Now With Two Working Axles!

This will probably be the last post for a while on the tiny Hudson-Hunslet locomotive I've been building but before I show you the current state of affairs I thought a quick recap was in order, especially for anyone who has joined us part way through.

In the break between Christmas and New Year I came across a set of scale drawings for the small 24HP diesel locomotive produced by the Hunslet Engine Company and distributed by Robert Hudson Ltd. As the Robert Hudson works at Gildersome were probably the closest narrow gauge tracks to have existed to where I grew up I thought having a go at building a locomotive they sold seemed like a good idea. While I was able to fairly easily turn the drawings for the body into a 3D model and to produce some nice looking renders I didn't initially know how I was going to be able to power the model.

Given that it has a tiny wheelbase (2' 10" on the prototype so just 11.33mm on an OO9 gauge model) and I wanted to produce a cabless version I couldn't find a suitably sized motor bogie I could use, so I decided to try and print the chassis as well as the body. I printed the body using the FUD material from Shapeways and this turned out nicely. The first attempt at a chassis I printed in the hard wearing nylon material (black strong and flexible) that Shapeways also offer. Unfortunately while the dimensions etc. of the printed chassis seemed right, I was unable to actually get it to work.

While the first chassis didn't work I did learn a lot and received a lot of helpful feedback. Most of the feedback suggested that I alter the chassis so that I could fit brass bearings to support the moving parts. While this sounds like sensible advice I didn't want to sacrifice the shape of the chassis I'd designed (it would need to be bulkier to have room for bearings) as this would compromise the final look of the model. The solution I settled on was to have the chassis 3D printed in brass.

After a few initial teething problems I managed to get the printed brass chassis up and working, albeit directly connected to a power source. By the time I'd wired the chassis up so that it would collect power from the track one of the worm gears had come loose and so the front axle wouldn't turn, although the power from the rear axle was enough to make it move very slowly along the track. And that brings everyone up to date.

While the current version is still just a prototype and the next version will be improved, mostly to make assembly easier, I still wanted to see if I could make this version work properly. So yesterday I completely stripped down the chassis and re-built it. To avoid getting glue into the bearing surfaces (like I did the first time) I took a razor saw to both worms to cut between the teeth until a small hole appeared through into the central shaft hole. I then reassembled the chassis without using any loctite on the worms, which meant I didn't get any into the bearings. Once everything was in position I then added loctite through the small holes I'd cut which fixed the worms in place. Unfortunately I managed to somehow destroy the motor I was using (I'm not sure how, maybe I pulled too hard on one of the wires and broke something inside) so had to swap it for a spare, but after re-assembly I ended up with..... two working axles.

So there we have it, I've managed to design, have printed, and assemble a complete and working locomotive! It is still a prototype though so next I'm going to tweak the chassis to make it easier to assemble, make a few minor changes to the body, and I need to draw up the artwork for etching the remaining body panels. All this will take some time, hence there probably won't be a post on this topic for a while, but I've proved that the idea works and I've already had a number of requests to turn it into a kit!

Is There a Point in All This?

So having built the track for my Hudon's Pizza layout and bought a baseboard I've now come to a bit of a halt while I decide what to do with the extra space available. If you remember back to when I first introduced the idea for this layout I showed both a map and an aerial photo of the test track.

Both of these seem to show that the test track is completely isolated from track anywhere else in the works. Given that Hudson's did deal in portable railway systems I'm guessing they were use to having to manhandle rolling stock, but it does seem kind of odd that at their works they wouldn't have made access to the test track easier. I also have a thread over on NGRM about the layout (you have to sign up to be able to read that link unfortunately) and on there someone suggested that maybe there was a point on the test track with rail leading off to the top left. As hard as I looked I couldn’t see anything though.

You'd think, given how much railway equipment Hudson's produced, that it wouldn't be too difficult to find photos of their main works which would clear up the issues regarding how the test track was used. Unfortunately the only other photo that has turned up is this one, which appeared in NG&IRM issue 36.

Certainly from an initial glance this photo of a 'Ganges' class 0-6-0WT doing laps of the test track doesn't exactly show a lot of detail. Upon taking a closer look though I started to notice that what looked like rails to the top left of the locomotive wouldn't match up with the rails just in front of it. To see what I mean here are two cropped and zoomed versions of the loco and on the right hand one I've drawn red lines over anything I think is rail.

