How slow can "Ma" go?

I was reading Eric's post. Dat Diminutive Dockside, over at Trackside Treasures and I got to wondering how slow my old Dockside Switcher would go.

I got "Ma" off the shelf, gave it a drop of oil on its gears, and took it for a spin on the Way Out Layout. After some break-in time from sitting on the shelf for so long I gradually turned the throttle on my power pack (a Kato Standard SX model) lower and lower. The video shows the lowest speed I could obtain and still do complete loops.

It turns out the switches were the limiting factor. The speed would get so low that the loco didn't have enough momentum to carry it over the non-conductive plastic parts on the switches. The loco is a 4-wheeler with only 23mm between axle centres, so it stalls out on those Atlas switches if it's going too slow. I could make it go slower down the switch-free main street, but as I said, it wouldn't do full laps of the layout.

Little Emma

I was getting caught up on some serious reading and was quite surprised to find this railroad cartoon shoehorned amongst Chilly Willy, Sugar Foot, and all the gang. I guess in 1957 when that cartoon was first published, tossing in a story about narrow gauge railroading to fill space didn't seem unusual as it does today.

Now, excuse me as I get back to finding out what Space Mouse is up to.

The Saga of Old 98

It wouldn't run. Then it did. Now it's back to work.

EVRR-body's doin' The Loco-Motion

Gear trouble resolved

I spent some time examining and fiddling with the loco's inards and I think I've got it resolved. I installed a 0.040" styrene shim underneath the back end of the motor so its worm gear would tilt down some more and engage with the drive gears.

I noticed the manufacturer was a little too generous with the gear grease as there were large lumps everywhere and very little in the gears, so I scraped the blobs off and will make a cleaner application.

Overall, from the clean state of all the components I speculate that its first owner tried it, found it didn't run, and then put it back in the box. It doesn't have the usual telltale signs of an active running life. To me the gear problem didn't look like the loco had been abused, but that its design and manufacture was the root cause.

When I bought this loco the vendor asked me if it was for a child as he'd give me some track too if it was. I'm glad a child wasn't the recipient of this thing. Imagine the disappointment of not having it run straight from the box.

Ok, well, it's on to painting.

Gear trouble

Yesterday in some comments I mentioned I had bought a loco (a Life Like # 8302 Dockside Switcher) at a swap meet awhile back, and I was assured by the seller that it was basically new-in-box and ran. Later I found it didn't run, but for $10, no loss. It can be used for photographing scenes, which is what it was meant for. I wanted to have some sort of loco that would look appropriate in an E. L. Moore type of diorama, and this will once I've repainted it.

The body's in great shape and will be straightforward to convert to an EVRR livery.

The gears on the other hand need alignment, and maybe replacement. I'll have to take it apart to know for sure.

And those side arms on the wheels don't move that freely. They'll need some sort of adjustment.