What About The Bee

The testing is complete. I am completely over the moon. Hornby Lion and Tiger BANKING a rake of Chaldrons - YouTube There was a significant amount of preparation for this test. I confirmed the current draw for each locomotive, for each load of 0 to 9 chaldrons. It was safe, varying from about 0.034 amps to 0.04 amps. Next, I tried both locomotives on the same loop. 0.066 amps, still safe. I put them 1/2 loop from each other and let them run, to see which one, if any, was faster. Lion was, but only a pinch so, it took nearly 10 minutes for this to become evident. The locomotives are well matched. Either locomotive is incapable of dragging 9 chaldrons at this speed without wheel slip or stalling with wheel slip. Either could drag 4 chaldrons without any wheel slip. The test was amazing. I had Lion attempt to drag 9 chaldrons. With Tiger approaching, my finger was on the power off button. Completely unneccesary. Tiger gathered 3 to 4 chaldrons, and with the load off of Lion, Lion easily went forward. Stability was achieved in inches!!!! Lion always dragged the front 3, Tiger always propelled the back three. The center 3 chaldrons would vary as a function of the momentary load on either loco. They never oscillated violently, just wiggled between states. I watched them go round and round. No issues. I took the videos you see, and concluded the test. This functioned exactly as the LMR did on the inclined planes. Wow!!! Bee

As an inventor, Edison made 1000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the lightbulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied,

Long Distance, you wrote: What does this have to do with Model Railways or Hornby? ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷ JJ is showing off a new lighting effect on his model railway. My personal view is that the blue and purple lighting could be used to get twilight type videos, with an illuminated carriage running by. We would get a sense of the carriage exterior, dimly lit, with the interior of the carriage visible. Real darkness does not work, the camera gain causes the exterior to be flat black and the interiors to bleed too bright. Bee

Hello 81F 👋 Thank you for the correction. I assumed the binder jet sintering method. The lost wax method you utilized appears to be far superior, with much higher dimensional stability and certainly superior weight for a given volume. A clear winner. If I may ask, since you executed the Ruston Shunter in both fine detail plastic and in metal, what was the rough price multiplier? Was it 3×, 10x or 30x the price? Not the absolutes, just the relative values. I have indeed seen the John Bull and others. I had a complete list of all manufacturer Era 1 models. Almost all are HO scale, not OO. John Bull is a member of the Samson-class and should have a boiler ~7'3" long. Rocket's boiler was only 6 feet long. Yet when Sam shows us the 2020 Hornby Rocket head to head, John Bull looks diminutive. To each his own, of course, but I find mixing scales to be quite glaring. Once again, thank you for sharing your expertise with me. Greatly appreciated Bee

Here are the results. Does Tiger propel chaldrons? Hornby Lion and Tiger BANKING a rake of Chaldrons - YouTube The buffer beam adapter installation is illustrated, along with testing 1, 2 and 3 chaldrons. I recognize that this is only on a straight. Yet my concern was that the chaldrons would be pushed ahead of Tiger, to be repeatedly bashed as the chaldrons were propelled. That concern was alleviated with the results of the test. No buffer lock. No derailments. Success! The banking test awaits! Bee

Chaldrons were selected for the banking test, but why? The Accurascale chaldrons use drag chains. Not inflexible plastic drag chains ala Hornby, rather, the Accurascale drag chains consist of actual link formed chains. The Hornby drag chains are rigid, with little play in the peg system. The locomotive propelling the system must take the load away from the locomotive dragging the system, without shocking the consist from the rear. In a rigid system, the wagons will be trapped between a fast locomotive and slow locomotive. Any slight angle, anywhere in that rigid system will concentrate the applied force, leading to lateral displacement and derailments. Yet with actual drag chains, the lead locomotive will only feel a lessening of drag, not an impulse of shock. Further, the propelling locomotive must not lock buffers. Here is the first issue. Tiger's buffers do not align with the dumb buffers on the Chaldrons, horizontally or vertically. This problem is far from unique. I've taken the hint and constructed a similar wood chaldron buffer attachment, similar to this real world shunter The pine was resawn to the thickness of the front buffer (2.2mm) so a firm fit is provided. A sandwich assembly was glued up and trimmed. The attachment clips over the front, avoiding all three hooks present. Call it generation 1. Once the glue is fully cured, I can try a simple propelling test. One chaldron in front of Tiger at slow speed. The dumb buffers on the chaldrons do align from chaldron to chaldron, so then I can test 2 or 3 chaldrons being propelled. Once I have a reasonable propelling regime, the actual banking test can begin. Step by step! Bee

