Hi all,
For those of you with the Bachmann 3 truck Shay a question.
Is the third truck (water tank) powered? Another words are all three trucks motored?
Thanks
Rick
Rick,
Yes they are.
But having said that, I dummied my third truck to save on battery power. It hasn’t lost any traction at all using the other two motors.
John,
Thanks for the information.
I am kicking around a project to convert a 2 truck to a 3 truck,battery powered,
and was wondering if the 3rd truck needed to be powered.
I didn’t think it would need to be because the two truck pulls like the devil
and the third truck/tank would just be another smaller car to pull. Anyway I
think I will just figure a dummy truck. The only real problem I see is how to
make the drive line turn, hmmm probably have to pin the shaft at the middle truck.
Anyway thanks.
Rick
Yes,
The third truck is powered. Like John said you could build a dummy truck and tank to make the conversion. These shays are very strong pullers.
(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05639.jpg)
Really heavy real logs were no problem for the locomotive in the picture above.
Tom
Rick Marty said:
John,
Thanks for the information.
I am kicking around a project to convert a 2 truck to a 3 truck,battery powered,
and was wondering if the 3rd truck needed to be powered.
I didn’t think it would need to be because the two truck pulls like the devil
and the third truck/tank would just be another smaller car to pull. Anyway I
think I will just figure a dummy truck. The only real problem I see is how to
make the drive line turn, hmmm probably have to pin the shaft at the middle truck.
Anyway thanks.
Rick
Don’t pin the driveline anywhere its not already pinned. Causes all sorts of problemes, even on my 4 truck Shay the driveline is powered by the front truck. That said the 4th truck is a dummy as well, and the thrid truck on my original Three truck build isn’t powered either…
Having hauled 37 cars with my three-truck Shay on one occasion, just to see what it could do, I don’t bleeve that it matters a hoot whether or not the third truck is powered.
tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Oregon Lumber Boys
Bart Salmons said:
Don’t pin the driveline anywhere its not already pinned. Causes all sorts of problemes, even on my 4 truck Shay the driveline is powered by the front truck. That said the 4th truck is a dummy as well, and the thrid truck on my original Three truck build isn’t powered either…
Bart,
Does the drive line and u-joint assembly turn on the 3rd and 4th trucks or do they stay stationary?
Because of the way everything is built on the 2 truck Shay I can’t see any way to get the shaft assembly on a 3rd truck to turn unless it is driven by the front truck shaft through the engine, and second truck then to the 3rd truck.
Tac,
I know the 2 truck Shays are real pullers and adding the 3rd truck/tank would be no more load to it than a small logging crummy would be.
Thanks guys
Rick
Yes you need the joint and the sliding sleeve…Sorry I was under the impression that you were going to pin the gears to the shaft on the No2 truck which is what would cause problems…when I did mine I had to beg/borrow a broken crankshaft to get the appropriate parts, but now you should be able to get them from the parts deperatmentand they should fit in place of teh cap on the now center truck…
I have a really massive gradient on my layout (up to 10%). I have to triple/quad head diesels and use motorised ‘helper’ cars when using steamers if I want a train of half decent length.
But the two truck and the three truck shays just plug along pulling up to twelve log cars and a logging caboose with no problem at all.
Two or three truck, they both have the traction to do the job!