HE Express modifications

[chuck]

Roy said:

This is going to be amazing!

Thank you very much. I am enjoying the work and I don't mind the time factor. It allows me work on a train related project and test out ideas/techniques for some other mods, most notably the PRR congressional cars that have been on hold for quite a while.

Roy Asked:

Have you thought about leaving some of the corridor doors open, to get a little more outside light into the compartments?

YES! The second set will have some of the doors slid open. Also, there will be a single LED light in the ceiling for each cabin and three along the corridor. I have to finish doing the roof mods before the lighting can go in. I also took the floor out to see what was going on with the side panels and found the tape was riding up the side. I will be using the glue gun to tack the wire in place

[Roy]

I've been giving some thought to your HE engine's slowing problem on turns. Both drivers are locked to the axle. This requires the tires to skid on the rail, on turns. The shorter the turn radius, the more skidding is required. Also, the wider the gauge, the more skidding is required. The more skidding, the more motive power is wasted.

In addition, drivers on both sides are fitted with traction tires. These increase the friction between the drivers and the rail, increasing the difficulty of skidding, and further taking away from the engine's motive power.

The older O27 engines had only one traction tire. The performance could be further improved, by putting slipping tires opposite the traction tires.

[chuck]

Unfortunately that's pretty standard procedure on todays can motored traction tired steam engines. In this case the motor is probably a little small and that's why it bogs down on sharper curves. cest le vie

Here is a sketch of the components used on the interior of the car.



I did this for my own purposes to make sure that I can finish up. Most of the seat parts have been cut and I have templates for the "bulkheads" and corridor wall pieces.

[Roy]

Have you worked out the lighting, wiring and adjustments to the roof? Do you need any shading to prevent light from passing through the roof?

[chuck]

I'll post some photo's of the roof. No issues with light bleed, stuff is pretty thick. I now have enough data points to start figuring out where each led will go. I do need find some really fine wire to replace the tape. There is a photo back near the beginning of the article showing the led's on the model of CVN 65. No bleed through and the flight deck was about half as thick as the car roofs.

[chuck]

Photo's of the roof piece.

This is what it looks like with the foil reflector removed and the two stiffening ribs removed. The ribs aren't necessary as the entire whit plastic window insert has been removed. The foil was intended to bounce the light from the original bulbs on the car floor to provide a more even illumination for the car.



This is the "string" of 9 LED's that have to be cut up and spread out for the car interior. There will be one LED in each compartment and three along the corridor. I need to find some very fine wire to jumper these in AND I need to finalize the compartment locations (aka finish building the second bank) to get the locations down. Once the lights are in place a new roof "cover" of a single piece of very thin styrene (stuff is thinner than paper) will cover the wiring and provide a reflector. The styrene will have cut outs for each light.



These LED's are very bright.

Here is what the roof looks like from the top when the LED's are lit. The only bleed through occurred near the edge where a rib was removed. I have since touched that up with some semi-gloss black paint and there is no bleed through. NOTE, the roof was resting directly on the surface which meant the light was bouncing off a surface only a couple of mm away instead of the 1 1/2" that would be the case for an assembled car.

[Roy]

They make very fine magnet wire (38 and 40 gauge) for Z scale motors. Maybe, some thin copper tape might work?

[chuck]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I thought about the tape until I looked closely at the ribbon the LED's are mounted on. It's actually three "stripes" that criss cross along the length, two outer ones and the center one snake back and forth. I may try using clusters of three with middle one blacked out, that's just outer two leads and there are cut points and solder pads at those junctions. I'll have to see if three "fit" inside a compartment. I will also test to see if there is any significant heat build up from painting over the pads. I could still go with three but leave the middle unpainted and then black out the outer two.

[Roy]

I finally pulled out my Hogwarts Castle engine. Indeed, both rear drivers had traction tires. I checked the U.S.R.A. 0-8-0s from other starter sets, and they have only one traction tire. As you pointed out, the motors are very similar, if not the same.

I tried the engine on my O27 test circle, but the pilot truck caused problems. I took it off, and was surprised how well the engine ran. In reverse, it will pop off the track, where the track joints aren't perfect. Anyway, I don't have to worry about the double traction tires - at least, not right away.

