My expierience with big locos

[Schraddel]

Matt,

the pulling power was not yet tested. Can't say what she will pulling at least, but i think it will be enough.

There was still the problem with the gap between loco and tender.

Finally i got a piece of brass casting from PSC which is sold out long ago and for this it can be called "antique" rightly. This brass casting is the diaphragm head for a diaphraghm and to be mounted onto the tender front end. It is intended for an other loco type. But i was lucky to get this part. So let's see what i can do with it.
This is the Max Grey tender for the 4-8-4 M-68. The first step was removing of the tunnel parts which came with this tender. They were too short and too wide to fit into the collar of the diaphragm head, so they had to be gone.

Next was the hunting for black styrene sheet. Eventually i got some sheets with 0.5mm thickness; 0.3mm would be better, but was not available.





Onto the front end of the diaphragm head and the rear end of the loco cab each a layer of black styrene sheet was glued. And that is the reason for the black coloured styrene sheet. There will be relative movements between loco an tender while running, ever. Any painting, varnishing or other contivance will not last very long. Any paintings or coatings will be rubbed off when the two plates between loco and tender move and grind on each other and soon the white coloured styrene will shine thru.
But when the styrene is solid coloured that does'nt matter. Black is black.
Also i built a new tunnel on the tender front out of this black strene sheets.






The trick is, the tunnel has no paralell side walls, instead it is tapering to the front end. Thus enables the diaphraghm head to take angled movement without sticking or jamming.






A first static putting together to see if it will fit.






Taking some static simulation of possible movements.






O.k. this is the maximum possible angle between loco an tender. Till to this angle the diaphragm will have a closed appereance. I think this will be more than enough, we are model railroaders and this is real model railroading and not German toy train stuff.


Cheers Lutz