Large Scale Central

Our new Pearse 0-4-0 Switcher

Picked this up out of Peter K’s estate sale. She was a bit battered, very filthy and had a bent frame, I suspect it was dropped onto a carpet floor at some time. I have adjusted the frame to ease the bind in the front axle and she steams well now. Cleaned up nice as well, someone had used graphite paste on the smokebox area which we all know gets all over everything if its touched. So I spent a couple hours removing that messy stuff from the model. I am fitting working lights on both engine and tender(not shown). The newer Spectrum receiver that was fitted(no transmitter) linked up with my RCS palm size controller I use on my Pearse W&L Earl. I will be putting Chessie System decals on the tender and a road number on the cab with vinyl decals a friend cut for me. This will be my wife’s engine to run when she goes to a steam up with me and Chessie is her favorite railroad. If I can figure out how to completely remove the boiler from the frame, I will see if I can fully straighten the bent in the frame. Its a “T” flue boiler, there is no smokebox on this model. The water goes all the way to the smoke box door. SO I cannot figure out how to deal with the steam line that goes down the flue and out the bottom of the “T” to the cylinders. For now she sits level on the rails and the bind in the front axle is gone. But you can see the pilot beam and deck is shoved in on one side compared to the other when looking at the cylinders to pilot deck gap. Not a common model, Ian Pearse says around 40 were made back in the mid/late 1990’s. I have ads in a few old issues of Steam in the Garden magazine. Cheers. Mike and Michele T

Cool find!

More progress on the old Pearse Switcher. Got the RC all done with front and rear lights lighted.custom cut vinyl decals made by a friend installed. Still need to repair the broken roof hinge, the rear arm is broken off/missing. I need to make a duplicate of the front arm and solder it to the roof bracket so the roof will stay on while running. I replaced the scale couplers with a LGB one at the rear and a Bachmann one in link pocket on the pilot beam. Both are hooked up to the cut levers and function just like the real ones. Track test and hopefully a video tomorrow while she is off at work. Mike

Fingers crossed for a successful test run!

I ran her on rollers today, the area around my railway is a swamp as we are thawing out at the moment, so its not a friendly place to walk right now. A board walk is planned around 3/4 of my raised railway next spring. She ran well on the rolling road but is having issues keeping up with steam demand. There is zero wear in the side rods, so very little apparent use, but I am loosing steam somewhere. Simon over at Anything Narrow Gauge in the UK suggested putting new O rings on the pistons, and the lines where they go into the reversing block between the frames and see if that solves some of the excessive steam consumption. I think its the seals in the reversing block myself. The pistons seem to have lots of power and the chuffs are pronounced, not muffled like it has blowby.

Here is a short video of her running on the railway. My whole yard is a mud pit, so just a short run, thankfully no stalls or issues over on the far side of the layout. Mike

Mike Toney said:

Here is a short video of her running on the railway. My whole yard is a mud pit, so just a short run, thankfully no stalls or issues over on the far side of the layout. Mike

I tore the engine down to a bare rolling chassis today, straighted the bent frame rails and reassembled the chassis, checking for binds and squareness along the way at several stages. took this pic before refitting the boiler to the chassis. The way the frame was bent, which started halfway between the two axles, threw the timing off as one cylinder was moved toward the rear and the other pulled forward. So while it would run, it was choppy at slow speed. After the steam test a few min ago, she is smooth running, all the way down to the peg on the steam gauge as I let pressure get used up after shutting off the gas. Once she cools down, I will refit the cab and swap out the scale knuckle coupler on the front for a LGB one as that is what all of our rolling stock uses other than the logging cars that are link and pin. Mike

frame before repair, you can see how “off” the pilot beam is when compared to the cylinders, the cylinders were moved just as much in relation to the valve rocker arms.

After the tear down and straightening, pilot deck and cylinders are squared up now.

Good work Mike! you sure can learn a lot with this kind of Job! any full scale historic railway would be happy to have you!

Thanks Eric! I can manage the small stuff short of silver soldering. I really wish I had a good “elmer” with a machine shop and silver soldering set up to lead me thru building my own locomotive. I may have a line on another fixer upper, waiting on pics, details and a price discussion. It needs just a bit more work than this engine required. Mike