Ken Kidder Locomotives

[Bernd]

A 2-6-0 Mogul built by Ken Kidder arrived yesterday from an E-bay vendor. He had it listed as HOn3. When I opened the box and was looking at the wheels, I thought that they looked a little to widely spaced to be HOn3. Sure enough they were standard gauge. I mentioned that in my "Feed Back" along with the two picures below. I'm keeping the engine. It's in nice condtion, just needs to be assembled since it was a kit. I did tell to hime to use a NMRA gauge the next time and gave him a 1 star on description of the product. This might become a narrow gauging project. I might just turn it into a 3 foot narrow gauge engine. I already have a standard gauge like this one that I bough may moons ago.





I got out my other two Ken Kidder engines. A 4-4-0 HOn3 and my other 2-6-0 Porter Mogul. The HOn3 4-4-0 is on the top, the 2-6-0 Mogul I bought many years ago is in the middel and the new acquisition is at the bottom.



Here's a bottom view of all three locomotives.



The idea was to convert the standard gauge to narrow gauge. After inspecting the 4-4-0 I've determined it might be quite an undertaking as I noticed the 4-4-0 has smaller diameter wheels on the tender and also on the engine. Of course getting the correct wheels sets to do the regauging would be a problem. What I might do is modernize both standard gauge engines. There was an article back in Model Railroader of modernizing these engines. Time will tell which direction I'll go in.

Bernd

[jbvb]

I remember them from the Model Railroader magazines my father bought for me. They may have still been advertised when I got my first subscription, but most mentions I recall were detailing, drive improvements and conversions.

[Bernd]

I remember them from the Model Railroader magazines my father bought for me. They may have still been advertised when I got my first subscription, but most mentions I recall were detailing, drive improvements and conversions.

I think those mentions where probably made on their project layout The Comunipaw(?)& ? RR. They modernized the engine if I recall right. Going have to go on a magazine hunting expidtion in my filing cabinets.

Bernd

[GaryMc]

Bernd,

I have both the Ken Kidder 4-4-0 and the 2-6-0 in Hon3, mine have the motors in the tender. The Ho version I see have the motors in the cab? I remember trying to find a replacement motor and ended up getting one with a gear reduced drive, it will really creep along now.

[Bernd]

Bernd,

I have both the Ken Kidder 4-4-0 and the 2-6-0 in Hon3, mine have the motors in the tender. The Ho version I see have the motors in the cab? I remember trying to find a replacement motor and ended up getting one with a gear reduced drive, it will really creep along now.

I've been ooking over both standard gauge engine and the 4-4-0 narrow gauge. Since the 4-4-0 was copied from the 2-6-0 I see lots of work to convert it to standard gauge. I'll go for a modermization program instead.

Bernd

[Bernd]

The New Yrok, Vermont & Northern aquired a new (used) narrow gauge engine for it coal line. A Far East Distributors 2-6-0 HOn3 engine arrived and it needs some drive line work to make it run. Got it on E-bay thanks to Rich (aka Penmann) for the find.Yes,it's an E-bay purchase and I knew what I was getting.

Here's the sellers discription of the engine: "HOn3 Far East Distributors Spartan Series Narrow Gauge 1910 2-6-0 at some point the motor in the tender was replaced with a can motor that has a flywheel... There is a wire that comes off the axle from the tender... And the T-ball that comes off the gearing in the locomotive... You will need to supply the linkage... Howeverthe motor works fine"

A quick inspection shows they must have lost the cup that goes to the engine. The pictures will clarify what I found.

Side view of the engine. You can see the thin wire from the tender to the engine here.



Here's what needs to be made. A new cup socket to fit over the horned ball in the engine. And no I'm not going to go search the internet for parts. I'll be posting about this when I get .....


Here's what needs fixing. The arrow points to the very thin wire (under lined in red) coming from the motor. Missing is the cup that would fit over the horned ball on the engine.