So, if everything I coloured red is definitely rail then there is no way they join up in a complete circle, which leads me to the conclusion that I'm looking at a point leading off the test track. Given that my layout was always going to be inspired by rather than a reproduction of the works I now have to decide what I want to do. On the one hand I have a circle of track built and ready, but on the other hand I've got space for a little more track, and if I can avoid having to resort to the "hand of God" to change stock on the circle of track that would be nice. The problem of course is that I've no idea if I'm capable of building a working point. Plain track I think I've mastered well enough for it to work reliably but a point is a whole different game, made more so by the very tight radius of the circle it has to fit into. I'm not going to make any decisions yet, but I think I am going to have a go at building a working point (will be useful to know for future layouts if I can build one) and then see where that leads me. It does of course mean that there is unlikely to be any scenic work on the new layout for quite some time.

Twenty-Four Horses

After all the positive comments on the Hunslet axlebox I've pushed on with the rest of the model I've been working on. Given that I'm now planning a layout based around the test track at the Robert Hudson Ltd factory I decided I needed an appropriate locomotive. Hudson's didn't manufacture locomotives themselves but instead entered into partnerships with other firms to sell branded locomotives. One of these partnerships was with the Hunslet Engine Company and I decided to have a go at modelling one of their tiny 24HP diesel locomotives. These were produced for a number of different narrow gauges and in a variety of cab configurations. My current model is based around a cabless 2' 6" gauge version.

If you are at all familiar with the prototype then you'll notice that quite a few bits of body work are missing. The plan is to add these using etched brass parts which I have yet to draw up. In fact I'm hoping to use the model with different etched parts to produce different versions with different cabs.

This is by far the most complex model I've ever attempted to build. Not only is the 3D printed part quite complex, there will be the etched parts, and I'm intending to build the chassis as well as I was unable to find one with the right wheel base; you may remember I've already bought some parts for this. I've no idea if this will work or not as there are so many parts I'll need to get just right, but if I do manage to pull it off then, depending how complex it is to assemble, it might become a Narrow Planet kit, assuming there is enough interest.

Hudson's Pizza

So the time has finally come to unveil the plan for my next layout. Given that I'm still not happy with the track plan for 77 Box Lane that will stay on the drawing board for now, and this is an entirely new and different layout.

One of the things I liked about my N gauge layout, Jerusalem (which is now boxed up and being stored in the loft) was that it had a roundy-roundy track plan so I could just watch the trains go by. It was also useful for running in and testing new locomotives as they could be left going for hours if necessary without any intervention. Given the size I had to play with 77 Box Lane was always going to be an end-to-end layout and while I'm happy with that (although not the current track plan) I did feel it would be useful to have some form of continuous run test track, even if that was a simple circle of temporary track.

I wasn't actively planning a new layout when a random comment sent me off on a bit of historical research. I grew up in Morley, a small town just outside Leeds, and I've known for a long time (pretty much as long as I can remember) that many of the early builders of locomotives and rolling stock were based in and around Leeds; it's one of the reasons I have a soft spot for the Quarry Hunslet locomotives. What I didn't know, until recently, was that I actually grew up less than three miles from the main works of one of the companies.

Robert Hudson Ltd was founded in 1865 and had it's main works at Gildersome a small village just outside Morley (it's officially been part of Morley since 1937). This was a huge site covering 38 acres and was well served by a 2 foot tramway. Raw materials and finished products arrived and left the site via the standard gauge branch line that formed the northern edge of the site. You can see these and many other details on both the 1938 map and a 1928 aerial photograph.

What immediately caught my eye though was the circular feature which is very clear on the map, but unfortunately is unlabelled as to purpose. Zooming in on the photo though and it's purpose becomes clearer. It's a circular test track on which you can see what looks like a couple of wagons.

To me this looks perfect for turning into a pizza layout. It will give me somewhere to test and run in locomotives and wagons while being based on an actual location. There also appears to be a variety of building styles to perfect and some dry stone walling. I know that so far I've not built any Hudson wagons or locomotives which they re-sold (they didn't build their own but rather re-sold those produced by companies such as Hudswell Clarke, Kerr Stuart, and Hunslet) but I can always apply Rule 1 of railway modelling; it's my trainset so I'll run whatever I want to!

The problem I have is that this grainy photo contains the only details I have on the buildings surrounding the test track. There is a drawing in Alan J. Haigh's book on the foundry (published by the Moseley Railway Trust) but it doesn't provide any extra details. So does anyone know of any further drawings or photos of that area of the works that might show more details of the buildings. If you do please leave a comment.

From some rough measurements, I believe that I can fit the circle of track and the buildings immediately surrounding it onto a board that will fit into the box I originally bought for Jerusalem but which was about 1cm too small. So this means it will fit on my desk and I'll have storage for it. The next step will be a full scale mockup (starting from the map) to check everything will fit and then I can make a start on the baseboard and then building some track. This should be fun!