MTS IMPORTS, INC. December 6, 2011
will be on vacation in Florida from
thru March 6, 2012 During that time you can reach us at our regular e-mail address:
mtsimp85@yahoo.com
Modern Freight Cars,
Covered Hoppers Vol. 1 a $12.95 PDF download from
www.ostpubs.com EXTRA SOUTH
H.REID
An Unscheduled, Unhurried Look At Dixie Steam Railroading
From the famous to the obscure, Extra South explores the days of steam rail- roading in Dixie. Start- ing with the Wreck of Old 97 and continuing to the Tweetsie, H.
Reid weaves the tales of the railroads and rail- roaders in an entertaining and delightful fashion. The book concludes with a selection of black & white photographs of main lines and short lines taken by John Krause, William S. Young and others.
C00053 $21.95 + s&h Order on-line: 86
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match the Bachmann model. One ex- ception is that these photos show a sin- gle-phase air pump, while our unlet- tered sample has a cross compound compressor.
Bachmann states that other, let- tered, versions do come with the appro- priate type of air pump. These photos also show a long suction hose coming out from between the fuel bunker and water tank, drooping behind the cab steps, and ending just under the run- ning board above the Walschaerts link. This would have been used with a steam eductor to draw water out of a convenient creek for refilling the tank, and would be an easy detail addition to the model. The model comes equipped with a straight stack, as on M-K No. 6, installed and an optional Cass-style balloon stack. Similarly, the model comes with a coal pile in the fuel bunker and an optional oil fuel bunker top. The model also has a detailed cab interior.
Bachmann has made one interesting change from the Climax design for the counter-shaft drive train. On the proto- type, the gears connecting the crank- shaft to the longitudinal counter shaft, and the gears connecting the counter- shaft to the axles, are all skew gears as their shafts do not intersect, but rather pass above and below each other. Bachmann simulates this arrange- ment on the model for the crankshaft to counter-shaft shafts. But, apparent- ly to reduce the height of the drive train, Bachmann uses miter gears be- tween the counter-shaft and the axles. Because the shafts of miter gears are in the same plane and intersect, the model has to break the longitudinal counter shaft at every axle. The dri- ving miter gear on the counter-shaft drive powers a mating miter gear on
the axle, which in turn drives another miter gear on the continuation of the counter shaft to transmit power to the next axle, etc.
Thus, while a prototype Climax transmits power from the crankshaft through only two pairs of gears to dri- ve any axle, the model transmits pow- er through eight pairs of gears to dri- ve the last rear axle.
This could potentially add mechani- cal inefficiency and backlash to the drive train, but did not seem to be a problem in our DCC tests. This arrangement has the interesting side effect that each portion of the counter- shaft rotates in the opposite direction of its neighbors. The model picks up power through all six wheelsets and comes with factory installed E-Z Mate Mark II couplers.
The use of miter gears with their 1:1 ratio results in the axles and the counter-shaft rotating at the same speed. This differs from the prototype, where most of the gear reduction was in the counter-shaft to axle gears, but it is not noticeable. Counting teeth in photos of the restoration progress at the Mountain State Railroad & Log- ging Historical Association website,
http://www.msrlha.org/, it looks like the counter-shaft gear has 16 teeth and the axle ring gear has 41 for a re- duction ratio of 2.56:1. We could not lo- cate photos of the crankshaft to counter-shaft gears that were as clear, but these appear to be about the same size so they add little or no additional gear reduction added to the Climax drive train.
The model appears to have a similar reduction ratio in that the crankshaft turns between 2 ½ to 3 times for one revolution of the drive wheels. The model operates easily on 15-inch ra-
MAY 2012
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