The Night Mail

[Florence Locomotive Works]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

We had a very charismatic physics teacher whom we called Fozz.  No idea why but it suited him.

 

Fozz never had anyone mess around in class, simply because the lessons were too interesting.

 

After one lesson which dealt with magnets and motors we were challenged to bring in an electric motor that we'd made at home.

 

I told my father this who was an electrical engineer, and I was set to work.

 

I think even Fozz was a bit stunned when I turned up with  a self starting and reversible hand made 3 pole motor.

 

I'm glad he was suitable impressed because my father had made me rewind the coils three times before he was happy it would pass muster.

 

The commutator was made on our lathe from a plastic core and a ring of copper.  We had to split the commutator by eye as we didn't have any indexing facilities.

 

It was, I hasten to add anything like the mastery of Stuart Hine's  9 pole motor that slid into the boiler of a GWR 2881 class loco....in 2 mm scale.

 

Certain teachers make a lasting impression on one's self, and Fozz was one of those:  Enthusiastic about his subject, and supportive of those who could at times struggle in class, as I did quite frequently.

 

 

I’m currently being begged by my first class (including the teacher) of the day at school to bring one of my engines in and demonstrate it. I’m still resisting, but won’t be for long probably.

 

I have brought my Wilesco to school before, twice actually, both times at the invitation of teachers, and they are always very successful with my pears. I think I would bring the Weeden this time though, as it hasn’t been steamed much.

 

Douglas

[TheQ]

4 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I’m currently being begged by my first class (including the teacher) of the day at school to bring one of my engines in and demonstrate it. I’m still resisting, but won’t be for long probably.

 

I have brought my Wilesco to school before, twice actually, both times at the invitation of teachers, and they are always very successful with my pears. I think I would bring the Weeden this time though, as it hasn’t been steamed much.

 

Douglas

They like fruit do they?

Edited December 8, 2020 by TheQ

[Happy Hippo]

Douglas,

 

My only advice would be to take an engine that you know will work and not let you down.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

43 minutes ago, TheQ said:

They like fruit do they?

Well spotted. 

[simontaylor484]

I would love to see that 2mm scale motor.

 

I agree about the co operation on this thread too its great

[Happy Hippo]

38 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I would love to see that 2mm scale motor.

 

I agree about the co operation on this thread too its great

The build of 2881 was serialized during 1971 in Model Railways magazine, which was the  successor to Model Railway News.

 

It was an incredible build.  As I mentioned before the motor slotted into the boiler barrel, with the gearbox and drive to the rear axle concealed in the firebox.

 

As a 15 year old I was amazed at the wheels which were all scratch built.

 

I can't remember how the power was collected, but it may very well have been through split axles.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm very interested in the  American electrics that popped up a few posts back.  I know very little about them, but find them fascinating.  Perhaps we can revisit them in the not too distant future.

There are quite a few still about, hidden down old sidings in the northeast. Mostly New York Central “S Motors”, and there are still a few GG1 abandoned on sidings as well. Google “abandoned New York Central electric locomotives” for more. 
 

Douglas

 

 

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-abandoned-railroad-new-york-two-gg-electric-locomotives-built-general-electric-pennsylvania-railroad’s-image78985960

Edited December 8, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[polybear]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Fozz never had anyone mess around in class, simply because the lessons were too interesting.

 

 

I had a Maths Teacher at College ("Mr Burton") who never had anyone mess around either.  If a class started at 9am, you were in, sat down and books & pen out at 08-55; turn up at 9am and you were out the door - and you had to leave your bag behind so you couldn't disappear down town (WGC) - you had to be back for class end otherwise your bag got locked in.  He wasn't a big guy by any means, but had a certain "presence" which stopped people messing with him.  He was ex. Army, and the word on the street was ex. SAS; rumour had it he'd done some Mercenary work too.  He got me thru' my HNC Maths subject (Calculus anyone?) and I've never used any of that cr@p since....

[jamie92208]

Several interesting things in the thread today. American Electrics are a fascinating subject.  The seminal book on them is "When the Steam Railroads Electrified" and there are some fabulous ones on the Milwaukee including "The Electric way Across the Mountains by Steinheimer. Surprisingly they are both on my bookshelves along with a couple about the Pennsy.

