German Electric E18

[Dikitriki]

A bit of a diversion......

I am restoring an E18 in gauge 1. It's in pretty good condition, but has taken a few minor knocks that the previous owner was not able to repair properly.

Current work has seen the body dismantled, by which I mean the cab interiors and pantographs have been removed, and the body and particularly the roof given a good clean. I need to have another go at the roof as in full daylight today, it still was a little dirty, so more on the body tomorrow.

The pantographs, apart from being very dirty, had seen some of the struts bent and a few joints knocked apart. An attempt had been made to repair them, but using superglue, so I had to strip down those joints and resolder, resulting in the need for a renewal of the paint job. I had already acquired some cellulose carmine red so a repaint was straightforward once I had stripped the pantographs down. I have in fact only done the one to this point as I needed the other intact to remind myself of the reassembly procedure






And this is why I needed the other one intact.... I'm just going to give these a wash and then I can reassemble the repaired one and start on the other.



Richard

 

[mickoo]

Yes yes, all very good , but where are the pictures of the main attraction...rather than some sort of fiendish Germanic clothes horse

MD

 

[Steph Dale]

I quite like the E18/19 series locos, a really charismatic design that's capable of some very entertaining and slightly mad noises.

Pics when you're ready, Richard!

Steph

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

You mean one of these.... One of mine taken at Frankfurt (Main) Süd.

 

[Dikitriki]

Hi Dave,

Like the pic, and yes, it's one of those, although mine is in green.

Can anyone tell me what the thing on the roof is at No1 end behind the panto....it looks a bit like an early sci-fi ray gun

I have ordered a couple of books, both by Brian Rampp; I'm hoping they will arrive tomorrow:

Die E 18 im Wandel der Zeit. Unterwegs durch die acht Jahrzehnte. Eisenbahn-Bildarchiv-Band7
Die Baureihe E18. Legendäre Schnellzuglokomotiven in Deutschland und Österreich

I have given the roof another clean today - there's just a few bits of dirt in awkward places that I shall use white spirit on tomorrow. In fact, the paintwork has come up brilliantly, almost as good as the day it left the factory.

Richard

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Can anyone tell me what the thing on the roof is at No1 end behind the panto....it looks a bit like an early sci-fi ray gun

From what recall it's a circuit breaker.

 

[mickoo]

....it looks a bit like an early sci-fi ray gun

Richard

Correct, it's a Flash Gordon ray gun

Or more correctly the HT tap point for the transformer, basically the electricity goes in here.

Fairly certain most German locos do not have roof mounted circuit breakers (ultra modern cross border ones might, due to working arrangements in other countries), their drivers are much more disciplined and 'will' notch back before section gaps. In the UK we tend not to be very good at following orders, we're supposed to but often don't, so it's taken it out of the drivers control and we fit magnets to the track side each side of section gaps, that open and close the roof breaker so the engine is not drawing power across section gaps. On UK engines they are Air Blast Breakers (ABB) and when parting blow high pressure air across the contacts to extinguish any arcing, they do go with a bit of a blatt when under power

EJ Sonderausgabe IV/92 is a nice handy magazine (more like soft back books I suppose) to get hold of

MD

 

[Dikitriki]

OK, I got my camera out again.......

The body. It's had 2 good washes and has come up really well.






And some shots of the chassis, which is absurdly heavy. You can see that there are 4 stonking axle hung motors, and I should imagine it is a hugely powerful loco. I have a 6 amp Zimo chip to tame the beast.









The detail is superb, except that the brake spreaders and pull rods are naff/non-existant. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, if anything, about that. It is after all a 2000 model, a limited edition Korean brass import, and I suppose the argument goes that if I want a state of the art model, I can buy a Kiss one at £2,250, or I can just have fun playing with this one and accept it for what it is.

Richard

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I see it's a pre-war version - Vorn and Hintern being a bit of a giveaway.

except that the brake spreaders and pull rods are naff/non-existant.

If their absence/lack of detail is not conspicuous from normal viewing angles then personally I would not bother with them, especially if you intend running it on an outdoor line. Anyway the other detail will draw your eye away from this area.

 

[Simon]

That is a very impressive looking beast, insanely powerful I should think.

Any slugs on the line will "enjoy" those gear wheels though, the new T9 has already sliced its first victim. Early evening is when they come out, although my line being ground level makes this problem worse I'm sure.

Apologies for lowering the tone of the conversation

Simon

 

[Captain Kernow]

That is a very impressive looking beast, insanely powerful I should think.

Any slugs on the line will "enjoy" those gear wheels though, the new T9 has already sliced its first victim. Early evening is when they come out, although my line being ground level makes this problem worse I'm sure.

Apologies for lowering the tone of the conversation

Simon

Like any other responsible railway operator, I assume you have signs in Slugese, Snailish, Arachnian and the Language of Woodlice, warning against trespass?

 

[Dikitriki]

Back to the E18.......

