Poor Performance on Gradients! Lawley V Lady Anne.

R

Redtail

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I have a fairly undulating line up here in the Northern Highlands.I may have two sections which are about 1:45ish!
Acc Lawley arrived first and early on in the track building I had no problems with Lawley.However I have now completed the line and I am unable to use Lawley who appears to be unable to cope with the gradients.I build up the steam and can only get her to cope with the gradients with the gauge right up before it blows off. Then the gas runs out only after a short run.
However I have no problems with Lady Anne. Loads of power 7 full circuits [30mins+ approx] with a heavy load.
Is this the norm to have a much better performance with R/House compared to ACC locos? Does anyone else have a similar
experiance? By the way both locos are R/C.
Perhaps like Markrussell I have a blocked pipe or some other problem.
Any ideas please or else I can see Lawley sitting on the shelf collecting dust!!!
 
A sense of deja vu here.
Almost echos my postings under "Fits in well methinks" and latterley "Poorly Edrig".
 
Roundhouse loco's are much more efficient with the steam and will happily run on 25PSI, the Accy offerings like alot more pressure which means your water boils off quicker. BUT performance should be comparable, the boiler on Lawley is pretty big and she's a heavy girl so getting traction should be no issue. Check your gas jet and also pop her up on blocks and bring her up to blow off and see if steam is leaking from anywhere, bolts are known to go loose on Accy loco's. Another possibility is the timing has gone.
 
Redtail said:
I have a fairly undulating line...
...I build up the steam and can only get her to cope with the gradients with the gauge right up before it blows off. Then the gas runs out only after a short run.
However I have no problems with Lady Anne....
Click to expand...
Yes - me too!
My other postings were about my Edrig and his problems.
My Lawley (and Wrekin) behave very much as you describe.
My worst grades are 1:20 and all three Accy locos do cope, but only with max pressure.
The three Roundhouse are more comfortable on the grades.
 
I think this might be unique to my loco but i'll share my experience in case it's of any help.
A while back my Edrig started to perform below par. It needed maximum pressure on a flat line to pull a couple of wagons, stalled often and needed a nudge to get going.
I checked everything, valve timing was spot on, dismantled it numerous times, everything seemed fine.
After it sitting on the shelf for a few months i took it out in the garden for steam up. It was in the autumn so a bit of a chill was in the air. It did it's usual struggle round my track when i noticed there was not much of a steam plume, my other engines had put on a good display of plumedge (I think thats a word). I turned my attention to the exhaust tube. I took it off, blew jet of air through and put it back on, still no joy. Then i ran the loco without exhaust and what a difference, it pulled like a errr.....train!.
Now fitted with a Summerlands Chuffer it seems to breathe like it should and performs well at 40psi.
I can only assume the exhaust had deformed and restricted the steam from passing.
 
One would have to suggest that after that the exhaust should have had a careful examination and/or rodding through and then retryed. Never great to clear a fault and not know the exact reason. Probably sounds better with the Summerland though.
 
I've heard of a case where a Summerland chuffer appeared to throttle a Caradoc, and actually degraded its performance.
The owner donated the pipe to me, and fitted to my Edrig/Owain has no detrimental effect.
 
Good morning to all, Thanks to all for your replies and advise. I will do a dry run this morning
to check for leaks etc. and also check the gas jet. I did forget to mention that I have a Summerland chuffer pipe fitted, which I fitted after receiving her from John Boyce.Perhaps a run with the original pipe again to see if there is a difference.However all appeared well after fitting at the time. I also have a Summerland Chuffer pipe fitted to Lady Anne.
 
Rosco said:
I think this might be unique to my loco but i'll share my experience in case it's of any help.
A while back my Edrig started to perform below par. It needed maximum pressure on a flat line to pull a couple of wagons, stalled often and needed a nudge to get going.
I checked everything, valve timing was spot on, dismantled it numerous times, everything seemed fine.
After it sitting on the shelf for a few months i took it out in the garden for steam up. It was in the autumn so a bit of a chill was in the air. It did it's usual struggle round my track when i noticed there was not much of a steam plume, my other engines had put on a good display of plumedge (I think thats a word). I turned my attention to the exhaust tube. I took it off, blew jet of air through and put it back on, still no joy. Then i ran the loco without exhaust and what a difference, it pulled like a errr.....train!.
Now fitted with a Summerlands Chuffer it seems to breathe like it should and performs well at 40psi.
I can only assume the exhaust had deformed and restricted the steam from passing.
Click to expand...
There is a basic difference in the exhaust systems of Roundhouse and Accucraft locos in that the Accucraft are slightly throttled. Roundhouse have an exhaust per cylinder and Accucraft have a manifold into one exhaust. This does not reduce power but stops the locos running away on gradients and will reduce top speed. They will therefore behave differently to Roundhouse but are just as powerful. They certainly don't like fixed radius 1 curves fixed straights ? indeed most steam locomotives dislike this for fairly obvious reasons. The curves are designed to save space and also for use by high revving electric motors ? not for steam locomotives. One can use these tight curves as long as we do what is done on real railways and employ transitional curves to lead into the tightest R1 curve. I use Accucraft manual locos both gas and coal fired on my line and the tight curves are coped with easily and without having to adjust the regulator because of the use of transitional curves formed by flexitrack. On a line with straights leading into a fixed curve this just would not happen ? and the best type of loco would be Roundhouse four-coupled RC (although I have to say it would not be particularly relaxing to run as I discovered on a friends line). He could not change his track so has gone back to electric power only.

