Gauging Interest: Thinking of Selling British Stock

[icairns]

@scottmitchell74  @chrism

Scott's Union Mills Prince of Wales model recently arrived at the repair shops here in California.  I have to say, it is a wonderful model and the crimson livery is excellent and very striking.

When I opened the box the coupling from the rear of the tender was loose in the box along with what looks like part of a standard Graham Farish coupling spring that had been compressed out of shape and was no longer usable.  Also, the area near the top of the handrails on the front of the tender on both sides had small paint chips. 

Carefully putting the coupling aside for later. I unscrewed the rear keeper plate screw from the loco to disconnect the drawbar and the motor wire. 

I undid the keeper plate screw from the front of the tender to release the chassis from the tender body and then replaced the drawbar screw and held it in place temporarily with a small nut from my spares box. 

Then I got a surprise! 

This is what I was expecting to see when I took the tender top off.  I copied the photo from the post linked below: 

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?msg=884867

But this is what I actually saw.  Can you see the difference?  From a previous post on this thread, I did think that something had been changed but I did not know exactly what.

Well, the two photos are very different in one important point!  The blue wire was now soldered to both the tender pickup motor terminal and the loco pickup motor terminal.

Surely, it couldn't be this easy?  As long as the soldered joints were good, and the motor had not been damaged in the previous work, all I had to do was cut the blue wire. So, I did cut the blue wire, connected 12V DC to the loco pickup wire and the tender pickups, and the motor ran as sweet as a nut. 

The soldered connections to the motor terminals appeared to be strong so I then cut the ends of the blue wire off as neatly as I could and the completed repair is shown in the photo below. 

To be honest, I was quite glad to be able to put my book Soldering for Dummies back on the bookshelf as I had not exactly shared with Scott that my soldering skills might be described as rudimentary (they have actually been called worse).  But I was confident that I could repair a Union Mills loco, even if I needed to solder wires to the motor terminals as I have done similar repairs to a couple of UM locos before. 

Because the wiring modification was so simple, repairing the coupling on the rear of the tender actually took me longer because it was so fiddly.  The UM coupling pocket is very short so I had to cut down a Graham Farish coupling spring to about one third of its normal length to enable it, and the coupling, to fit into the pocket. It is not a good design. 

After reassembling everything, I then cleaned the tender pickup wheels and gave it a good test run on Ferryhill.  It runs very smoothly in both directions, drawing about 75mA, albeit a little noisily compared to more modern steam loco models (but typical of Union Mills' locos).  The two traction tyres on the tender looked to be in good condition. 

I know Scott has a 4% grade somewhere on his layout but I was not able to test this on my layout as Ferryhill is a founding member of the Flat Earth Society. 

I will post some videos in my next post. 

Ian

[icairns]

Here are a couple of quick YouTube links showing Scott's UM Prince of Wales Class No. 5604 "Enchantress" in operation on Ferryhill. 

Apologies for the quality of the videos but I just wanted to quickly demonstrate forward, reverse, slow running, and haulage capacity. 

As I do not have any LMS coaching stock, I paired No. 5604 with a rake of seven Graham Farish "Blood and Custards."  I think the train looks rather splendid! 

I will be mailing the loco back to Scott in Texas this week.  I hope he is pleased with the result.

Ian

[Bealman]

Well done, Ian! I'm sure he will be over the moon.

[scottmitchell74]

Here are a couple of quick YouTube links showing Scott's UM Prince of Wales Class No. 5604 "Enchantress" in operation on Ferryhill. 

Apologies for the quality of the videos but I just wanted to quickly demonstrate forward, reverse, slow running, and haulage capacity. 

As I do not have any LMS coaching stock, I paired No. 5604 with a rake of seven Graham Farish "Blood and Custards."  I think the train looks rather splendid! 

I will be mailing the loco back to Scott in Texas this week.  I hope he is pleased with the result.

Ian

  

Can't wait!!