Hello Son of Triangman Up until this moment, I avoided commenting upon this thread. In light of your recent positive statement, I'd like to respectfully offer the following. Branding is important to the forward facing part of the business. It is the first thing a potential customer will see. You have established wonderful branding, right here, as Son of Triangman. Extraordinarily knowledgeable. Friendly. Take advantage of that sir. The reputation of an online business will be examined online. When a potential customer looks at your business, they will naturally encounter your posts here and see the characteristics I've mentioned, to your distinct advantage. Its just a thought. Bee

Hello Range Rider 👋 If you do not already have one, do yourself an extraordinary favor and purchase a multimeter. You can test all kinds of items, but a very easy way to tell if your points are isolating / non-isolating is to test them for continuity when on the bench vis diverting / non-diverting routes. In situ? Test for voltage on diverting / non-diverting routes. You will swiftly learn to recognize visual cues betwixt the two and not need to test, but until then? Your multimeter will be your best friend! Oh, and welcome aboard! Bee

I do worry sometimes that I am boring folks to death, babbling on about some detail or another. Thank you Ellocoloco for your interest. It gives me enthusiasm to go on. One significant item of the early days to have survived is the Rule Book!!!! That is, we have written direction from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Board of Directors to all staff. Quite extensive and the result of practical analysis of the railway activities, serving to run a well ordered railway. A fantastic view into daily operations. Now that I have a well matched pair of locomotives, I can finally perform an interesting experiment. But first, a review of some specific rules to Enginemen. Orders to Enginemen and Firemen 11) ... no engine shall propel before it wagons or carriages ... except when assisting up the inclined planes. 26) ... enginemen are ordered to be ready, on the signal being given, to follow the trains immediately after they pass ... up the bank 30) Enginemen with trains requiring assistance up the inclined planes are required .... to go up the bank¹ first and let the assisting engine follow... In plain English, we can deduce the following. Heavy trains cannot make it up the Sutton Inclined Plane or the Whiston Inclined Plane, to the Rainhill Level Plane, without assistance. The heavy trains were instructed to run beyond the assisting (banking) engine, parked in a siding. Once it has passed, the points were changed and the banking engine would run up behind the train needing assistance. The banking engine would then propel some of the carriages before it. As the weight of the carriages and/or wagons was now taken off the lead engine, the lead engine could pull some, whilst the banking engine could propel some. Essentially a controlled crash! Consider now Hornby Lion and Tiger. Lion cannot pull 9 Accurascale Chaldrons without assistance on a flat, level plane. I've double headed Lion with Rocket to pull the consist. Yet these locomotives are not well matched. Lion and Tiger, however, much like the prototypes, have identical drive mechanisms. They are well matched. Suppose now the following. Lion attempts to pull 9 Chaldrons. It cannot. Lion can readily handle 3, but not 9. Tiger comes up behind and propels some of the Chaldrons before it. As Tiger takes up the load, the load on Lion is reduced and therefore, Lion should be able to handle a reduced load. When does stability occur, if ever? Do the Chaldrons derail? Does Tiger propel 4, Lion pull 4 with the odd Chaldron in the middle bouncing about? This experiment is completely analogous to the Whiston and Sutton Inclined Planes on the real LMR. The consist is too much for the tiny locomotive and assistance is required. With a closely matched pair, the velocities will match fairly well, and the test will be meaningful. If the propelling engine is too fast or too slow, my analogous test is invalid. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I am quite excited to finally do this!! Just like the LMR. Bee ¹ Assisting engines were also called "banking engines" as they assisted others up the bank!