 

When I was over in 2010 I called in to the HQ of Sunset models. I couldn't afford a GG1 but a pair of Pennsy O1a's fell into my hand luggage.  They even made it onto Long Preston. H.re they are at Redruth, an O1a and a 4-12-2 Union Pacific type that somehow appeared

A better view of the locos.  The O1a was a rather strange beast, a 4-4-4 that couldn't pull for toffee, they always worked in pairs.

As to inspirational teachers, my best was Mr Bocklebank who had us for Chemistry and taught us about crystalline stucture of graphite by telling us the story of the Winscale fire.  Nuclear Chemistry was brought to life with a quick lesson on how to make A and H bombs.   He had worked at Sellafield before coming into teaching.  A great guy.

 

Jamie

[simontaylor484]

I had 3 stand out teachers at high school

Peter Cookson for maths he was a rail enthusiast and compiled several books of his photo collections.

 

Eric Houlder for History he was also a professional archaeologist. It was akin to being taught by the likes of Phil Harding or Mick Aston of time team.

The strangest was a supply teacher we had for English for a couple of months a guy called Iva Roparti he was a Maori Rugby league player for Featherstone Rovers

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, polybear said:

a class started at 9am, you were in, sat down and books & pen out at 08-55; turn up at 9am

I had colleagues like that. Expecting students to turn up at say 10am when their previous lesson ended at 10am.  By marking students as late though not their fault they were basically making students ask the previous lesson to end early to attend the 10am lesson. There was a college policy on how long to allow for movement but some still preferred to report students. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Tony_S

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

I had 3 stand out teachers at high school

Peter Cookson for maths he was a rail enthusiast and compiled several books of his photo collections.

 

Eric Houlder for History he was also a professional archaeologist. It was akin to being taught by the likes of Phil Harding or Mick Aston of time team.

The strangest was a supply teacher we had for English for a couple of months a guy called Iva Roparti he was a Maori Rugby league player for Featherstone Rovers

I know Peter Cookson and also knew his late friend Ron Rocket both were friends with John Farline who is a Wakefield  club member. All wrote books on railways.

 

Jamie

[Florence Locomotive Works]

On 07/12/2020 at 03:58, Happy Hippo said:

Douglas, you've probably guessed by now that the screeching noise is steam escaping to atmosphere.

 

Somewhere in the reversing block/regulator there is a high spot that is lifting the two faces apart.  The high spot could equally be a low spot which is allowing the steam to escape.

 

It's difficult to state conclusively where the  spots are, but looking at the pictures you've sent would indicate that the regulator face (the one with the two grooves) and the block are both scoured and grooved.

 

At this point I'd just strip the loco down and remove the block and then  lap both the components down to a smooth finish using about 800 grit  wet and dry.  I use 3 in 1 oil as a lubricant for this.

 

You put the 800 grit on a flat surface and the very gently  rub the components face down across.

 

You are looking for a smooth matt finish, the reason for the is is the microscopic scratches will pick up the oil and make a goods seal against steam escaping.

 

Do not do this to the block:  It may be necessary, but if we do things one at a time it makes life so much easier.

 

We might also get away without having to strip the reversing block out of the frames.

 

For those puzzling how these parts work, steam is admitted through one of the ports in the block, by moving the regulator one way or the other, it directs the steam to correct point of entry in the steam chest.  By turning it the other way the steam flow is reversed and it goes to the other end.  By some clever design work with steam passages, the steam travels through the block into the steam chest and then the cylinders:  It then exits via the unused ports on the regulator face. When reversed the opposite happens, and the live steam side becomes the exhaust steam side.

 

The system is used with either oscillating cylinders or piston valve cylinders.  It can be used with slide valves, but the valves do have to be sprung to stop them lifting off their faces when the steam flow is reversed.  Although  possible, it is really to complicated to bother with.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Richard, bad news.

 

I appear to have accidentally cross threaded the drain valve into the boiler bushings, and both appear to now be stripped. It is also exceptionally hard to drill and retap the bushing, as it is very very close to the soldered cab roof, and the boiler cannot be removed as the fake taper boiler casing is solder to the barrel and is integral to the cab, in tern soldered to the frames. 
 

Douglas

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Richard, bad news.

 

I appear to have accidentally cross threaded the drain valve into the boiler bushings, and both appear to now be stripped. It is also exceptionally hard to drill and retap the bushing, as it is very very close to the soldered cab roof, and the boiler cannot be removed as the fake taper boiler casing is solder to the barrel and is integral to the cab, in tern soldered to the frames. 
 

