Gijon, Villaviciosa and Covadonga

Just a test picture to test the picture hosting process from Carl.


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Wow it works. Puits - fait Monsieur Administrator.

Great, tomorrow I can send some updates from my railway including progress on the live diesel.

Looking forward to that David!

mikey

That is just a cracking locomotive David.

It has appeared on here before I think but either way tell us all about it.

It all sounds very interesting, please tell/show us more.

Cant wait to see this!!

Mikey

Your last pair of [img] tags are redundant but other than, test successful I would say.

I must confess it is freelance 2-8-0 and not a scale model of a prototype, but has similarities with the Baldwin 2-8-0s that worked on La Robla.

It is freelance partly because it is my first attempt at building a live steam loco and I wanted to use a Lady Anne boiler and motion. Additionally I wanted a 2-8-0 tender loco to get the coal trains from Covadonga to the ports at Villa and Gijon. Chassis and most other flat bits are scratch built with liberal use of odd fittings from Roundhouse.

My railway, the Gijon, Villaviciosa and Covadonga, is supposed to be 750mm so the model is 32mm gauge.

I designed the chassis online using Autosketch, an old and simple, but good, CAD package.

Basically I added the 4th axle to the Lady Anne dimensions and added a few further modifications and emailed the Autosketch file to a company in Birmingham. They laser cut the frames from my CAD file. Price quoted was £20 for one set of frames and £30 for 3 sets. So I might build another loco as I quite like the aesthetics and I did order 3 sets of frames/coupling rods. If anyone wanted a set of frames/coupling rods then I can supply them at cost ie £10.

Apart from the rolling chassis which I designed in 2D CAD I made up the rest as I went along safe in the knowledge that the mechanical asoects were a Roundhouse given and that I did nt have enough 3D CAD ability to design the superstructure in advance of the build. This caused a few problems and some extra and unnecessary back engineering to get everything to fit but nothing too difficult. Before building the superstructure I did a few basic outline manual drawings to ensure I was happy with the aesthetics.

I could have built the boiler but figured the advantages of using the Lady Anne one was too good to miss. I guess the cost of the loco was about £650 for the bits from Roundhouse and a couple of hundred for sheet brass, radio and fittings. I acquired a secondhand R/H tender
from ebay for about £50. Total would be a little under £1k.

The most laborious job was making the superstructure flat platework like the cab. I am not an engineer and had never built anything out of metal before so I scribed out the parts on brass sheet and then roughly pillar drilled and hacksawed this out and then carefully hand filed back to the scribe line. Most components are assembled with small and hidden 10 and 12 ba screws so that it is easy to disassemble the whole locomotibe back into a kit of parts.

All Spektrum gear is in the tender and there is a working scratch built headlamp. Chuff pipe and whistle are to be fitted later.

Painting is a combination of Halford Car Aerosols using a combination of satin and matt black. On some of the photos the matt appears quite satin but that is after I cleaned the matt areas with an oily rag, hopefully in time this will revert back to matt.

The whole loco building process was little more difficult than building a Lady Anne kit although it took probably two or three times as long. Most of the difficult, non flat, bits have been engineered by Roundhouse but it has been a very satisfying experience to complete and the best aspects are the performance of the loco, a Lady Anne in all but name, and the aesthetics of the loco geometry, which I find very attractive. It's a model of a prototype that worked on the fictional Gijon, Villaviciosa and Covadonga railway just east of Oviedo in Asturias.

If anyone wants any further constructional details please ask. Additional photos to follow.


David

My admiration knows no bounds David. I could never even contemplate doing something like that. One thing though; change the title of your thread to your lines name. give it some credit.Brilliant!!

Mikey

Hope you dont mind David, I took the liberty of changing the thread title. Please lets see more of your line.

Mikey

Mikey, thats fine and thank you for the compliments.

There are a series of photos of my line under the Garden Railways section thread called David Grantham's Railway.

The GVC is, literally at this moment, being extended with much use of my beloved cement mixer. If the weather is OK tomorrow I will take and host a few pictures of the extension plus the other projects listed in progress below.

The railway has no or little detail at present as most effort is going into the heavy work of earth shifting and track laying. Plans for the next coupe of months are to lay the extension track, lay ballast, add a few Hornby O gauge signals air connected to the point actuators, introduce a couple of scratch built coaches into service, install the overall station roof into Villa and finally try to get the live diesel test run.

Until tomorrow here are a few more photos of Covadonga the engine.

Nice. It definitely resembles a baldwin.

David,

That is an impressive piece of modelling, more details please.

You say that you may have a set of frames....and rods.....I would very much like a set please and will pay whatever the rate is.

I have loads of projects to build already but an 040 (0-8-0) Corpet is tempting for the future.