Hi Topcat I understand your objection. No magnetic screen is perfect. Conversely, what if the magnetic field isn't strong enough to saturate the MuMetal? Well then, the issue is resolved. To my knowledge, we do not have any numerical values. Not one person has stated the magnetic field strength at the reed switch, using a calibrated, traceable instrument. Nor have I seen any manufacturer state the field required, should an Enthusiast wish to generate a magnetic field electrically. Its all just talk, no engineering. I've no particular skin in this. I do not have, nor will I ever have, the maglight system. Lights in coaches? What will they think of next? Flying machines? 😉 But the constant complaints that the system turns on/off randomly got me to thinking about stray magnetic fields and what I've done about them in the past. And that solution, under those sets of circumstances, was MuMetal shielding. Is MuMetal perfect, under all fields? No. Nothing is. Is it a possible solution for the tiny fields generated by a passing 12 vdc motor present in toy trains? Yes, it is possible. It might work, might not. Its a potential venue for exploration. A solution that will clearly work better than what is available now, to wit: nothing. Bee

Hello SGB 👋 As this is your first post: Welcome aboard! You wrote "as rolling stock and some locos will switch over points fine others derail" I get the sense from this that you expect the points to switch from diverting to non-diverting (or visa versa) when you roll a locomotive through the point backwards. That is, from the diverting route to the singular route in front of the points. Or from the nondiverting route to the singular route in front of the points. This practice is highly dependent on the spring in the point. You should not expect light stock to do this on a normal basis. Further, whilst there are examples of this on real railways, in my view this is prone to exactly what you are finding: derailment. Switch your points to the desired route before you traverse them. Just my practical opinion. Warning: Incoming messages about how this railway or that heritage line uses this practice at some particular location. These are examples out of the norm. Special cases. Bee

Hysterically, I once again have a rotated image. Doh!! Moderators, would you mind fixing that for me? Appreciated! And here I am thinking that I finally had the issue under control! Hehehehe Bee

I placed my Lion and Tiger models side by side so as to more readily spot differences. I spotted this Just Square Holes in Lion's buffer beam I wrote to Hornby Customer Service, requesting the side hooks. They replied that the designer deliberately left them off, as this is how Lion appeared for the Centenary. Hornby is correct! Close inspection of the front buffer reveals no side hooks. I just thought to add this for others who may notice the same thing. Bee

Hi Topcat 👋. The easiest way to think of it as an old fashioned water well. In that, we have a circular tube of stone, leading down to the water. A bucket is lowered down and water is scooped up. Analogously: Place the reed switch on the surface of the water and make the circular tube of MuMetal, extending up. The reed switch is then within the circular tube. Any time I want to switch the Maglight, I place my bucket (magnet) at the mouth of the well, exposing the reed switch to the magnetic field. Bee

Absolutely Alan. JJ has tested with a compass and indeed, he can see it

Hello 81F I've always seen the Ruston in your icon, of course. I could tell it was unusual, but did not realize it was one of a kind. Its a tiny locomotive, well executed. I took on board your comments vis Shapeways and 3D printed metal. Yes, the tenders are in the fine scale plastic. This was selected for dimensional stability more than anything else. They are very light indeed. Before I commit to a metal print, I investigated the process. In the end, I think its sintered metal. The process by which they get to sintering is 'binder jet', which glues the shape together, pre-sintering. I would like to ask you about two artifacts about this process 1) How did you deal with the shrinkage issue? ExOne, the company Shapeways uses, is explicit that the part will shrink "up to 20%" during sintering. Did you create sequential prints until the process was accurate? Did you engage in machining post sintering? Getting the tender to fit will not be an issue. Its a bolted on detail. Yet multiple parts in Planet will not be as easy. 2) Sintering creates an inherently porous metal. This will have a rough(er) surface, pores and internal voids Did you fill the pores to get a reasonable finish? Polish post fill? Did you fill the internal voids to eliminate trapped air volumes? I hope to understand your process a bit better, so I may achieve a like result. Thanks! Bee