Douglas

It happens.

 

You may very well find that the thread of the bush and the drain valve were not compatible, some threads are very, very similar.

 

The boiler  bush should be recoverable by taking it out to a larger diameter with a drill followed by some work with a hand reamer to ensure the hole is both the correct diameter and properly round. then you solder in a  threaded sleeve, or solder in a plain sleeve and then thread it once it's been soldered in place.  I'd chose the former method as it means you can get the thread parallel to the to the sleeve diameter.  

 

The drain valve can be fixed by rethreading to a smaller diameter thread using a suitable die.  which should match the reworked bush. However it's then non standard.  otherwise you have to reduce the diameter of the mangled thread to and then sleeve it and use a die to recut the thread.

 

But it's difficult to get the diameter down enough to  get a  good sliding fit on the sleeve unless you have the ability to turn the diameter which really requires a lathe. 

 

So it's probably easiest for you to  To rework the boiler bush and get a new drain plug.  The old one goes in the spares box.

 

Remember that after such work, you'll need to make sure the boiler is flushed out as there may be metal filings and shavings that get inside.

[Dave Hunt]

In the 6th form I had a maths teacher who had failed the human being course and a physics master who was quite brilliant. The maths master once replied to me asking a question with, "Are you terminally stupid, Hunt, I've just explained that." His definition of 'explained' was that he'd read out of his own notes and made no attempt to cast any light on the subject. Somewhat chastened I retreated to our form room and tried making sense of what the  text book had to say but still couldn't grasp it when our form master came in and asked what I was doing. The form master was also our physics teacher and when I told him what was wrong he sat down with me and in a few minutes had explained clearly and precisely what the maths master had managed to obscure comprehensively. From then on  I had no trouble with A level maths despite the incompetence of the maths master because I gained a lot of my understanding from the physics master. I will always be eternally grateful to him. He was also in charge of the photographic club, which a group of us joined simply because it was well known that when the club went on an outing he would say on arrival, " You are free to make your own arrangements for lunch but I shall be in the Red Lion (or whatever one of the local pubs was called)." This was understood to be code for, "Whichever pub you lot want to have lunch in, don't make it the Red Lion."

 

Dave

[Florence Locomotive Works]

I regret to announce that I will be retiring the Mogul to a display capacity. I have been at this job for over a year now, and it is simply getting to frustrating to continue. Perhaps in future with better resources it will be revived.

 

But, as @J. S. Bach said, it is better to go electric, as I will be doing, presumably with coarse scale Lionel. 
 

To all those who helped along the way, my utmost gratitude to you, and hopefully you won’t think your efforts were in vane. 
 

Douglas

[J. S. Bach]

8 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

 ...snip... When I was over in 2010 I called in to the HQ of Sunset models. I couldn't afford a GG1 but a pair of Pennsy O1a's fell into my hand luggage.  They even made it onto Long Preston. H.re they are at Redruth, an O1a and a 4-12-2 Union Pacific type that somehow appeared

The O1a was a rather strange beast, a 4-4-4 that couldn't pull for toffee, they always worked in pairs.

Jamie

The O was quickly replaced by the P5 (2-C-2), it looked like the O but with one more drive axle.

 

I suspect that the 4-12-2 might have a little problem if it tries to go too far to the rear!

Edited December 9, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

The O was quickly replaced by the P5 (2-C-2), it looked like the O but with one more drive axle.

 

I suspect that the 4-12-2 might have a little problem if it tries to go too far to the rear!

The 4-12-2 could actually exit onto the up main via somevpoints that aren't  very obvious. However it would grind to a halt when the top of the tender struck the bridge.  My 4-8-4 would actually go round the main line, just.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

Douglas,

 

if it's any consolation, I have two locos that I can't get to work properly.

 

The first is an ancient Roger March Ogwen, which I bought as a bag of bits, and the second is a scratch built 0-6-2t Porter loco.

 

Ogwen requires a new boiler and work done on the valve gear, the Porter needs a valve redesign.

 

Ogwen's fault is that the valve gear which is driven in the same way as mogul has the valve crank drives set at the wrong angle is relationship to the driving wheel.  They are force fitted into the wheel and I've shied away from trying to get them out as the wheel castings are no longer obtainable. 

