A nice shortline engine joins the roster
Purdy! I wish Northern Pacific had used some Mogals, they would fit my layout very well. Who made this one?
Purr-dee little Mogul!
Maybe the front wheel needs a dab of paint?
This is one of Van Hobbies locomotives, built in 1973, it has the open frame motor. I replaced the old magnets for new earth magnets. What a difference, excellent slow speed control now.
Good point, they are pretty shiny.
Nice loco, Don. [tup]
Here’s another from the same batch. It had a pretty-severe case of zincpest in the driver centres, to a point where the screws holding the siderods in place were dropping out.
This loco belongs to a friend who models the CNR and whose father once operated the prototype, so he was more than willing to spend some money to get it operational again.
I got suitable replacement drivers from Greenway, and since we were going to re-paint and re-number it from 81 to 91, he decided to also spring for a new gearbox from NWSL and a new can motor.
Here’s the old girl after her makeover:
Wayne
Wayne very nice, glad that the engine got a new lease on life. Looks great, but then it was totally rebuilt.
Mine, like so many, has no run time to speak of. It was running a bit erratic at first but after about an hour it smoothed out quite nicely.
So, is this a plastic model; or, Brass? Never heard of Van Hobbies.
Van Hobbies is the Canadian part of Pacific Fast Mail - I’m not sure how they’re affiliated, though. And, yes, the locomotives are brass. I don’t have that one here, so I’m uncertain as to who built it - perhaps Don has the original box and can elaborate.
Wayne
This is another Van Hobbies offering, built by Samhongsa. It’s a CNR 0-18-a, bought by another friend, who had it custom painted by someone else. He was having problems with it stalling on his #10 turnouts, so I added all-wheel pick-up to it. While it cured the stalling problems, he wasn’t satisfied with its pulling abilities and decided to sell it. I indicated my interest, depending on the price and his answer was, “If you want it, it’s yours in exchange for some work.”. Never one afraid to set aside my own modelling tasks to do work for someone else (the reason my layout’s nowhere near “done” [banghead] ), I set about re-working it. I managed to add 2.25oz. to the loco, bringing its weight (loco only) up to 12oz. , balanced at the centre of the loco’s wheelbase.
I then replaced the magnets with rare earth magnets, dropping the top speed and the current draw. With these improvements done, I offered it back to him, simply for the cost involved, but he declined.
I decided to modify it slightly by replacing the original single phase air pump with a cross compound type, then added etched brass cab numbers from Athabasca Models, numbering it to match a loco which had worked in my home town. I also replaced the original tender ladder, as it was under-scale and on the wrong side of the tender, fabricating a new one from brass strip and wire.
I wasn’t too impressed with the paint job, so re-painted it before placing it in service.
VanHobbies was I believe a business associate and/or partner of Pacific Fast Mail.
They had a hobby shop on Cambie Street in Vancouver. I must have visited that shop at least once a month for years just to keep current as to their stock.
The Canadian HO brass railroad model items were marketed under the VH logo, all other railroad items were marketed under the PFM logo.
Pacific Fast Mail imported a variety of brass model railroad items under the United PFM line as well as a number of others of which the Teneshodo brand is probably the best known.
The Mogul in the CNR E-10 and was built by Samhongsa in Korea, came in the green box.
Very nice looking engine. As always your work has enhanced a very fine model.
I too have upgraded a number of the open frame motors, I am amazed at how they can give such control to those engines. Would have upgraded to a can motor a number of times but after trying the rare earth magnets no reason to.
i have never heard of rare earth magnets ?? how do they complement the running charctaristics of the loco & are the motor magnet replacements ??
They’re super-strong magnets and replace those in older open frame motors. There’s a little more info on them HERE.
You need to orient the new magnets so that their polarity is the same as that of the original ones, then simply slip them into place. If they don’t quite fill the available top-to-bottom space, simply cut a similar-size piece of steel, of suitable thickness, to fill any gap. Old flat steel weights from freight cars work well.
Wayne
wayne , thank you for the info , wow you learn something new everyday , i never heard of those before