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Everything posted by murrayec
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Yes One example in North Wales railway- a restoration of a narrow gauge loco had an all welded firebox and boiler installed, the design was based on the traditional fire tube principal without a water tube firebox and boiler, and it incorporated some modern design concepts- it is written that when they completed the loco it exceeded all expatiations by maintaining full boiler pressure for over an hour on two domestic-sized buckets of coal- when running, pulling a large load they don't carry coal they just stoke up at the end of each hour run. If the water tube system was used efficiency would be greater again! but this construction moves to far away from the loco's original design and was not used- heritage loco. And there is one problem for the modern system! most guys working in this field are historical groups and stay within the loco's original design, implementing some modern concepts for; efficiency, safety and ease of use, but staying within a historical control. If a modern oil burning system was used or the instant steam system I mention above- thing would only get better... I believe in the States some of the loco restorations are implementing oil and gas burning systems, the 'Big Boy' I believe is one? It would be interesting to see data on the efficiency now and back in its day to see what kind of improvement has been done. Though with this loco its power to weight ratio is crazy and they are working with old style tech and its not new! In my discussions on the instant steam boiler system it was estimated that the loco could run full time for one week on two large domestic cylinders of gas. A number of assumptions were made here as the full system was not designed and we were only looking at theory and viability. Eoin
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Hi Live Steam! A very powerful gas that can do huge work and be generated by simple means- it's just that the old boys that tinkered with engine design stayed old hat! When British Railways built their last boiler for their last loco 'Evening Star' although bigger it was not much different from Stephenson's 'Rocket' but with a superheater attached. Bullied was the man, he was one of the first to adopted welded boilers, and welding throughout the locos construction, cutting manufacturing costs by half- he was before his time but to late in the competition with diesel and still slightly old hat. He was working with a grossly low thermal efficiency system mainly due to the boiler design. He was to early for new advances in the manufacture of water tube walled fireboxes and other more modern build methods which ultimately led to high thermal efficiency steam locos fired on oil and gas.... Most of this work carried on through the 60's, 70s & 80s in Africa, China & Brazil or Argentina- guys like David Wardale & Dante Porta. How CIE ever thought that turf would work with the old boiler design, with it's low thermal efficiency using coal to start with! About 2 years ago I with others did a feasibility study on building a replica steam locomotive- we do have dreams!, I spoke with a few engineer's in England and found a company who were involved in making the wheels for the 'Tornado' A1, a very nice helpful man- he even came back to let me know that they still had the mould blanks to cast the wheels we needed! He put me in touch with a company that manufactured steam boilers, the kind we put in office buildings and Hospitals to work heating systems run on gas or oil- very popular in Finland, high in efficiency. They manufacture a product which is mobile, a self contained burner and boiler in a small handy package that fits in a small car trailer, they gave me the spec of the machine and after a discussion with the engineering wheel man, a few calculations done he concluded that the system would produce plenty of steam, to much for what we wanted to push! It's a very efficient system, it works like a power shower- fires water into a container in front of the burner and instantly turns it into high pressure steam. No fire warm up time, just wait for a head of steam and your on the regulator. The boiler company were to get back to me on the suitability for our application, the project sort of fizzled out and I never chased them up! I know this is not the same as burning coal, making noise and getting a black face, but live steam in modern design systems is 2 to 3 fold more efficient than the old locos- what a pity the old boys couldn't in 100 years change from Stephenson's original design. I still love them though, beasts.... Eoin
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Weshty Nice one, knew it was something like da!....... Eoin
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Original SLNCR history (Sprinks, 1970)
murrayec replied to jhb171achill's topic in For Sale or Wanted
Hi JHB Just browsing David Holman's article in Railway Modeller and up pops this post on me screen...... Like the new avatar Eoin -
Hi All If you mess about with fibre optics for lights on your models- get down to Tiger for their 'LYSFIBERLAMPE' for €4.00- one of those dodgy droopy 60's fibre optic lamps run by battery- but it has about 237! optic strands sticking out the top that would keep a modeller supplied for a life time! Eoin
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Hi Me to, looks really great and a fine article Congrats David well done- I see you had the same turntable problem with the bus and luggage wagon! Broithe - got to get yourself a brolly! Eoin
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Hi Tony Isn't the English language a funny old business!! Boolean operation your looking for;- Invented by Mr 'Fred' Boolean for 3d solid modelling- adding 3d solids together, subtracting one 3d object from others where they intersect, and creating an object from the intersections of 3d objects!! A way to do doing this is to draw a polygon for the window ope and make it a solid with a thickness greater than the front wall and intersecting it, then use the window ope object to cut-out or subtract it from the front. That is the English version, now you have to find how your software does it. Once you have mastered one window ope- your away, and you will find this operation can be done on multi objects at one time- draw all the windows and then subtract in one go. Only joking about the 'Fred' bit- don't know the mans first name but he was pretty good at maths Eoin
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Nice one WB Interesting point on the washing machine!!- don't think it was ever used... Eoin
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Walter Send me a chassis or bring to next show- something in the 20m scale size, I can take a look and think about how..... Eoin
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Hi All Thanks for taking a look and the great comments Come down to the Carlton Airport Hotel Show next Sunday, it will be there if you'd like to see Eoin
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Cork Model Fair 2015 1st Feburary Note Venue: Metropole Hotel.
murrayec replied to Georgeconna's topic in What's On?
