Subject:
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Re: Hiawatha steam locomotive
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sat, 24 Nov 2007 05:11:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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8149 times
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In lugnet.trains, Cale Leiphart wrote:
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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
Pennsy Decapod is a
pretty solidly built engine but can be a real pain on uneven track due to
it’s long wheelbase. I’m interested in seeing your pilot truck solution.
Cale
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Hi Cale (and Tony),
thanks as well for the kind words.
As background, the Hi has three sets of wheels, I chose to fix the pilot truck
and the drivers to the boiler, using only one set of flanged drivers. Without
reworking the whole mechanics, I am stuck keeping the pilot truck laterally
fixed with the locomotive.
The basic idea of my fix is to have a point of vertical rotation near the front
driver axle to allow the pilot truck to drop down without twisting. The simplest
way of doing this would be using a pair of technic bricks or beams off of said
axle. Then have a point of horizontal rotation at the other end of this drop so
that the pilot truck can still rotate L/R on its center axis. I was space
constrained in my retrofit and forced my way in with a hinge and some plates
instead (photo still forthcoming). If I were designing from scratch, I would
have allowed more space for a more technic style solution.
Now as for your decapod, the effective wheelbase isn’t much more than my
tenwheeler with the trailing axle of the pilot truck fixed to the frame. If your
experience is anything like mine, I bet you have problems with that 2x2 plate
with pin holding your pilot axle on. I first tried that approach on my
tenwheeler and the plate with pin kept falling off. I eventually had to
redesign,
I put a technic plate above, and used a normal technic pin to hold the pilot on.
It worked a lot better. It is a much more secure bond and hasn’t fallen off yet.
As an added benefit, it also gives enough play for the lead axle to stay on the
rails when a peak in the track lift the wheels (and the rest of the locomotive)
up.
Benn
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Hiawatha steam locomotive
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| (...) We'll I finally was able to snap a few photos of the front truck fix for my Hiawatha at (URL) last week's show>. Before the fix the engine ran fine at home but would always derail at shows. After some diagnostics, it became clear that with the (...) (17 years ago, 16-Feb-08, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | 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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