Hi Jeff, Was waiting for your report. I drove past the Train Shop on my way home yesterday about 5pm. I saw the tire marks in the parking lot that you left in your hurry to get home to unpack the new loco.
Steve On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Jeffrey Williams < [email protected]> wrote: > I picked up my new Accucraft Southern Pacific 2-10-2 loco Thursday > afternoon at the Train Shop. There were minor items I noticed while > unpacking the loco from its typical Accucraft cocoon of tissue, plastic > sheet, strapping tape and foam. > > The bell was loose in the packing and a few of the more delicate details > had been bent a little. A bit of adhesive took care of the bell and > some delicate work with a fine pliers straightened out the bent bits. > The tender has ball bearing wheels, a nice feature, since the tender is > quite heavy even without water and has six axles. > > The pressure gauge fitting was just hand tight and the coil of copper > tube attached to the gauge needed some bending to avoid interference > with the Johnson Bar. The pressure gauge is only visible by opening the > cab roof - one can't view it from the outside otherwise. > > As the most all 1/32 live steam locos, the backhead and cab is very > cramped and full of plumbing. The loco is equipped with the new style > of adjustable lubricator. > > The gas supply, water supply and water return tubing between the tender > and loco all needed trimming to allow the loco and tender to couple > up. The connections are very close and really should be replaced with > quick-release fittings and rerouted to give more flexibility. The water > supply connection is particularly difficult, and in fact I wasn't able > to fully mate it up for the first run. > > With no pressure in the boiler, I was still able to use the tender hand > pump to fill the boiler but found that the connection leaked profusely > when I tried to add water under pressure. Fortunately, that connection > is just an unpressurized supply for the axle pump while the engine is > running, so worked OK in that mode of operation. > > After lighting off the dual burners, it appeared that one was being > starved for air, as it had a distinctly green color. Accucraft has > provided adjustable dampers on the burner air supply holes so a quick > adjustment evened out the two burners. Pressure came up in about 10 > minutes and the single pop valve released at 65 psi. The cylinder drain > cocks made the first start easy, with no spitting up the stack. > > I ran the loco light for about 10 minutes. With the throttle barely > open to keep speeds down, one noticed definite slowing in the one 10 > foot radius curve on my layout, but very little on the 12 foot radius > curves. Throttle position sensitivity is much better (that is, much > less sensitive) than other Accucraft locos I own, as is the fuel valve > setting and no hysteresis in the valve seals, either. > > I hooked up 14 cars for the remainder of the run - six brass and the > rest plastic, none with ball bearing axles. The loco had no problem > starting these out of the hole, but generated much louder stack talk and > smoother running, with little noticeable slowing in the 10 foot radius > curve. > > The axle pump bypass needed to be almost completely closed to keep the > water level in the boiler up while running with a load and this loco > does need the tender supply for sure as it does boil a lot of water > quickly. Without the pump and tender supply, I think that runs would be > limited to about 15-20 minutes on boiler water capacity alone. > > I ended the run after about 45 minutes as the temperature outside was > up to 95F. The manual claims runs of over an hour with one fill of > butane, which I can believe, given the significant fuel load. > > All and all, a very satisfactory debut. Accucraft keeps improving their > technology and quality with every new model. > > _______________________________________________ > SSLiveSteam mailing list > Send messages: [email protected] > Cancel subscription: http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam > Rules: http://www.45mm.com/sslivesteam_guide.html > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://postfix.45mm.com/pipermail/sslivesteam/attachments/20090828/2582ffed/attachment.html _______________________________________________ SSLiveSteam mailing list Send messages: [email protected] Cancel subscription: http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam Rules: http://www.45mm.com/sslivesteam_guide.html