As for the pilot truck, its frame sits too high. Also, there's a bunch of shit below the cylinders. I'm guessing they're supposed to be drain cocks. I'll likely cut them off. Comparing with a drawing of the Hall class engines, it appears Lionel has pushed the cylinders back, from their proper location. Don't ask me why. Anyway, there are plenty of things I can try, to get the pilot truck to run well on O27. I'll keep you apprised.

[chuck]

You are correct. It looks like the steam chest and cross heads are about 1/16" back too far compared to the prototype. I can't tell if there is enough travel on the cross heads to accommodate moving them forward. That might get you the clearance you are looking for to run on tighter curves? I have no idea why Lionel (or the Chinese contractors) did this. I'm guessing we can chalk it up to "It seemed like a good idea at the time?"

After comparing the model to this image:



It looks like a) the entire loco is sitting high on the chassis, and b) the steam chest on the real engine is angled out more than the model. The later may be because of operational considerations (aka clearance on curves).

It's still a very nice model. Since I run it (when I run it) on O-72 whenever possible and never less than O-48 I don't have that many issues with it. I'll see if I can find the video I shot on the deck comparing operations on O-36 and O-72. FastTrak, same power supply, same number of feeds in the same location. You can see the consist struggle with the tighter curve while it just cruises through O-48.

[Roy]

After comparing the model to this image:



It looks like a) the entire loco is sitting high on the chassis, and b) the steam chest on the real engine is angled out more than the model.

I'm not seeing either. It looks to me like the drivers are fully sunk into the splashers. Further, my steam chest angles progressively outward, the lower you look. One thing different from the full-size photos, is my steam chest lining is gold, rather than red.

If I move the cylinders forward, I will have to replace the main rods. That shouldn't be too difficult. The steam pipes between the cylinders and the stack may also have to be moved. Again, I don't see too much difficulty.

I'm still working on the other locomotive project. When I get to a certain point, I can start on the HE engine. How's your lighting and wiring coming?

[chuck]

I would prefer to come up with a more elegant solution but it looks like I can get away with simply painting out the LED's I don't need/want to use and then just jumper strings of three where convenient.



Second bleed test with interior of roof touched up with Tamiya semi gloss black



This is what the compartments will look like when lit by the overhead LED's. Image looks "weird" because a) it's inverted and b) you are looking through the non existent outer wall. The compartment module is resting on the upside down roof which is sitting on the same HDPE packing material in the top picture.



I'm spending the next few days getting the interior parts cut to finish car 1 and the two remaining cars. I'll be heading out to California on Friday to help my daughter move into her first house.

I'm pretty sure I can install a pair of rare earth magnets at each end of the car and a small strip of the same stainless steel to the roof at the car ends and that SHOULD hold the roof in place without using screws.

If I can find short dummy couplers (e.g. RK subway cars) I'll consider removing the truck mounted ones on all but the lead brake coach. This should allow me to shorten the distance between the cars. I don't care for Kadee's. While they are scale sized, I don't know of any prototypes with giant springs.

[chuck]

This is a shot of the Lionel Hogwarts express on its side. The camera is centered roughly above the center/blind driver BUT we are in a wide angle mode so there is a lot of parallax as you move away from the center. All three drivers are actually aligned with their respective "wells" above the running board. I have no idea why the relative positions of the pilot truck and the steam chest were made or why the cylinders are lop sided eggs.

[Roy]

This is a shot of the Lionel Hogwarts express on its side...All three drivers are actually aligned with their respective "wells" above the running board. I have no idea why the relative positions of the pilot truck and the steam chest were made or why the cylinders are lop sided eggs.

I see what you mean, about the gap ahead of the cylinders. Wikipedia has a few scale tidbits - but they don't correspond to the Lionel model engine. The drivers should be 6' 0", but the Lionel is 6' 6". The pilot wheels should be 3' 0", but they're measuring 3' 6". The pilot wheelbase should be 7' 0", but it's actually 8' 0". I'm wondering what scale Lionel built the engine to?

[chuck]

It might be 1/43 as that would be correct for European "O"? It may also be a case of the chassis design team using one scale for the running gear and then the shell group having to make adjustments which aren't to true scale to get the wheels to fit. They may have used selective compression and that's why there is that gap at the front? Possibly adjustments were made to get the engine to work on non prototypical curves or to use components from some other existing model to cut production costs? It still is a nice engine with very good detailing for the type of set it was intended for.