Duchess of Sutherland loco does not run fast

[commanderman]

My Duchess of Sutherland loco does not seem to run as fast as my other locos on my layout, I have serviced it and the wheels on the loco move pretty freely when I drop from top speed to low speed on my R200 controller. It does lose speed but only a slight change where as on the other locos the difference is noticeable.

Is the R200 controller repairable as mine seems to have a fault when switching directions, it will work when switched over then I may have to switch it backwards and forwards a few times to get it to work.

[new lad on block]

Hi commanderman, it may help others identify any faults if you can quote, or show the type of Hornby Duchess of Sutherland.

There are two main variants, one dating from 1977, R066, UK tender drive, and several variants from the later tooling of the 2002, China loco drive.

Regards

[atom3624]

If it's the older, tender drive locomotive, this can be fully serviced by yourself.

My guess would be the brushes worn down / commutator dirty - easily remedied.

If it's the later version, locomotive driven, and the chassis is running freely, then it could be a mix of:

1. Worn out motor
2. Slipping / broken gear wheel.
3. Motor mount unscrewed - motor not meshing properly.

DoS should run well - mine does and can spin it's wheels quite readily - locomotive driven, and with extra weight added.

Al.

[commanderman]

Hi NB

It's a tender drive loco, I put power straight to the motor and it runs as expected no problems. I put two other tenders to the duches loco and its runs as expected I tried the duchess loco with other tenders and it runs slower both in high and low speed, but the scotsman tender does run it abit faster so the problem seems to be the link up between the duchess and tender when looked at the loco two wheel rims are loose it could be as the wheels are rotating they slip as well so only the middle wheel is driving?

[commanderman]

Oops should have read the post b4 committing NB I tried the duchess tender with other locos.

[Going Spare]

As Al asked, as part of the tender drive service, did you check the condition of the brushes, springs and traction tyres and did you lubricate the bearing in the metal motor casing that sits immediately behind the metal gear wheel. The motor may be generating enough power to drive itself but insufficient to run the locomotive as you would expect. If some of the tender metal wheel rims are coming loose, that will also affect performance as there is no drive to the centre wheels and they need to be pressed (and glued if necessary) back in place on the plastic centres.

[morairamike]

On tender drive locos the ringfield motor drives 4 wheels, the pair on the axles between the driven ones are floppy by design

The loco picks up on the left hand side and return is on the tender right-hand side. If the connection between the pin on the loco to the tender coupling is loose or dirty then reduced voltage will be applied to the motor.

On my 9F I added a return line direct my from the motor to the right-hand side of the loco. All the right hand wheels have continuity to the valve gear and I attached the wire to the cylinder block. This also stopped the loco stalling on crossovers where insulated frogs are exactly the same distance apart as the two sets of driven wheels on the tender which caused the motor to stall.

[ColinB]

Have you checked that the brass driving gear on the end of the armature shaft is not slipping, that happens a lot. The other thing to check is the traction tyres, if they have gone hard then you will not get much traction. Usually though if it is traction tyres at fault you get a horrible squealing.

[commanderman]

Hi CO

I checked the brass driving gear and It came off a bit too easy, so replaced with a spare and it went on after a little effort which was more than it took to get the old one off, the traction tyres are OK the loco now moves at one good speed and slows on switching to lower power it moves with out the odd little stop start slipping every yard or so around the track, it's at least moving at a constant speed now in both the high and low speed settings only about half the speed reached when I attach my Scotsman tender but its moving a bit faster.

[commanderman]

Hi GS

I gave the tender a service I changed the springs, bushes and cleaned the armiture cleaned all wheels plus oiled the bearing , then on the loc glued back the two loose wheel rims cleaned both the pick up and connector to the trl, I then I went back to the tender afyer testing and took off the brass cog it came off to easy (see reply to CO) I then checked the four drive gears and the two large ones the spindle holes were worn so replaced it now runs at a steady speed both in the high and low power switching it's faster but not as fast as when I attach the scotsman tender on it but there is an improvement