Fixing a brass Erie 2-8-4, Class S-4 for Erieman

[ACL1504]

That is way too cool!

Marty,

Thank you for following along.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Nice!

Mark,

Thank you!

Tom

[ACL1504]

That is a great whistle.  Thanks for posting the videos, and nice work on the 2-8-4.  You'd better hold off on sending it to Frank, he has a lot of work to do on his layout yet, and once he gets the loco, he'll be playing with it instead of working.   


Jeff

Jeff,


Thank you for the kind words on the loco fix. I just got off the phone with Frank and told him I didn't want to send it back.


The whistle is great. It's a WOW sound diesel and when I get back into the whistle menu, I'll let you know which one it is.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Tom,


Simply marvelous job, my friend. The last couple of days have been quite hectic, non train related work. Since it has gotten very hot so soon, I had to have my old swamp coolers replaced. I did not do the work, but there was plenty still to do. With that project complete, i can now back to seeing all your fine work in this thread. Dr. Jeff is almost right. With 49 days and counting until Lou Sassi arrives, i am under the gun to complete, as best I can, a large section of my layout and having the engine back in its stall on my layout might really slow me down (NOT). I am really looking forward to seeing that beauty run on the M&E. It will be prominent in many of the layout photos, mark my word. Once this layout shoot is over,I will be working on "your project". Thank you for all your hard work and I hope it runs as well on the M&E. And yes, I will take video of it in its new home.


Frank / Erieman

Frank,

It was fun working on the loco but honestly I'm happy the work is done. Now I can get to working on the layout as the NMRA is just around the corner.

I really don't want to send it back and the Judge wanted me to tell you it fell off the layout and got redecaled for the Atlantic and Southern RR.


I explained to the Judge that kind of deception is know as Grand Theft!

Anyway, glad you like it. I have a little touch up to do after seeing the video. I'll get it in the mail Monday, March 27.

Your long hours on the M&E are certainly paying off.

Tom

[ACL1504]

beautiful work...that's some really convincing sound!!


John

John,

Thank you, much appreciated. The TCS WOW sound is wonderful and sounds fantastic in this one.

Tom

[Erieman]

Good Evening All,


The mailman bought Christmas to the Morristown & Erie Railroad - Western Division, last week. Oh Happy Day. ACL1504 has done a magnificent job on this engine. The sound is magnificent as Tom said in his post. Because of time being spent on the railroad for the upcoming photo shoot, I have not run the engine very much. My bad. I have a few issues that appear track related that I will have to address in the next couple of weeks. This is one beautiful engine and my personal THANK YOU to Tom. Sorry Judge, the engine is staying on my layout, but you are most welcome to come to Arizona and run it.
Forgot to post the picture> Here you go, Engine #3349  in Ironia with a consist of reefers.

Frank / Erieman

[jerryrbeach]

Frank,
That engineer must be hanging out of the cab looking for the highball so he can really work that throttle.

[Erieman]

Frank,
That engineer must be hanging out of the cab looking for the highball so he can really work that throttle.

Jerry,


I like what Tom has done with the engineer leaning out of the cab. Now the trick is to get some great action pictures with the engine. Here is another new one with the engineer checking the signal. Now if I only had the computer program that would let me add smoke and cylinder steam, this would be an awesome scene. More awesome than it is already.

Frank / Erieman

Frank / Erieman

[tom.boyd.125]

Frank,
Sounds like you have kept the roundhouse foreman busy rebuilding that locomotive this year. The Erie engineer seems to be pleased now that it's back to work on the mainline !
Tommy

[ACL1504]

Frank,

Your wonderful layout sure makes the Erie Berkshire look good. Great picture of the loco and track work.

Tom

[Erieman]

Frank,

Your wonderful layout sure makes the Erie Berkshire look good. Great picture of the loco and track work.

Tom

Tom,


Glad to see that you are up and about, my friend.  Hope the germ has left your body. Thank you for the kind words on the photo. A real good friend of mine painted the locomotive. I just did the scenery. I am working with my computer to "draw in" steam and smoke to the same photo. Results so far have not been encouraging, but I'm tenacious, so stay tuned. 


Have a great weekend and play with trains.


Frank / Erieman

[ACL1504]

This past April I repaired and painted the brass Erie loco for Frank.

Over the past few months we have been discussing how the loco has been running/performing. Franks tells me that for no reason the loco stops on straight track and at times the TCS WOW sound cuts off.

He also said the tender wheels often fall out of the journals.

I now have the loco and have done some extensive testing.

The loco never stopped running on my layout but often the WOW sound would go out. By this I mean the chuff sound goes out but I still have control of the whistle, bell and etc. This indicates to me the decoder is the issue. It was installed within the past 10 months and during that time I had several other decoders go bad.

This one will be sent back to TCS WOW for an upgrade/replacement.

In reference to the tender wheel coming out of the journals and side frames. This was an easy fix.

The tiny screw, as in very small, like jeweler screw small, backed out of the side frame. This allowed the side frame to widen allowing the tender wheel to fall out.

In the photo below, you can see the small screw between the top two tender wheels.



I was very surprised the screw didn't fall out and of course get lost. It was hanging on by the threads, literally.

Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

The side frame separated from the side frame bracket as shown in the photo below.



The wheels were cleaned and replaced. The small screw was tightened and the loco is back on the track. Well, it will be after the new decoder is installed.



I'll update the thread when the new decoder is installed.

Tom

[tct855]

ACL 1504,
    Nice repair & troubleshoot job Tom.  I could see the track pit crew out on the rails jacking and repairing the tender wheels whilst keeping up the steam in the boiler to stay as close to schedule.   It's a good thing Mr. Baker didn't pull out his structure building tools on this beautiful engine.  KP-out...

[bparrish]

Tom....

The TCS service guy is Norm Stensel.  Talk to him directly and get him up to speed.

He has always been most helpful to me.

see ya
Bob