And the tender looks like it may have been modified for elecrical pickup. I have a Far East Distributors 4-4-0 HOn3 that doesn't have this mess on the bottom. Further investigation is needed here to figure out what really is going on



I was wrong in my statement on the 2-6-0 narrow gauger for electrical pickup on the tender. The 4-4-0 has the same circuit board. Looks a little cleaner than the 2-6-0.



Family portrait of TOC19 engines with some transition era engines in the back ground. A EMD RS-1325, of which only two were ever built. Always wanted two but one will have to do for now, a Pennsy A5 0-4-0 switcher, an EMD SW1500 cow-calf, a LV 628 Alco, and two Athearn Hustlers making a double ended switcher on an Athearn SW frame.



Bernd

[deemery]

I have one of the FED standard gauge 4-4-0s.  The drivers on that looked undersized, although I'm sure they're reasonably correct for a lower speed 4-4-0.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning from your work on these engines.

dave

[Bernd]

They run a bit fast for TOC19 engines. I purchased 25 motors with a max rpm output of 1000. I plan on installing one with the motor in the tender to see what the end result will be. Looks like it'll be the 3' gauge 2-6-0 since I want to take the tender apart and see what kind of mess they made in there. I'll be posting the results when I get it done.

Picture of the motors.



Bernd

[deemery]

So "motor with built-in reduction gear train"....

dave

[Pennman]

Bernd,

With a smart guy like you, one will only be happy watching and listening to you
with anticipated likely fresh results. I'm happy that you are on board here.
There's much to learn. Thanks for sharing.

Rich

[Bernd]

Bernd,

With a smart guy like you, one will only be happy watching and listening to you
with anticipated likely fresh results. I'm happy that you are on board here.
There's much to learn. Thanks for sharing.

Rich

Thanks Rich. I share so modelers can get an idea of the what and how. Might give them some insight as to how something might work for them.

Besides this forum needs some other subjects beside diorama building, how to weather and so forth. As I said to you before there is more to model railroading than that.

Bernd

Bernd

[Bernd]

So "motor with built-in reduction gear train"....

dave

Yup, I even have another motor with a very unique gear reduction. I'll post it later. haven't taken any pictures yet.

It's always interesting to read on other forums like the Repower & Regear IO how every body looks to reduce the speed by chaining the worm and worm gear. Much easier to reduce the speed at the motor with gearing. This also allows you to use a smaller motor with less power because the gear lower gear ratio increases the torque of the outout.

That is one of the things I like about Hobby Town Drives. The tower was used to reduce rpm and then they used 1:1 heical gears in the trucks.

Bernd

[Bernd]

Ok, I took the tender apart to view the hack job done on mounting a new motor.

After removing the trucks you get a better view of how somebody hacked this tender for a quick fix in my estimation. The red arrows points to electrical hack. Top left purple box shows how they ground out the copper foil. Below that one shows how they bridged the gap so the tender would pick up power from at least four of the eight wheels. The purple box on the upper right shows a connection to the chassis so when the engine is hooked up the motor will get power. This one would have been fun for a newbie DCC installer. I bet it would have blown a decoder. The green arrows show the four screws to remove the tender shell.



A closer view of their wonderful soldering skills.



And of course I wasn't disappointed at the total cob job of installing the motor with a big gob of silicone. I'm going to have to remove the shell on the 4-4-0 I've got and see how FED did their motor mount.



This the motor I'm going to install with a motor mount screwed on not glued on if possible. I haven't gotten that far yet.



That's it for now.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Bernd

[deemery]

Would a flywheel make sense on a motor with a reduction gear train?

dave

[Bernd]

Would a flywheel make sense on a motor with a reduction gear train?

dave

Only on a 3 pole motor. With the higher number of poles there will less cogging. That was one of the reasons for adding flywheels to motors.

Speaking of motors, here;s that other motor I mention in my previous post. Note the gear cluster is mounted right on the mortor. The pictures will explain ho it's set up. I'm looking at this possibility for remotor some of my rolling stock waiting in the wings.







I've got several motors close to the one on the right I got off E-bay a few years ago. These will be ideal for this kind of power train (pun intended  )



Bernd