Accucraft locomotives need significant running in before they settle down. Roundhouse don't and this is because part of the extra cost ensures that this is done for you...
 
I think I detect the basis of a "principle" emerging, based on my own experience, and Tag's advice to me and to Redtail.
Using that old saying "horses for courses", it would appear that if you build a hilly, curvy line you need slide valve locos.
This generally means Roundhouse...
I wonder if someone would like to visit the M.R. with an Accy Earl/Countess?

My curves do have an element of transition, not all set-track.
Of course, it's quite difficult to introduce transitions to pointwork.
 
I think Rob the problem I had was one of impatiance;) Ordered a Lady Anne and then bought Lawley to cover the six month period without a loco. I dont have anyone close to me here in Sutherland? to try out their loco,so me thinks I see a sale coming
up. this will allow me then to buy a further R/H to join L/Anne.
 
I don't see why the difference between slide valves and piston valves would make any real difference to terrain-ability. We have an addage in M.E. that 'piston valves wear out and slide valves wear in', which merely means you have to pay attention to proper maintenance. Provided either/both is in good condition and correctly adjusted there should really be no difference. I think you should be looking elsewhere for your loss of performance.

Rob. P.M.ed.
 
Oddly though I have a hilly (yet to be leveled), curvy line (small space I doubt there is any significant straight on my line). Edrig, runs, a few sticking points here and there, but once the trackbed is a little more level shouldn't be a problem, Joan ditto, suffers a little from not being as run in as Edrig, my single channel R/C Lyn, fresh out of the box romped around with no real problems, made me wonder why you'd need dual channel RC to be honest.
 
One thing I can think of is that Roundhouse cylinders have gland nuts on the valve chest and piston, Accucraft cylinders are not glanded. So theoretically any wear could result in some steam + power loss.

This could be me but, also having worked on alot of Accy locos there does seem to be different qualitys of materials and engineering between the freelance range and the prototype range. With my 1:42 spiral on a 4'4" radius curve Earls and countess's go around no problem, but a recent (RC) Lawley would not go up it. It had to make a good run at it, I have also found this with Leaders. All my Roundhouse based locos go up with a full load easy.
 
I have just carried out a static test on blocks.It is obvious to me and the finance officer
that there is a huge difference between forward and reverse, the sound and movrment it makes and the volume of steam produced. For someone with limited engineering skill does this mean the timing is out of kilter? Can anyone help as to what to do next.
I didn't think to run the loco yesterday on the track in reverse so as stated found this out only on test.
 
Redtail said:
I have just carried out a static test on blocks.It is obvious to me and the finance officer
that there is a huge difference between forward and reverse, the sound and movrment it makes and the volume of steam produced. For someone with limited engineering skill does this mean the timing is out of kilter? Can anyone help as to what to do next.
I didn't think to run the loco yesterday on the track in reverse so as stated found this out only on test.
Click to expand...

Does sound very like valve timing to me. I think Tag (or someone) recently explained on here, a simple way to sort it.
 
Thanks bobg, I have seen another thread regarding the timing so I will have a look with that info to hand.
I will wait to see if Tag or others answer up to confirm this. With the Highland weather as it is today, no chance of
a track test:thumbdown:
 
Redtail said:
...there is a huge difference between forward and reverse
Click to expand...
Just been through all this with Edrig. It is easily fixed, though can be a little tedious.

A preliminary suggestion, is maybe run the loco backwards on the gradients first, and see if it's any better.

A simple but coarse way of "centralising" things is to slacken the mounting screws on the cab reverser lever, and move it a fraction either way until the best "central" position is found, then tighten the screws.
Further fine adjustment can be made on the piston valve itself.
 
Hello Rob, I have looked and have found that the scribed mark on the reverse/regulator piston valve goes much further in than it should when set in reverse. So it does seem to be the possible problem. Lawley was only bought in 2009 which seems quite a short time for things to adjust themselves!!
 
Redtail said:
Hello Rob, I have looked and have found that the scribed mark on the reverse/regulator piston valve goes much further in than it should when set in reverse. So it does seem to be the possible problem. Lawley was only bought in 2009 which seems quite a short time for things to adjust themselves!!
Click to expand...

Mark, That pre-supposes that it was right in the first place. It has not been unknown for locos to "miss" the final setting operation, and things have been known to come undone in service. The final part of setting should be to ensure that it goes equally well in both directions, giving that final tweak as necessary.

Also there are many Robs and Bobs on here so confusion can be great fun. :bigsmile::bigsmile:
 
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