Bachmann D11/2 conversion

[BorderCounties]

I have converted a D11/2 using the Alan Gibson conversion pack and also took the opportunity to replace the coupling rods rather than re-use the Bachmann stamped metal "representation". The model was run in for a good couple of hours before the old wheels came off but, because it's one of those that has geared axles, it seemed to generate quite a bit of noise from all the intermediate gears. Although I have fitted the drive gears to both axles, I really would like to get rid of the intermediate gears and use the coupling rods as coupling rods. I suspect that it will be a lot quieter.

Has anyone taken the plunge and done this with or any of the similar models out there?

[Paul Willis]

I have converted a D11/2 using the Alan Gibson conversion pack and also took the opportunity to replace the coupling rods rather than re-use the Bachmann stamped metal "representation". The model was run in for a good couple of hours before the old wheels came off but, because it's one of those that has geared axles, it seemed to generate quite a bit of noise from all the intermediate gears. Although I have fitted the drive gears to both axles, I really would like to get rid of the intermediate gears and use the coupling rods as coupling rods. I suspect that it will be a lot quieter.

Has anyone taken the plunge and done this with or any of the similar models out there?

I haven't myself, but I know that people have...

I'm sure that I've read of a DJM 14xx being "de-geared" because the coupling rods were so slack that they could move up and down like a see-saw, rather than track in an arc. It's not the entry that I'm thinking of, but this https://albionyard.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/img_0602.jpg illustrates the problem, from the blog post at https://albionyard.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/hattons-djm-14xx-review-h1410/.

If anyone else can remember the right post, do share it!

You've gone in the right way in tightening up the clearances on the rods. So you would not be the first to try such a thing.

Good luck, and do post any pictures or queries on here.

Cheers
Flymo

[nigelcliffe]

My expectation would be that if the coupling rods are a decent fit on the crankpins, and the wheels are not rattling in their bearings front-aft, then the coupling rods alone will be quieter and smoother.
With both gears and rods you're fighting a loosing battle against two lots of running clearance. The gears will have a certain amount of backlash (or they will bind), so compared to forwards, backwards will result in the crankpins being slightly out of time. The rods have their own running clearances, but those are for any vertical movement in the wheels in their hornblocks.

From BorderCounties user name - are you in the borders, and likely to get to the EM Gauge Society meeting at Hexham in two weeks time ? If so, bring it along and we could chat about it. I'll be manning the DCC clinic stand.

- Nigel

[BorderCounties]

Thanks for the replies.

Paul, the thoughts I had when I was re-assembling the thing aren't printable - apart from ""I can foresee a problem here". The axle which would normally be driven by the motor was easy enough to quarter by eye but, because of the intermediate gears, it isn't possible to do this for the other axle as both wheels (potentially) have to be adjusted rather than the usual case of just one side. It not only has to match the quartering on the first axle, but it also has to match the mesh of the gears.

I think I'll remove the gear train.

Nigel, I'm originally from Hexham, and the first thing I can remember about the Border Counties Railway was the crane falling into the River Tyne when they were demolishing Border Counties bridge. I've had an interest in it since then. My model railway has been about 25 years in the planning and I think I'm starting to get somewhere now. I've (hopefully) attached a couple of pics. West Woodburn on the left with Reedsmouth Junction (Y-shape) in the centre, far right is Bellingham (North Tyne). The loops at the far end join things up to give a scale distance of just over 2 miles.

John

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[Le Corbusier]

What a small and pokey railway room

Bet you would be jealous of my test track shelf

Seriously though, what a fantastic railway room

[BorderCounties]

The size of my little shed has cut down on the amount of grass I have to cut!!

[John Palmer]

Reedsmouth Junction: a favourite location of mine on the NB system, so I do hope you'll post more as development progresses.

I'm curious as to the track plan. Looking from where your photographs are taken, Bellingham would lie on the left fork from the junction and Woodburn on the right. So do the tracks cross in the far distance and return down opposite sides of the room? And what form does the track plan take at the Wark end?

Hope you've got another 25 years of active model-making in front of you; with a project on this scale you may well need it!

