Henry Blanco White said:Ah yes, but you forgot to mention that it's 700 feet long........ :)
Okay, that poor suffering soul is now on this forum as well as the other one, though under slightly different usernames. I picked the C & S Mogul partly because of its small minimum turn radius - my back garden is only 16 feet (4.85 metres) wall to wall...
tac
www.ovgrs.org
I am a PLS member. PLS is primarily larger gauge coal fired, but we do have an active gauge 1 track, and several of the gauge 1 members are active on LSOL (and have not responded to my initial post). I expect they’ll come out of hibernation when the weather warms up a bit.
Ken Brunt said:
Henry, I see your in the Philly area. Another source of info on live steam would be the Pa Live Steamers in Collegeville, Pa
I should be so lucky. I believe about 40 feet long wall to wall, of which the track probably spans about 25.
Terry A de C Foley said:
Ah yes, but you forgot to mention that it's 700 feet long........ :)tac
www.ovgrs.org
Henry Blanco White said:In that case, your backyard has 220% more available train-running space than mine. :)
I should be so lucky. I believe about 40 feet long wall to wall, of which the track probably spans about 25.Terry A de C Foley said:
Ah yes, but you forgot to mention that it's 700 feet long........ :)tac
www.ovgrs.org
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Well, I have succeeded in getting both fire and steam (Thanks, Zubi) but no motion. There is no indication that any steam is reaching the cylinders. Clearly I need to do some air testing to find the obstacle. However, I can see no way to get air into the system except where the water hose from the tender connects to the water feed check valve. That appears to be an M6x0.75 metric fine thread, for which of course I do not have the correct die. (I would need to fabricate an M6x0.75 male to Schraeder male adapter, but I am assuming that at the Schraeder end I can get away with a plain 5/16" OD tube.) Does anybody have a better idea?
Henry Blanco White said:Henry, the Mogul has a drain valve under the cab. I think the valve ends with a piece of straight pipe going down so it shoud be fairly easy to connect this with air pump. I am glad that lighting the fire worked;-)!! Best, Zubi
Well, I have succeeded in getting both fire and steam (Thanks, Zubi) but no motion. There is no indication that any steam is reaching the cylinders. Clearly I need to do some air testing to find the obstacle. However, I can see no way to get air into the system except where the water hose from the tender connects to the water feed check valve. That appears to be an M6x0.75 metric fine thread, for which of course I do not have the correct die. (I would need to fabricate an M6x0.75 male to Schraeder male adapter, but I am assuming that at the Schraeder end I can get away with a plain 5/16" OD tube.) Does anybody have a better idea?
Henry, I checked the boiler drain and it should be fairly straightforward to attach a pipe from the compressor (air pump). Do not forget to open the drain valve;-)!! Generally, it is best to test the chassis before mounting the boiler and all the superstructure but you will also be able to test it as it is. Most likely, you used too much silicone kit and blocked the pipes somewhere. Second likeliest is that your valves are not set properly. Third is that you made your motion (drivers + eccentrics) too tight. Please check them in the descending order of likelihood. As for the gas system, I agree that the secondary hot tank introduces considerable inertia to the system. But you will soon get used to it. Yes, it takes time to empty the hot gas tank but why would you want to do it? It takes a lot more time to empty the cold tank, so what? If you want to shut the system, shut the cold valve first and then the hot valve. If you do it in reverse order, there will be no problem either, but when you light the locomotive again ALWAYS fully open the cold gas valve and do this before opening the hot tank valve (very, very little at first). I usually run my Moguls on a circular track with gentle curves, so I only light it once and run it until the gas is gone and I quckly refill the gas and run again. For hours! It is very easy to refill the gas tank because it is cold. Usually, I add water of ambient temperature, in Japan I never had to add warm water to the tender tank. I read about your layout and I think it is failry small. This may put some constraints on how you will run your locomotive. If you plan to run point to point, you will need to fit an R/C. This little locomotive has plenty of power and while you can manually set it to walk a nice pace on a circular layout, you need to hang a pretty heavy train behind it if you want to run it manually point to point (with reversing etc.) Also, this would be pretty difficult to do at ground level (as it would be with all other live steamers) so unless you have a raised layout, this is another reason to think of equipping it with R/C. Please keep me updated! Best wishes, Zubi