I was recently reading the Complete book of model railroading, or at least I think that’s what it was called, and it talked about valve gear conversions for steam engines, and can’t seem to find them anywhere, and could anybody tell me about this?
There are several types: Stephenson, Baker, Walshearts , Young and Southern, being the ones I am familiar with; but I am not quite sure what you mean by “conversion”. If you want to find out more about this subject, then go to either “yahoo” or “google” and look up types of locomotive valve gear.
Rich
EF-3 yellowjacket
Given that that book was published in the early to mid-sixties, it may have been referring to kits to convert some of the locomotive kits that came without valve gear (Mantua Big Six, Little Six, Shifter, etc) to having valve gear. Kemtron (now Precision Scale) made a Walschaert gear kit designed to fit the Model Die Casting 0-6-0. AFAIK, that kit is still offered by Precision. You’d need to get the HO/HOn3 Steam Locomotive parts catalog (part #9740). Here’s a link: http://psc1.virtualfocus.com/
Yardbird Classic Trains offers some valve gear kits for Mantua engines: http://www.yardbirdtrains.com/YBSMparts.htm
The Varney “Casey Jones” kit initially came without valve gear as well, although Varney did offer a valve gear kit for it. Starting around 1959 or 1960, the “Casey Jones” came with valve gear. The engine was later manufactured by Bowser and was supplied with valve gear.
Hope this helps.
Andre
Stephenson valve gear was located inside of the drivers, and was rarely modelled because it wasn’t all that visible. (One exception being the late thirties Lionel Pennsy B6 scale and semi-scale 0-6-0 switchers.) Engines without “monkey motion” valve gear like Walschaerts etc. are models of engines with Stephenson valve gear.
Hello “Obsessed,”
HO scale valve gear kits and parts are available from Precision Scale Co. (precisionscaleco.com), and individual HO valve gear parts are available from Bowser (bowser-train.com). I think Andre is correct, that the exact kits referred to in that old book may no longer be available, but you may find what you want from the sources I’ve mentioned.
By the way, the correct spelling of the subject valve gear is “Walschaerts,” from Egide Walschaerts, the Belgian enginehouse foreman who invented it in 1844. According to George Drury’s Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, it was first used in North America on Mason Bogie locomotives about 1876, and later re-introduced in 1904 on Baltimore & Ohio 0-6-6-0 no. 2400, the first American Mallet articulated. In the 20th century, Walschaerts was the most common outside valve gear in North America. (My own obsessions are second to none.)
So long,
Andy
There was an article many years in Model Railroader magazine ago on making a working Stephenson valve gear. Looked interesting but never got around to trying it.
Valve gear links.
Do a Google sarch for valve gear and include the name for the one you would like info about.
Rich
Hi Rich,
I don’t remember an MR article on making working Stephenson valve gear, and couldn’t find one in our electronic index, but there was one in the NMRA Bulletin. See “Operating Valve Gear For MDC,” NMRA Bulletin, February 1975 page 39.
So long,
Andy
Hi !!
You might try the following website: http://steamlocomotive.com/appliances/valvegear.php
(This was just copied from the top of the browser window. Copy and paste into the browser window, without the left ant right bracket, and you should get to a good web page on valve gear. If you have a problem, just let me know.)
-Ed K edwardbuffalo@aol.com
Just looked at this article the other day:
James B. Kottkamp, “Working Stephenson Valve Gear”, Model Railroader: January, 1975, pp. 68-69.