Have Roundhouse seen this machine? They should be duly stunned as we are.

That's a lovely job and you must be duly proud of your work, David.

As Carl suggests I would certainly contact Roundhouse with information of the build and some photos, I expect they would be most interested.

I did send some photos to Roundhouse who asked if they could use them for their own purposes. I of course agreed but have not seen anything published.

I should acknowledge how helpful Roundhouse were in providing a CAD file of the basic Lady Anne chassis as a starting point for me to design the 2-8-0 version. Also they were very helpful in providing the appropriate parts and components without me having to by the 3 part LA kits and then throw away the unrequired components.

I have the highest regard for R/H customer service but I cant help wondering why they dont market a European 45/32mm loco. Maybe Accucraft can be persuaded to add another axle and pony truck to the Beyer Peacock 4-4-0 tanks making them authentic Alcoy and Ghandia 2-6-2s. Anyway I am sure the directors of the GVC will be happy to acquire one of the 4-4-0 versions soon.

Still raining outside so pictures of the extension build delayed for a day or two. For now some pics of the first nearly complete scratch basic GVC coach and the live diesel.

The live diesel has not even been test run yet. Work has been delayed since Xmas due to a number of family illnesses but things are largely back on track now.

Next step is to start the glow motor and take some readings. It seems that I have the choice between a large fuel tank or an onboard battery, when I would prefer both. As you can see there doesnt seem to be room for both as the fuel tank currently extends beyond the buffer beam, unless there is a way of building a custom shaped tank to fit the limited space available.

Looks very promising.

Could you give us more technical details, like engine type, what type of motor for the dynamo, control, battery, electric circuit, the list could be long.....

I found those thermic engine very interesting, I saw the one Carl made,

Which will give the longest running time David, fuel or battery?

mikey

Excellent David.... you are joining the hallowed elite dozen or so world wide who have ventured and succeed in live G scale diesel.

I would build a simple fold-up and soft solder nickel silver or thin brass fuel tank to fit any odd space that exists.
Or use a smaller battery. Hi amp nicads...??

Can't wait to see this running.

I feel like getting mine out now.....

Mikey,
the battery should last at least 4 or 5 hours or more whereas fuel is likely to be 20 mins to 45 mins depending on what space can be found. At least thats before I dropped the battery after a heavy rainstorm interrupted my brief photo shoot this pm.

Carl,
good idea about the fold up tank, thanks.

Biggest issue at present is that it feels the priority ought to be to get the track extension and outside works completed now the weather is acceptable, whereas the live diesel is better suited as a winter workshop project. Lets see how the running trials go.

Wow David, makes me "homesick", yup I am in Suffolk today. Wish I could see the pics of your "ferrocarrill", mine is nothing to get excited about but is at last started. Trouble is that as I am working I get ideas which complicates things. Anyways keep it up and get the pics back.

Nice job. I like the green coach too - is that a kitbash?

Martin, the green coaches are scratchbuilt to my design from birch ply sides and ends which are produced by a friend of mine using a cnc controlled router. It takes quite a longe time to mill out the windows and vertical boarding (about 80 mins) but produces quite a nice finish that I woukd not like to have to do by hand.

These are not available commercially but it might be possible to produce a few kits if some one in CGT really wanted a few. For what it is worth I paid £35 per coach for the sides and ends plus the wood to complete the roof, floor and chassis.


David

I thought I would add a few more details regarding the building of Covadonga in case anyone else wants to have a go at building this loco or I guess any other loco based on Roundhouse cylinders and running gear.

The chassis is dimensionally the same as the Lady Anne chassis except for the addition of a fourth driving axle under the firebox and an extension into the footplate. I have now exhausted my supply of spare frames/coupling rods but I could, if required, order some laser cut SWG15/16 sets at between £10 and £20, depending on quantity. Alternatively I would be perfectly happy to email the chassis/rods drawing so that anyone could make their own but I guess the version of Autosketch that I used will need importing into a more up to date CAD package unless you are still a DOS user !!!

The chassis is designed to be used with the standard Lady Anne boiler. This is designed to barely extend into the cab to give a longer locomotive than a Lady Anne and to provide a lot of space in the cab for servos and crew etc. Use of another size R/H boiler could be used but would require significant modifications.

Obviously it is beneficial to be familiar with Roundhouse locos before beginning this project but there are comprehensive instructions on line. Building a LA kit is probably the ideal preparation for a Covadonga type project.

http://www.roundhouse-eng.com/pdf/hbk2.pdf

http://www.roundhouse-eng.com/pdf/hbk4.pdf

http://www.roundhouse-eng.com/pdf/hbk10.pdf

If you tell R/H what parts you have eg the chassis/coupling rods/cranks etc they will make you up a list of the bits you need to complete without having to buy the full 3 module LA kits. It may well be beneficial to do this face to face and probably is best via a personal visit to Doncaster ?