Hi I think I see you George there at the beginning and of course 4:20 is deadly and the best bit.... Yes, great little film, the Cork lads are smiling Eoin -
Hi Walter It was a very well attended show, great interest in the N DART, orders coming in..... Eoin
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Hi Driver301 Take a look at the link below, there is something there you might like to see! http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/895-New-DART-8100-Model?p=65901&viewfull=1#post65901 Eoin
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Hi All Here is a little sneak preview of the development of an N Gauge Two Car 8100 Class DART. This is my development prototype model hot off the bench with a number of things yet to be done. I showed it off at the Bray Show today and had great interest, so decided to post these photos up. Laser printed body wrapped onto glazing body structure on a Tomix 2455 chassis Next step is to finish off the moulds for the plastic detail parts and adjust the jigs a bit to take the rough edges off! Eoin
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Hi Congratulations on the new addition, Careful now, these are self-propelled and have no wires! Eoin
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Hi Here is a link to an earlier thread- it has a link to Mr Ferris's Book- http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/3174-Grey-121-RAL-codes?p=50042&viewfull=1#post50042 Eoin
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Hi Check out http://eiretrains.com, they have a number of photos of the grey 121 livery with a dark line around the logo and the number on the front n' back, but not on the side. The Tom Ferris 'Irish Railways A New History' has a photo of 121s on plate 76- you can view this book on Amazon, in the photo again there is a dark line around the logo and number on the front. This was the way they were delivered it seems, no black line on this one;- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_121_Class#mediaviewer/File:GM_diesel_locomotive_B124_being_unloaded_from_a_ship_at_the_North_Wall_in_Dublin.jpg Eoin
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Hi Yes, SR24 that's the stuff I use in the green thing! It does not harm plastic at all, and it can be used to clean motors and make smoke! Eoin
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Hi Aaaah Borithe's been baking again Happy birthday Dave Eoin
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Shorter couplings for MM Cravens and Mk2s?
murrayec replied to Noel's question in Questions & Answers
Hi Noel I had thought of that one, holes in the side but decided against it as you may experience difficulty getting the K's out, and then the TL's back in as the bayonets of the TL will want to go out the holes- unless you fill them! Let us know how it works, it is simpler if it works. To go back to TL's on my option above- two small pieces of styrene can be glued in to extend the sides of the socket back to its original size. Eoin -
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Hi David It looks great, I did notice your problem on the turntable and after your post above I took a look through Mr Clements book but not much there to help, though I did notice that no. 659 was called 'Rapid' - that model is only rapid! Eoin
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Shorter couplings for MM Cravens and Mk2s?
murrayec replied to Noel's question in Questions & Answers
Hi Noel I only did this mod on the front and rear coaches of the rake- Kadees for the look of a buckeye coupler. Tension lock couplers are retained on the rest of the coaches. If its gap closing your looking for;- the tension lock couplers have about 2mm play in them, from bar to bar of the coupler. One can close this down by sticking 1.5mm thick styrene strip to the inside of both bars, ensuring the depth of the strip still allows the locks to work. This will close the gap by the thickness of the card and looks better though forget tight radius curves in the area of radius 2! I will post a photo when I have this done..... Another thing that can be done is get yourself Mr. Keens corridor connectors;-http://www.keen-systems.com/Carriage%20Ends.html, he's very helpful and knows about Irish stuff. This is the best solution for no gaps! Eoin -
[video=youtube_share;iawx33OHVRU]http://youtu.be/iawx33OHVRU
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Shorter couplings for MM Cravens and Mk2s?
murrayec replied to Noel's question in Questions & Answers
Hi All Maybe this will help I have modified the NEM socket by cutting 1.5-2mm off the back end, that is the end closest to the bogie, it might not be ones favourite way but it's relatively easy to do;- Mark a cut line across the base of the socket and cut a slot across the base with your razor saw- this can be done insitu with the bogie rotated out of the way, then cut the lower sides with a flush side track cutter just deep enough to line up with the cut slot, then cut the sides of the socket down to meet the lower cuts. Make sure you have the flush side of the cutters facing the bits your keeping. Clean up the cut-out with a sharp scalpel, paring the plastic away in slivers and clean up with a file. Stick a piece of styrene across the back of the socket far enough away so that the Kadee bayonets work- this will stop the coupler sliding in the now shortened socket. This photo shows the tools used;- This photo shows the Craven socket height compared to the Kadee Gauge;- This is a comparison to the socket on a MM 141;- Eoin