There are two approaches to shielding from the magnetic field. 1) you can shield the source. 2) you can shield the sink How to shield the (sink) reed switch? Place it in a MuMetal well. Magnetic fields have direction and lines. If those do not align with the well, then they cannot trigger the reed switch. How to trigger the reed switch then? Place your desired magnet at the mouth of the well. Nothing stopping you from using a compass to determine which elements are generating fields (source) and shielding them as well. Simply a less cost effective method however. It might be worth it for an old Loco such as JJ demonstrated in his video. Bee

Hi JJ 👋 MuMetal is a special material which provides a magnetic shield. It is widely available in many forms: sheet, foil, tape, etc. I've used this in the past to shield components from stray magnetic fields. I think the Maglights are an ideal candidate for this. Why? (1) the reed switch is small and easily shielded. (2) the likely magnetic fields are relatively small. MuMetal does not function well in strong fields. (3) the tape can easily be applied inside loco shells. Now if I recall properly, JJ, you have a unique test bed. Not only do you use the maglights, but you have a known stray magnetic field. Further, you have demonstrated that the field is still present for the compass test. Now, it is up to you. No one is demanding anything. But in the interests of science, you are an ideal candidate and, at the end, you will likely solve your maglight issue, for good! Bee

As I pondered loading the tender so as to get better tractive effort, I have slowly come to the conclusion I may only get ½ the volume filled with lead or under 23 grams. The practical nature of installing exotic materials makes them unlikely. Dejected, I tabled the issue. I was having a play with my new locomotive, Tiger. It runs well. I tried to double head it, and that is when the penny dropped. Why not double head Planet? I've artfully(?) dressed up a locomotive as a tender. Planet, as I have currently envisioned, is a tender drive system. This depends on the friction between Planet's wheels and the rails to drive the oscillating handles. Hands up if you have ever seen a steam locomotive skating along in front of a tender drive. The penny? Put a DC motor into Planet and now I've effectively double headed the system. Locomotive #1 would be Planet, with an onboard motor. Locomotive #2 is Planet's tender. BING!! Okay, so what motor? How will I effectively speed match Planet's motor and 20mm wheels to the Hanazono motor and 10.5mm wheels. The smart lads know the answer, but I did not. Off I went on a madcap tour of small DC motors. This was nothing but a fools errand. The voltage to speed and speed torque curves are not published. And then the other penny dropped. What motor matches a Hanazono motor? A Hanazono motor. The characteristics of any one sample Hanazono to any other Hanazono will have only tiny differences. But will it fit? Rectangular 10mm×13mm. ~25mm long, including one worm. ~29mm long if both worms are there. The short answer is yes, it will fit!! Exciting! But what about the wheel size difference? Both Hanazono motors will have near identical velocity over the voltage range. A simple gear ratio change will suffice to make the larger wheel rotate slower than the small wheel. The forward linear travel, assuming no wheel slip, is a function of circumference and then gear ratio. Match them to each other by changing the gear ratio. Viola! Bee Note: I've seen some excellent motors which I may take advantage of in the future. Hanazono motors are expensive because they come with gears, drive train and wheels. A full kit. That isn't ideal.

I'm hopeful that you might try the MuMetal testing JJ. You have the ideal offending locomotive and you are armed with a compass to test the shield you make. Bee

I don't think you hopeless. Not at all. I presented you with some areas of concern for resolution. Please do not read too much into that. Your goal is the same as mine. A wonderful layout that provides great enjoyment. My current layout is small. I have fun, but I want "the more". The next step is a bigger layout, of course. In planning, I've used SCARM to insure that every physical connection is as perfect as can be. That each curve has a specified radius. Every join has a perfect angle. I've mentally traversed the layout literally thousands of times, considering how it will function. I've used quite a bit of trigonometry to get there. I then considered the entire electrical schematic. I know every wire routing, bus voltage, polarity, etc. I know where each circuit breaker will be, to protect me. Each and every component, all the wires. I know exactly how much my proposed layout will cost, the complete BOM (bill of materials). What I am trying to say is that: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. The 5 P's of Engineering. And now that the thought exercise is complete, will I build it? NO! Ha! I discovered, through mental play, that there were some deficiencies. The entire cycle will be repeated, with those deficiencies corrected. The schematics redrawn. Had I built it, those deficiencies would have caused disappointment. Better to discover them now, instead of later, after the layout is constructed. As mentioned earlier, a monumental layout can prove very challenging. Particularly so if you are going to overlook small problems, which have a tendency to snowball and accumulate. Slow down a bit lad! Turn on your inner CDO. Bee