Roundhouse supply cranks for the LA but they are not as attractive as the aftermarket version from Milton Works. Unfortunately these appear to be unavailable at present but could become available anytime depending on the whim of the producer.
http://www.appc27.dsl.pipex.com/frameset-1.htm

When you buy a lubricator for this build I suggest you do not use the LA version but rather any R/H version that allow drainage through the cab floor rather than through the cab door as on the LA. Much neater and cleaner.

One “feature” of R/H locos is that they rarely have handrails on the boiler. This is prototypically unusual and can be corrected by carefully tapping the boiler wrapper with an 8BA tap to accept R/H handrail knobs. If done carefully the wrapper is sufficiently thick to retain the handrail without adhesive or nuts.

In the instructions provided by R/H they suggest you take the machined coupling rods and test for binding and then file away the tight spots by hand with a needle file. This can take hours and it does not make any sense to me to file away a machined surface so that it becomes irregular. Since this is a 2-8-0 and the design favours larger rather than smaller tolerances all I did was open out each coupling rod by increments of 0.1mm with a new set of drills and test for binding until the chassis ran well. This has been very successful and the loco ran very well from day one with no running in required.

I fitted boiler insulation using felt or a piece of thin ply. I cant remember which at this senior moment. In terms of performance it probably is not significant but the other advantage is that the boiler externals are not so hot and can therefore be more easily handled and the paintwork is less effected by heat which may be beneficial if using Halfords acrylic car sprays.

I am not sure whether the Baldwin/US style smokebox that I obtained second hand is currently available from R/H. This makes a significant effect on the final appearance of the loco and maybe needs checking out with R/H. Dimensionally this is identical to the LA British type smokebox.

For simplicity I made the cab roof removable and uses a couple of locating pins and magnets.

Buffer beams are home made with extra rivets added using track pins.

When I came to fit the footplate/running plate I realised I had not made the frames deep enough and the running plate was aesthetically too low and fowled the reversing gear. This was simply resolved by bolting some aluminium angle to the chassis to raise the running boards by about 15mm. It is still necessary to cut a small prototypical clearance hole in the boards to allow the reversing gear adequate clearance.

Well thats about it for a top down overview. Obviously if anyone does try a project like this I would be only too happy to help and advise with more detail on an as required basis rather than add superfluous details here.

Good luck.
David

Some pictures of David Grantham's Spanish themed railway, the FC GVC.

Scratch built Baldwinesque 2-8-0 using Roundhouse boiler and cylinders












Visiting SR&RL 2-6-2 on the east reversing loop avoiding Villaviciosa Puerto station





Villaviciosa Puerto with old liveried FEVE BoBo on the avoiding line and new livery ready to depart






VP from the buffer stops






Scratch built composite brake/luggage/passenger car






Pneumatic point control box using home made actuators and EZ Air cylinders and components






Product from the local granite quarry. Approximately £30 per ton !!!!






West reversing loop and junction for the extension to the sunken stock shed (Covadonga)






Hollybush tunnel halfway bewteen the reversing loops still awaiting installation of the tunnel mouths to hide the tube pipe






West reversing loop and junction inside long curved tunnel awaiting completion of the extension and landscaping






The extension. Another larger reversing loop and an incline into the below ground stock shed.
A learning exercise as to what can happen, if you're not careful, when your local builders merchant has some bricks for sale on special offer.
This is definitely the last major earthworks to be undertaken before I sell the cement mixer.






The stock shed to be connected via an incline which, due to a miscalculation of the water table, may need to be rope worked






Overview of VP and east loop end from above west loop tunnel








Feve mixto leaving hollybush tunnel
What a relief FEVE used black transfers as I could never figure out how to make white ones on my computer






Mixto entering west loop tunnel





Site of Empalme Apardearo (Junction Halt) Had not realised that my wife had inserted a 1:1 plant pot onto railway property.






Very naughty. A rear brake lamp on the second last vehicle. Disciplinary meeting rearranged for tomorrow.





Scratch built bogie van. Amazing how much fun one can have sticking individual planks onto a ply body.






Overview of west loop from VP






Inside the stock shed. This shed has been dismantled twice and raised each time by 3 inches to avoid water collecting in the pit, despite a large soakaway. An electric pump was tried but a sensor is not as reliable as a soakaway providing the water table does not keep rising. Shed is now safe from flooding but the gradient will be about 1 in 25 which means I will need to build something powerful enough to move stock from the shed to the main line







First batch of a couple of coaches CNC milled from 4mm birch ply. 4 more to follow