 

The Porter is another matter: We took it to Diamondhead where it outpulled an Aster G1 Big Boy.  But it won't run light, with little low speed control.

 

What it needs is  the slide valves to be redesigned so they have considerably more lap, thus reducing the amount of steam that can get  to the cylinders at one go.  But due to it's small size that means that I really need to enlarge the internal dimension of the valve chest.

 

Both locos have sat in the box of shame for about 20 years now!

 

One day, I'll finally get around to fixing them.

 

Live steam can be very satisfying, but also extremely frustrating when things go wrong.

 

 

[polybear]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

In the 6th form I had a maths teacher who had failed the human being course and a physics master who was quite brilliant. The maths master once replied to me asking a question with, "Are you terminally stupid, Hunt, I've just explained that."

 

I do hope you got to see the maths teacher again some years later....

"So what are you doing Hunt?"

"Flying Fast Jets for the RAF.  You still marking maths books?"

Game, set, match......

[jamie92208]

Interesting concept there HH, the "Box of Shame". In my case it's a "Shelf of Shame". The longest resident us an Andy Beaton 9F, foolishly I bought it as my first ever O gauge loco kit. Therecare several other residents on there.

 

Jamie

[SM42]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

I do hope you got to see the maths teacher again some years later....

"So what are you doing Hunt?"

"Flying Fast Jets for the RAF.  You still marking maths books?"

Game, set, match......

 

Is that classed a making a living by looking out of the window?

 

In my experience good teachers are commom, bad teachers reasonably rare but the exceptional even rarer and to be treasured whenand where ever they are found

 

Heading into my O level training at 14, I was languishing a the bottom of the top set in maths (didn't really say much for the competition.)

 

That was until Mr Martin arrived.  His teaching transfomed my mathematical ability

 

He didn't stand any messing around, but he wasn't against having some fun. Totally unphased by anything (including turning round from writing on the board to find his front row wearing their snorkel anoraks zipped right up.) You could get away with a lot, but what you didn't finish in class became extra homework. I started to look forward to double maths on a Tuesday afternoon. 

 

Homework was another world entirely. Notes could be written about the overworking of the pupil, (a recurring theme) who might win the snooker, had he scuffed his motor, almost anything within reason and a humorous response would be guaranteed written in red. A really nice touch that showed he didn't tick and flick.

 

He was a fan of The Jam and bore a ( if you squinted and looked at him from a distance,) resemblance to Bruce Foxton. Once someone pointed this out he became Brucie. He played on this with his Brucie Bonus questions and Brucie Bonus prizes at Christmas

 

From struggling to studying A level in 2 years. It was sad day when he left.

 

His replacement was good too, in a different way. Fun ( a little less) was still to be had but he got the job done.  Unlike Mr Hunt's teacher  though, once we were old enough to drink, him buying on a Tuesday lunch was not unusual.

 

"Concentrate Andy. I know you've had 3 pints but you need to try"

 

"But you bought them for me sir."

 

Happy days

 

I also had my share of truly awful teachers, mainly German and RE.

 

Andy

 

 

[simontaylor484]

When at uni on my first year we were taught the basics of the legal system before starting to learn property law. On pur first lesson the lecturer Roger Close said "you can have a 1o minute break which will give you ample time to visit the Queens head for a pint by the way mines a pint of mansfield dark. 

So we went it would be rude not to and we bought him a pint.

 

This became quite a regular happening certainly in the first 2 years

[Happy Hippo]

This morning, there was a 3 hour power outage.

 

It was pre planned so we were prepared.

 

Most of the time saw me out on the drive preparing bits of timber.

 

It's only when you have such an event that you fully appreciate how power tools speed up the manufacturing process.

 

I spent about an hour chiselling glue and plaster off the back of some architrave so it could be used  again.

 

The use of the belt sander would have been much quicker.

 

It would also have given me a chance to try out the new respirator.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

When at uni on my first year we were taught the basics of the legal system before starting to learn property law. On pur first lesson the lecturer Roger Close said "you can have a 1o minute break which will give you ample time to visit the Queens head for a pint by the way mines a pint of mansfield dark. 

So we went it would be rude not to and we bought him a pint.

 

This became quite a regular happening certainly in the first 2 years

This lecture no doubt started at 0930 in the morning.