests between tables so well. It doesn’t
have the equalizers of a real steam locomotive to keep the wheels in contact
with the rails. Then a few months of head scratching to come up with ideas to
fix the problem, then many hours of tweaking the model last weekend (which
resulted in tossing out pretty much all of the ideas I had), hesitation to tear
the model apart and risk disturbing what balance I had, devising a new idea on
the fly using a hinge close to the drivers and allowing the pilot to drop down
as the track drops away while the drivers crest the peaks, then accidentally
tearing the model apart and discovering just how solidly built it is (the two
pieces snapped right back together), and with that inspiration, ripping it back
apart to fix a few small problems.
I’m happy to say that the patient is in good health and ran solidly for at least
an hour over very wobbly track at a
show
yesterday.
(the blur in the foreground)
Right now the locomotive looks essentially the same from the outside, but I’ll
post photos of the new hinge as soon as I take them.
Benn
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Hiawatha steam locomotive
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| (...) Huzzah! I was happy to see pictures of it running on Brickshelf yesterday, wish I could have seen it in person. I eagerly await photos of your fix, I may have to adopt it if my designs will allow. --Tony (17 years ago, 16-Nov-07, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
| | | Re: Hiawatha steam locomotive
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| (...) Hey Benn- Congrats on coming up with a functioning design solution-- I know too well the problems of creating detailed MOCs that look great but run poorly:-/ And I don't even deal in steam! Ross has had EXTENSIVE experience in that area. I (...) (17 years ago, 16-Nov-07, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
| | | Re: Hiawatha steam locomotive
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| (...) Thats great to hear. Your Hiawatha passenger train is quite nice and steam engines look much better when running than wasting away in a train yard. I know all to well how finicky LEGO steam can be. My (URL) Pennsy Decapod> is a pretty solidly (...) (17 years ago, 18-Nov-07, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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