Has anyone attempted to shield the reed switch from stray magnetic fields? I've used MuMetal in the past to do so. The effectiveness of the shield has much to do with field strength and orientation, but given the low field strengths generated here, it may be possible. MuMetal is available in sheet, foil and tape form. Shield the reed switch in a well of MuMetal. Provide a MuMetal surface inside the locomotive shell for the motor of the offending locomotives. Just a thought. Bee

Hi ThreeLink It was with great interest that I studied your solution to the Lord of the Isles traction issue. From my understanding, you transferred the load from the tender onto the rear of the locomotive. This lifting the front, you added weight to balance the load over the center driving wheel and thus increased traction. How clever of ThreeLink, I thought to myself, that indeed will function. And then the penny dropped. Stephenson had the same issue with Planet. The tractive effort was affected by the force of the driving wheel v track. He understood, quite properly, that Planet had some of that force deducted because the idler wheels in front. The weight was distributed over all the wheels, not just the driving wheels. Patentee was the logical outcome. The front idlers and rear idlers were sprung such that they balanced the load over the driving wheels. Increasing tractive effort. This is not to deduct from your solution ThreeLink, but rather to commend you for finding the identical solution as one of the true giants of locomotive development. Attaboy! Bee PS. Always had my eye on Lord of the Isles. Beautiful loco. Just not my era / railway.

Hi Pedro Thank you for clarifying. By "when the wheels hit the plastic section" do you mean the plastic check rails or the plastic frog? I hesitate to add a picture, or we will have to wait for a mod. If the wheels jump UP, then some causes may be: 1) the wheel flanges are hitting the bottom of the frog. The solution is to simply remove a tiny bit of material from the bottom of the frog where the wheel flanges go, the flangeway. You say that the wheels jump "in any direction" of travel, so this is more likely. Contradicting this is your statement that the locomotives roll through straight without issues. The depth of the flangeway in the frog will be the same for diverting and non diverting routes. If the loco can roll through non diverting without jumping, then the flangeway depth is likely not the issue. 2) the wheel is hitting the point of the frog, right where the rails come together. Picking the point. Although 14.4 mm B2B is to the specification, you can be at 14.35mm and still be in spec. The controlling spec is the width between check rails, at 14.1 mm +/- 0.1mm. Your B2B must clear this. Setting the B2B at 14.3mm or 14.25 will tighten you up around the check rails, pulling the wheel from the frog point. As you mention the wheels jump from any direction, you are not likely to be picking the point (2). Along these lines, would you mind describing how you are setting your back to back? Calipers? Tool? Guage blocks? 3) there is a bit of something in the gap between the check rails and the stock rails. When the wheel hits it, it jumps. Consistent with "any direction". Check with some plastic card stock. Make sure they are clear. Unlikely to be on multiple points, but... 4) All rails at the same height? I know this seems to obvious, but worth checking. Run your finger over the top of the rails, check to see its smooth. If the wheel drops DOWN then jumps up, at the frog: This means that the drum of the wheel, at the frog, is rolling off the rail and then "dropping in" to the gap. The wheel lands on its flange and rolls forward. Naturally, the wheel will jump up when it meets the rail again. Have you checked your points to see that they are meeting specification? Bee

Hello Pedro48 Change for the sake of change will not solve a problem. It may help you to find the root cause, but stumbling upon the solution to the root cause rarely occurs this way. Slow down. Exactly how does your locomotive derail? Slowly push the locomotive through a troublesome point. Do the wheels snag on the point rails? Pinch on the check rails? Drop into the frog? Do the wheels pick the point? What happens? Where is the problem? Precisely. You mentioned that removing the bogies helped, but you still have issues. This is a perfect example of not finding root cause. You made a change, but really didn't solve the issue. Put those bogies back on. Check all your wheel geometry, but in particular, the back to back of every axle. Before another change, find the issue. That way, when you do change a parameter, you know it attacks the root cause. Bee