Hello all,

this is a discription of my work , a conversion from a 3.5 inch Gezina to a 5 inch Tramway locomotive.

All starts with the question to steam friend " do you still have the boiler ?"

The answer was yes . This was the start oft the project.

The parts look nice, but more then 25 years old. In the beginning I thought if its possible to keep the green house, but it was very fast clear that makes no sense.

The front

After the decision to look to a tramway locomotive I made very fast the decision to build the locomotive Plettenberg. She is in preservation at the museum railway Bruchhausen-Vilsen in Germany.

This was a good decision,because I have The Chiemseebahn and a freelance Wiliam Wilkison tramway locomotive build and constructed.

Werner

Many thanks for your replies.

I will update my work .

The next step was looking if the boiler is OK . For that I had to make several plugs with M8*1 thread.

I had to learn that teflon tape which tighten with M8*0.75 without problems with M8*1 there were the problem that the tape was shift off the thread and the tighting was only by chance. I had to do it several times,perhaps the fit of the thread was to good.

All of the valves I found in the added box ,but they were internally not ready made. It was not a problem to fix it ,but only work to do. At the picture all valves are in place and the boiler is OK a good step forward.

The next step was to make the new 5 inch gauge frame. So I disassemble all parts with the exeption of the wheels. The profil and the diameter was not useable. In the time between I ordered my material and I had to keep in mind ,it was late in November 2018, that over the year when i have time that all important materials are there. for the frame and the housing.

I build the frame in a simple way similar to the principle of my Maxitrak Ruby. That means the rear axle is fix in the frame and the front axle is tiltable. That worked on my locomotives relativ good even on not good prepared tracks.

I tried to reuse as much as possible .It was not easy to align all properly. The plans from the Gezina was not very helpful,because the cylinder tighting sketch at the frame was not there. And the guy who build that 25 years ago had not the same hole layout on both cylinder. The wheels had a greater diameter and so I had to arrange all new. But with some patience bot sides got together working. In mid of december the first turns of the wheels were achieved under air pressure.

It was noticeable that the cylinder needs a lot of air and the compression was low. I tried to see what happens with a lot of oil.

The system behaviour was better ,but I can see that there was leeaking oil out of the cylinder a leak was recognized.

The cylinder were build up with a combination of materials and were silversoldered together. I had to disassemble it and softsolder it steam tight. By stripping all off and out I saw that the pistonring with teflon tape has no connection to the cylinder bore. I machined a new groove to fit a teflon ring with an Oring for static pressure.

With this setup the cylinder had a lot of compression. That was really good .This action I have done on both sides and then I put all together . What a difference in the behaviour after that repair.

will be updated

Werner

This is the boiler on the driver side.The reversal handle was not ready at that time.

I tried to use the same setup of valves and handles as I have on my other locomotives.

All necessary attachments are there some refinements have to made later before painting.

For my opinion it looks pretty much the same like the Plettenberg at the photo.

The spark arrestor was very difficult to make. The small pipe and the bell are whithout function.

Now with the nameplates on the side. The have been made in etching technic.

With good wheather the next step is testing under steam. Then I will see whath happens. With air pressure I made tests on the table and they were sucessful.

Werner

Hello Paul,

the flange squeal is from the steel rails on steel slippers. It occurs In the range of the gras. In our well water for the garden we have some iron therefore this part is brown and the rails are steel with zinc coating. With a few drops of olive oil on a brush ,greasing the flange where it sqeaks , this is gone. This time I forgot this to do. I was hot testing the Plettenberg.

At my track there is an inclination of 2 to 3 % and in combination with that narrow curves ( radius 5m) it is with steam not easy to drive. My experience is ,if i can drive at home, I am able to drive on any club track. It is an ideal test track.

Werner

Hello all,

after a testride in the garden about 1 Km ,perhaps with less oil on the crosshead, I had an accidenttal blocking of the left crosshead. There was no movement possible. It was like welded.

Could someone give me an advice how much play I have to have that oil can grease?

I made a shim of 0.1 mm and add this for more side lash. Is there a rule of thumb? Years a go where I am not able to work such precise I had less problems,but rattling.

Werner

Hallo Kerrin,Duncan,

The Plettenberg runs very good .She is able to haul two adult persons. On our narrow curve with 6 m radius there is some wheel slip, but for a loco with 28 kg it performs very good. I am impressed that the small boiler have no problems to hold the pressure during driving. The only thing is to carefully look to the water level ,because the water came then out of the chimney. With some experience it is all manageable. The number 2 injector is a good fit and runs perfect. I found a mistake in the donkey pump. I got this with other valves and stuff by chance for a good price. At higher pressure as 3 bars there was only less flow. The comercial who build this has a teflon piston on the water side with a bad fit. I added an o ring and now there is much flow under pressure.

That is all fine tunning. I think it was a great idea to work with the 3,5 inch parts and build a new 5 inch chassis.

Duncan to your first question. The young guys are in the age of 14 and above. They are from familys where the father love trains . The youngster with the BR 24 at the beginning pulls his father to the trains. Now the are both in love with trains.

This was not an open day with public so all could go in a relaxed way. The BR 24 had his first succesfull run. I show the youngster and his father how to adjust the walscherts motion control. Before they can only drive forward. I show him the principle how to adjust the motion control . And with a little luck then it was perfect running. They bought this loco and it does not run under steam before.

Since the new managing comittee is working,I am a member of it , we try to transfer experience in a firendly way.

So the youngsters find physics very usefull and they have a lot of fun with gaining more experience. And this is nice to see. And they are better in school . One of them searched a job for practical training. He was one of hundred . As he told the personal boss what he do as his hobby, he was selected and he was very proud to learn mechanical things.

We have in the club special locos for the youngsters, but we let them also drive club trains under the control of an adult person. So they are proud to do this. And this starts the fire in them for the hobby.

But it is difficult to get offspring. You have to pull the father with them. And this is very difficult. There are so many other possibilities to do without getting dirt at the finger.

I think Tich parts are good to convert,too. Give it a start and it is a good winter project.

Werner

Hello all,

I made a documentation video of my tests.