USATC S160

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
The tender bogies are sprung and compensated in that the bogie sideframes rotate around and are sprung against the centre transom.

The driven axle on the loco is fixed, the remaining axles are sprung and may be running in ball races, the pony truck is weighty, but just along for the ride. The frames are milled and are prototypical bar frames; there is full brake gear, transverse spreaders, pull rods and associated clevises.
All features which point to a skilled and competent modeller (or maybe engineer).
 

3 LINK

Western Thunderer
Fantastic loco you have there Richard, those brake shoes look so close to the wheels surely they cannot be of metal unless the backs are coated in Araldite or something similar?

Martyn.
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Fantastic loco you have there Richard, those brake shoes look so close to the wheels surely they cannot be of metal unless the backs are coated in Araldite or something similar?

Martyn.

Hi Martyn

I hadn't noticed that, but then I haven't tried to run it. The pickups are on the American system :rolleyes: so this might be the non-insulated side, in which case it wouldn't matter.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi

I did a little bit more investigating into the chassis.

First off, it won't run through my long curved points. Apart from flange depth, the back to backs vary, all under 29mm by between .1 and .2mm. In addition the tread is too wide which means the sideplay has to be restricted to avoid valve gear/crank pin problems.

The obvious solution is to take the wheels off and replace them with Slater's. Two problems. First, Slater's don't do an S160 wheel. Second, being Italian built, the axle diameter is 5mm, not 3/16 inch, as is the bore of the gear.

Second thought. Drop the wheelsets and reprofile on the lathe. Can't do that. The suspension is built in to the chassis, and there are no removable keepers to drop the wheels. There are no obvious axle ends showing on the outside of the wheels, so I conclude that they are cast and turned in 2 halves. There are no obvious tapered pins uniting the halves, though I haven't totally discounted that yet.

I shall dismantle the chassis as far as I can and give it a very good inspection, but my only solution as I see it is to cut the axles, use the stubs to hold in the lathe and reprofile (gently!), then pass them over to someone else to add the male/female 5mm axles and quarter/taper pin. Also see if ABC will do a bespoke gearbox with a 5mm bore through gear and bearings.

Does anyone have any other bright ideas.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
I should add that the wheels are spot on for diameter, spokes and balance weights, so I would like to keep them and that the loco works perfectly, cogs a bit at low speed, but I didn't oil it or chip it.

Richard
 

demu1037

Western Thunderer
Hi

I did a little bit more investigating into the chassis.

First off, it won't run through my long curved points. Apart from flange depth, the back to backs vary, all under 29mm by between .1 and .2mm. In addition the tread is too wide which means the sideplay has to be restricted to avoid valve gear/crank pin problems.

The obvious solution is to take the wheels off and replace them with Slater's. Two problems. First, Slater's don't do an S160 wheel. Second, being Italian built, the axle diameter is 5mm, not 3/16 inch, as is the bore of the gear.

Second thought. Drop the wheelsets and reprofile on the lathe. Can't do that. The suspension is built in to the chassis, and there are no removable keepers to drop the wheels. There are no obvious axle ends showing on the outside of the wheels, so I conclude that they are cast and turned in 2 halves. There are no obvious tapered pins uniting the halves, though I haven't totally discounted that yet.

I shall dismantle the chassis as far as I can and give it a very good inspection, but my only solution as I see it is to cut the axles, use the stubs to hold in the lathe and reprofile (gently!), then pass them over to someone else to add the male/female 5mm axles and quarter/taper pin. Also see if ABC will do a bespoke gearbox with a 5mm bore through gear and bearings.

Does anyone have any other bright ideas.

Richard

Where is the insulation?

Andy
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
How is the insulation arranged to avoid electrical shorts through the motion?

regards, Graham
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Compton castle

Western Thunderer
I've spoken to Slaters and they have said they will do the correct wheels for the S160 when the Pete Harvey kit is available.
So you might just get them but no time soon.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Nice one - although I'm not too sure about the polished brass finish, oh and there seemed to be an awful lot of water out of the drain cocks before he set off. Nice work though.
 

Steve Cook

Flying Squad
Brilliant find :) I'd imagine that just wiping down paintwork on a model that size takes time, polishing brass is whole other fortnight!

... and there seemed to be an awful lot of water out of the drain cocks before he set off.

Overfilled boiler to start with perhaps? There is a lot of thermal mass to try and get up to temp in the front end of that as well - in the smaller scales I've watched people raise steam with the regulator and drain cocks slightly cracked in order to start the process of heating things up - I wonder if that technique would transfer to the larger scales?

Steve
 

Adrian B.Swain

Active Member
Hi Folks Just come across this site when looking to see if there are any Metropolitan S.160s for sale on Ebay. I was quite intrigued when it was first announced after the UK outline Jubilee decades ago. One retailer was advertising them and had 3 but could not tell me if it was 7mm/ft , 1/45 or 1/48 scale. By the time I found out they were 7mm/ft which was the only scale I wanted, they were all sold. I certainly remember the one Shedmaster / Dick Bollen had, because I bought it !!. It belonged to Terry Thorn, a friend of Dick's who sadly died very unexpectedly and had been building an S.15 for me. I retrieved the part built S.15 and got it completed but some time later I spied the S.160 for sale, which I had been looking for for years without a sniff. It turned out to have belonged to the very chap building the S.15 although I had no idea he had one. He belonged to an O gauge group in the South-east of the country which I rarely had any contact with apart from Dick himself and I never went to any running sessions of the group. I have never seen another one for sale.
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
Richard
You lucky so and so, absolutely gorgeous model.

Seeing the u tube video it was obvious the loco had been steamed from cold with the drains shut so I don't think the volume of water was particularly excessive. I'm with JB on raising steam with the regulator open, my senior traction inspector would have words, probably quite strong Anglo Saxon ones, never mind the ORR.
Regards
Martin
 

Adrian B.Swain

Active Member
Hi folks again An S.160 on the Epping Ongar line, that's overkill !! I do hope the track is better than when I made my one and only trip on the line. It was decades ago when little red tube trains shuttled back and forth and I made a special trip out to see this two car unit. I was under the impression that the unit might be the rebuilt streamlined 1935 stock but alas it was not. I took a couple of photos anyway and then waited for the crew to take the train back to Epping. Having been the only passenger out, and the only one returnng, the driver asked why I had made the trip and then suggested I just might like a cab ride. Well even a cab ride in a tube train is not to be sneezed at, and sitting in the low cab looking along the track, I could see just why the outward journey had not been the smoothest ever. The driver told of the occasional pheasant that would come to grief, hit by the train and they would stop and collect it for dinner if there was no inspector aboard. I had to vacate the cab as we neared Epping just in case an inspector was on the platform but that was my first cab ride and not the last.
 
Top