[BorderCounties]

OK, easy bit first. The whole character of the place - Reedsmouth especially - would be compromised if the gradients were not modelled - Reedsmouth itself sits on a 1 in 100/348/100 gradient, Woodburn is 1 in 62/300/62, Bellingham (thankfully) is level over the length of the platform with 1 in 100 (up) at both ends. I've had to make some slight compromises with gradients in a couple of places to get ends to join up.

The Wansbeck line (the right hand fork at Reedsmouth) exits under the road overbridge, goes under Bellingham and follows the outermost loop at the far end and around to the left side of the shed (first pic). After emerging from under Bellingham, the gradient to Woodburn is 1 in 62/100/62 around to its own fiddle yard - it's about 10 inches higher than the other fiddle yard.

If the Bellingham end of Reedsmouth was connected directly to Bellingham, it would have created a model gradient of about 1 in 30. To get around this, I have created a loop (the white band running under the site of Reedsmouth village in the first pic) which not only creates an almost scale distance between the 2 stations but also takes the ruling gradient down to 1 in 70 - minimum curve radius in the loop is 54" and over the whole plan is 60". The model gradient at the Kielder/Riccarton end of Bellingham has been decreased to 1 in 160 (vice 1 in 100), and the Wark/Hexham end of Reedsmouth increased to 1 in 80 (vice 1 in 100) to enable a continuous run and access to the fiddle yards. I've also had to shorten the approach to the overbridge at Bellingham to maintain the minimum radius and tweak a couple of other curved sections, otherwise nearly all to scale prototype dimensions.

Recent activity has been limited to trying to work out how much plywood I'm going to need!

[Le Corbusier]

Having spent 7 years based up in the north east .. if you had time to post I would love to see some images of the line as it used to be - fantastic area of the country.

[John Palmer]

Very interesting arrangement, and I had not realised that Bellingham lay so close to Reedsmouth. Presumably there is some form of return loop plus fiddle yard at the Wark end?

Some interesting photographs of Reedsmouth after closure can be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/train-pix/8431734193/in/photostream/lightbox/. Also, shots from Ernie Brack's collection at https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/with/36870716022/, featuring stations along the Wannie with some splendid views of Scotsgap, another favourite of mine.

Getting the trackwork right at Reedsmouth will be challenging; in the foreground of the first shot in my first link you can see that the timbering on the diamond has been interlaced in typical North British fashion.

[Philip Hall]

I converted a couple of Bachmann G2s a long time ago and they had gears on the two middle axles. I foresaw problems with gear mesh, so looked at how the gears aligned on the 00 axles before dismantling and marked them. I put the wheels on with the GW press as usual, and then moved the gears as necessary to set them the same as before. The gears were a stiff fit so stayed put once adjusted.

All ran quietly, as before conversion. I did, however, tighten up the clearances whilst I checked (and adjusted, I think) the rod centres to match the chassis.

Philip

[barrowroad]

Hi John,

Looks an interesting project. What make is your railway room?

Robin

[TonyMont]

Hi John,
Welcome to the large layout builders club, please keep us posted.
Regards,
Tony.

[BorderCounties]

This is a composite reply to previous 5 posts:

Tim - I started collecting photos in the late 1960s as a pharmacist in one of the local chemist shops was also a very keen photographer. Amongst his other jobs he also sold half plate local views which included railways. Most of these were by EE (Ted) Smith and, although some have resurfaced over the years, many haven't - I'd rather not say why.. Unlike the other prolific photographer of the line (and many others), those from JW (Jack) Armstrong have come under the care of the Armstrong Railway Photographic Trust, many of which have been available for purchase over the years (late lamented C&G Models of Darlington, Tanfield Railway to name a few). A lot have now featured in photographic books authored by David Dunn and published by Booklaw. Copyright issues obviously prevent posting here, but there are numerous images available on the web, and occasionally "new" ones turn up. See also John Palmer's post for links and try http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/r/reedsmouth/.

John - I don't know if I'm being a bit revolutionary in my fiddle yard design but it's different. Wansbeck has its own and is at a higher level. The Kielder end of Bellingham can connect to the Wark end of Reedsmouth to give a continuous loop. There will be two dead end fiddle yards - one to represent Kielder/Riccarton/Hawick and one to represent Hexham/Newcastle. I haven't taken a photo of this end yet but all will be revealed sometime. Over the whole model there will be only 3 complex bits of P&C - the afore mentioned diamond at Reedsmouth which is slightly curved in both roads and 1 in 8 at one end and 1 in 5 at the other. There are 2 three way turnouts, one each at Bellingham and Woodburn. All of the P&C work, as you say,was typically North British sleepered crossings - I have only found one bit of timbering in a crossing but I think that has been a 1960s replacement.