You will recall that there are 4 axle hung motors and that some or all of the original pick ups had been removed on each unit. I am going through each wheel in turn to reinstate pick ups, check gear mesh, rewire and reattach/replace sand pipe brackets while the wheel is out. They are being done one by one as there are so many screws to remove and bits to take off, and the one wheel only is rim insulated and I need to get everything back in the right orientation!

So here are a few pics of one of the units before replacing it in the chassis.

I had to turn the plungers (brass) and the insulating tube (tufnol), cut the tube spacers, make the pick up tag, and tap all holes 8BA from the original M2.





The final drive is engaged through a cradle strapped to the motor, which I didn't think brilliant engineering, but it works and there is scope for fine adjustment.





And here's the wheel in all its glory. A lovely and very heavy casting, largely hidden behind the chassis frames.



One more wheelset to go after this, then I can chip it.

Richard

 

[Dikitriki]

Hi,

I've done some more work on the E18 chassis.

Each buffer beam had a big hole drilled in it for wires to go to a pick up truck. Why the existing pick up system had been removed, I do not know. I turned a shouldered plug for that and soldered it in.....with a microflame, nothing else would heat the bulk of metal enough. The couplings had been glued in with an excess of glue, and I didn't like the design anyway. Those were worked out, but the coupling pocket came out with the coupling. A close inspection showed they had only been soldered on the one edge anyway, so those were cleaned up and soldered back in place. The hole was filed a little for the replacement Marklin coupling, and fitting that with the Marklin clip on spring was enough to drive one to drink. It was akin to keyhole surgery. The repaired buffer beam was sprayed Halford's satin black which is a very close match to the existing black.

Before:


After:



I also reprofiled the guard irons; they seemed a little too blocky:

Before:



After:


I have got all the pick ups done and the wheels back in the chassis. I have had to replace one of the sand box pipe stays that had previously been knocked off, presumably when the pick ups were stripped out, and I did this before replacing the wheel sets. A bit nerve-wracking as again I had to use the microflame but without damaging the paintwork on the outside. I haven't yet turned the replacement fancy sand pipe end.



Onto the other end now.

Richard

 

[Dikitriki]

Hi,

While I am in garden railway mode, I am back refurbishing a J&M Gauge 1 class E18 german electric.

On my workbench are the cab interiors. More representational than accurate, there were 3 QC issues in that parts were missed off in the production process. I know that they were missed off as opposed to being knocked off as the paint was perfect under where they should be - 2 on one console and 1 on the other. That meant that between the 2 cabs, I had a full set, so I simply copied the missing ones from scrap, scraped off the paint and soldered them on. Easier said than done as battleship construction from thick brass was the order of the day for the consoles. I also moved the driver's seats back to fit in some G1 drivers from Modelu, one of which is a certain Mr B Daniels!

Here's the completed consoles; I now have to try to match the paint.




There are details of further work on other threads, so I shall try to pull them all together here.

Richard

 

[michael080]

Nice.

some meaningless information: The E18 was the first German locomotive with a seat for the driver. Prior to that, it was common sense that drivers had to stand so that they couldn't fall asleep.

Michael

 

[adrian]

Prior to that, it was common sense that drivers had to stand so that they couldn't fall asleep.

Not sure about "couldn't" - when I was a student I managed to fall asleep whilst cycling back home to my digs!

 

[mickoo]

Not sure about "couldn't" - when I was a student I managed to fall asleep whilst cycling back home to my digs!

I presume you woke up when you got there, unlocking the front door whilst asleep would be quite an achievement

 

[AJC]

Nice.

some meaningless information: The E18 was the first German locomotive with a seat for the driver. Prior to that, it was common sense that drivers had to stand so that they couldn't fall asleep.

Michael

A feature common to SR EMUs - though I think most of these had tip up seats Motormen (EMU drivers), preferred to stand.

Adam

 

[adrian]

I presume you woke up when you got there, unlocking the front door whilst asleep would be quite an achievement

As it happens I woke up in the ditch between Loughborough and Shepshed some time later. However when I woke up the next day I was positive I'd lost some money so on the way back to Uni the next day I worked out the "landing" point and found £8 in the grass. A student and his money is not easily seperated and it funded another night of drinking for a student!!

 

[allegheny1600]

Hello Richard,
That is a stunning model, I am rather envious! I like the way it is powered, so like the real thing, which is one of my favourite things about electric locos - they have a prototypical power source!
Is this not an early DDR model? I think pre war locos wore different liveries to this. I have a later (H0 scale) DDR model in green with red underframe but I think the red underframes only came in the late 1950s. V (vorn = front) and H (hintern = rear) were still in use (I think) into era IV, the 1970s.

Adrian, speaking of falling asleep on ones bike, I did this coming home from a London - Brighton bike ride. I had trained down from Stafford, did the ride, train back to London, then Stafford again, then cycled home to Derby and had to pause in Uttoxeter after being on the go for some 36 hours. I actually kipped under some old cardboard as there were a lot of heavy trucks on the roads, ugh! It was the equivalent of falling asleep at the wheel but I nearly went under the trucks wheels.