GWR steam railmotor steams at last

[Moonraker]

After a six month delay, my GWR steam railmotor finally steamed today for the first time.

This project started two years ago during a trip to the UK. I wanted a live steam loco for the gauge 3 railway I was building but the GRS kits did not excite me. I wanted something with a full Walshearts valve gear and radio control. However, I have no workshop nor the skills to use machine tools. Whatever I built had to be by hacksaw, file and soldering iron.

During my trip, I visited the Great Western Society at Didcot. There I saw their railmotor project involving the conversion of a GWR autocoach back to the steam railmotor it started as, some eighty years ago. I remembered that GRS made an autocoach kit so decided to follow suit. The result is in the photos below.

The autocoach kit was modified with a cut out in the floor for the power bogie and a section of roof replaced with a brass sheet engine cover with a chimney from scrap tube. In the coach sides, water fillers and ventilation grills were fabricated in scrap plastic. Below the floor a water tank was also constructed in plastic.

The power bogie was made, almost entirely, from off the shelf components. The vertical boiler came from Finescale Engineering in Leamington Spa, the wheels from Walsall Engineering and almost everything else from  Roundhouse Engineering in Doncaster. The Roundhouse frame had to be regauged from 45mm while the Walshearts gear, cylinders, lubricator, pipework and gas tank were all off the shelf components. The 2.4 Ghz radio control came from my local model shop and controls the regulator and reversing gear. The only thing I had to get made, by a friend with a workshop, was the steel ring frame to hold the boiler.

After a loose gas jet was fixed, the power bogie steamed and ran at the first attempt. In fact, when I say it ran, it actually did too well. The power bogie (without coach fortunately) shot off the end of the layout and down a four foot drop before I had time to pick up the radio control. Happily this part of the garden is covered with bark chips so no damage was done.

Now all that remains to be done is to replace the regulator with one which is more suited to the limited travel of radio control and then I will start work on the interior.

Peter

[andrewfoster]

"...no workshop nor the skills to use machine tools"? Some of us would like to take lessons from you - a delightful model!

Andrew

[blagdon]

Peter, the full size one is now at Didcot in its newly built Railmotor shed. Some of us in the TPO Group were looking at it yesterday; its beatiful and as I pointed out, is in Midland Rly red/crimson (that is the GWR Maroon it first ran in as built). I tried to take some photos but lack of lighting and the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows made for rubbish pictures.
She's to be officially lauched on 28th May.

PS. Both King Edwards are currently a Didcot, and will be running this coming Saturday (23rd).

Ian the Gauge '3' Pirate

[hornbeam]

Looks awesome!

    Could you tell me what mods you had to do to the chassis and how you went about them? Did you make your own frame spacers?

Also do you have the contact details for Finescale engineering, and how much did you pay for the boiler? ( and if you think im going to copy your good work you may well be right  )

[Moonraker]

Hornbeam,

The contact at Finescale is Tony Sant on 01926 335 123. He made a batch of these boilers for GRS. I'm afraid that I can't recall the price. I purchased other stuff at the same time and did not keep the itemised invoice.

We did some drawings on a CAD/CAM system and I can email you the Jpegs. Send me an email at pjlucas@bigpond.com. Like all the best models (!) it ended up being different to the drawings but, with a few photos, I can detail the changes.

I still have to do the interior and have two remaining issues. First I have to remove a bit more floor to let it go round tighter curves than it does now. Secondly, the supplied regulator was for manual use and I have to modify it for the reduced throw of a radio control servo.

Regards
Peter

[blagdon]

Peter,

Good news its running. When you are happy it working well, why not consider filming the railmotor and putting the result on 'YouTube'?

Also, the GWR Railmotor No 93 will be officially lauched at Didcot on May 28th, so some videos are bound to come up on 'YouTube' soon afterwards; just like our TPO operating behind 6023 'King Edward II, on May 1st and 2nd.

Ian the Gauge '3' Pirate