Philip - I followed Peter Hill's instructions when I did my conversion and created a spline on the new axles for the gear wheels so, to all intents and purposes, it is fixed. I'm seriously thinking about taking the intermediate gears out.

Robin - the railway room came from Scotts Sheds of Horsford (Norfolk). Although they manufacture their own sheds, cart sheds, dog kennels etc, they commission and buy in log cabin type buildings. I just gave them the spec., a plan (and a price) appeared for approval, and hey presto, one building for railway modelling. It's 70mm logs, double glazed and has an insulated floor and roof.

40' of mostly 1 in 100 down gradient will probably be suitable for testing that stock rolls freely!

John

[timlewis]

This will be a very interesting project - I've always thought that Reedsmouth would make a fabulous layout. Good luck with it.

I converted a Bachmann D11/2 a few years ago. After some deliberation I left the gears in place. Haven't had any problems with it in that respect (the tender is currently derailing, but that's a different problem). Because it doesn't have any springing/compensation it sometimes lurches a bit over pointwork, but that's nothing to do with the gears.

Not sure how often they got down the Border Counties? But perhaps more often than they got along the Tweed Valley, and I've got one!

Cheers.

Tim

[John Palmer]

John - I don't know if I'm being a bit revolutionary in my fiddle yard design but it's different. Wansbeck has its own and is at a higher level. The Kielder end of Bellingham can connect to the Wark end of Reedsmouth to give a continuous loop. There will be two dead end fiddle yards - one to represent Kielder/Riccarton/Hawick and one to represent Hexham/Newcastle. I haven't taken a photo of this end yet but all will be revealed sometime. Over the whole model there will be only 3 complex bits of P&C - the afore mentioned diamond at Reedsmouth which is slightly curved in both roads and 1 in 8 at one end and 1 in 5 at the other. There are 2 three way turnouts, one each at Bellingham and Woodburn. All of the P&C work, as you say,was typically North British sleepered crossings - I have only found one bit of timbering in a crossing but I think that has been a 1960s replacement.

John

Even with point-to-point runs of this length it's good to hear that you've made provision for a continuous run so that engines and stock can really stretch their legs - look forward to seeing more of the fiddle yard arrangements.

I have never yet managed to design a tandem following NB practice that used sleepers only - I have always had to fit some longer timbers in the vicinity of the common crossing closest to the switches. I note that pictures of Reedsmouth in the 1950s show most of the pointwork fitted with flexible switches, but I strongly suspect that these were replacements for North British loose heel switches, examples of which still remained in the layout in the 'fifties, notably on the trap point just north of the BCR platforms and the adjacent turnout leading into the loading bank road. Prompted to do so by this thread, I'm currently enjoying myself by re-creating Reedsmouth in Templot using the 25" Ordnance plan.

From the readily available photographic evidence we can be sure that Edie Ochiltree traversed the Border Counties line on at least one occasion.

[BorderCounties]

62677 Edie Ochiltree did indeed traverse the BCR in BR days - I think the photo I have is from a book so I can't post it here - the other D11/2 was 62691 Laird of Balmawhapple. Starting with Ian Futer's list of locos (March 1977 Railway Modeller et seq), I have added many others from photographs and other reliable sources - just over 100 on the BCR in BR days - not including the visitors from the Wansbeck onto the remaining stump of Reedsmouth-Bellingham after 1958, so there are plenty of prototypes to choose from 20 different classes.

Yes, there are some rather vicious trap points - definitely designed to throw vehicles off the track!

I believe someone has already "done" Reedsmouth in Templot. However, beware of believing what you see on Ordnance Survey maps! I constantly checked all alignments against photos from both directions where possible. I also had problems with the 3-way at Woodburn - I just couldn't get the alignments right when working from the OS map. In the end, I resorted to laying sleepers, nudging them into position and compared the result with photos with my eye at the equivalent height that the photos was taken from - A68 road over-bridge. I then marked through the punched holes in the sleepers and drew the rails in afterwards.