Bashing a Perfectly Good Two-Truck Shay

The entire surgery took 22 minutes is all - i.e., I spent nearly three times as long studying and planning for it.  

That's the secret of doing anything right - measure twice, cut once. Nice work. 

Yes!!! Good to hear that someone else uses my favorite kitbashing tool.

The ex-passenger car in the photo below didn't run away fast enough and met the bandsaw one evening. I know in an article I described how to do this with a tame little razor saw...but now the truth comes out!

Your Shay looks really good on that loop. Sometimes drastic measures are needed to get the most enjoyment from your trains - nothing wrong with that. Excellent job, Lee. 

Jim

I have a K-line 2-truck Shay - the same loco that Lionel sells - and I have always

disliked its "tallness". And I love to cut up locos and remake them.

I applaud your efforts - even repainting the Ps-4; it looks so good in black.

So - my K-line Shay is on the "List" for a haircut (one day - it's a long list).

I really like all the moving parts of the Shay, I keep looking at the Legacy model.

You're not kidding about the clearance, I'd swear it was going to hit that overhead!

I just ran trains for the rest of the afternoon and I love the Shay.  It runs slow even at full voltage, and it is smooth, very very smooth, at a scale 10-15 mph, which for it seems to be half speed.  I love it, and yes, watching the cylinders operate is really fun!

This is the first (and so far) only Legacy loco I have that can run on this loop, so this is the first time I have ever had loco with cruise on this loop.  I was surprised that the 6.5% slope (which has some 36 inch curves in it, too, at points) defeats the Legacy cruise feature.  Even more bizarre, its on the downward slope than it gets defeated.  The cruise seems to handle going up well, and it keeps this little loco puffing along at exactly the same heartbeat rate all around the curves and straights, but going down, about halfway down the slope, it breaks out of cruise and the thing takes off - not like a rocket, but for about four feet it accelerates noticeably, then reaches the flat, and then catches itself again.  

I'm going to jiggle and play with some slope angles and such and track details to try to alleviate this, but I don't really mind if I have to live with it.  It's a great loco.  I just love it.  

I tinkered with a 4 degree slope and my cruise locomotives, both Legacy and the ERR Cruise Commander seemed to handle them well.  I had 20 cars behind the locomotives, I was testing to see if I was going to have problems with my helix.  I'd like to know before I actually build it!

I have no doubt this can handle four degrees, and a bit of a curve, but as I said earlier this loop has to have this really steep incline or it just won't work.  6.5 degrees is the least I can arrange.  

A helix would present a potential problem because it is so much of a climb and a long curve - worst of both situations.  I suppose all you can do is test as much as you can and then build it and see.  I would be very interested to hear how it works when you get it done. 

Wow Lee.  I'm glad it all worked out for you. 

I have to say though this was a painful thread for me to browse. I tend to trim my scenery or benchwork... not the motive power!   Yikes.

Good job Lee, I like your style.

Taking a bandsaw to a brand new locomotive appears to be a bit extreme, but the result seems to have come out very nice.

I realize it seems exterme but first, I had experience, and second, it always works out well (so far).  My confidence in this approach, if done carefully, is very high.

I had previously done "the bandsaw thing" on an old non-running K-line to exeriment, and then one BANG and two Williams Baldwin ten-wheelers, in order to get them cut down to meet this same overhead requirement on my fourth loop, so I had experience.  In all cases, among other things I was lowering the cab roof about 1/4 to 3/8 inch by cutting down the height of the cab. and on the Williams', also cutting down the sand domes, etc). 

All came through the surgery in perfect working order.  The BANG was actually the most difficult: there is a small circuit board that controls the directional lights attached to the underside of the cab roof.  Again I did not remove the body.  I cut only 1/8 inch into each of the sides and the front and the back of the cab, severing the cab roof without taking the blade into the interior of the cab.  I then cut the wires to that light-control board, removed the cab roof, completed the trimming, resoldered the wires and put the cab roof back on a 3/8 inch lower cab .  Everything worked.  

The reason I will do nearly anything to avoid taking the body off when I work on, bash, or paint a complicated loco is that the only patient I have had "die on the operating table" is the only Legacy loco in which I took the body off -- in this case to do just repairs.  A Lionel U-boat (UP U-30C) from the 2011 catalog.  It had a bad sound board and I got a new one from Loinel and removed the body to replace it,  but the ABS  plastic was badly warped -- it pinched nealry together in the center, and prevented my remounting the body even with the use of what I thought was a novel special tool I made and a carefully studied process I had thought out.  Eventually, I tried a lot of pressure on the body to keep it straight as I tried to re-assemble it,and  I cracked the body badly.  (So I bought another - the U-boat has the best diesel sound of any model I have heard, and have a lot of good spare parts, at least)

You're a brave man!

From IL PE to a NC PE

nice piece of M.E. engineering for an E.E.

And after all that work, is this the one that is having problems on the O36 curves?

Yes, it is.  I couldn't test it on O-36 curves until I cut it down, and then, or course . . . 

The ironic thing is that the WBB ten-wheeler I ran instead this after noon, after putting the Shay in the "mistake box", got exactly the same treatment (bandsaw, cutting down to fit under the tunnel) about a monthly earlier.  It runs perfectly.

Anyway, . . . .it was a fun project.

Just think of what you learned.

I learned that I won't be buying one of the Shea locomotives for my O36 curves!

Mine runs fine on 036 no matter which way it faces.

Good!  Your experience proves that the Shay can run well o O-36.  

I probably just got one that was not quite put together right.  

I figure it can't hurt to play with the tiny screws/bolts that hold the drive shafts - it has to be a matter of just a tiny fraction of an inch.  I'll do that next weekend . . . first chance I will have to spend some quality time with my locos . . . 

I hope you get it working.   I love the look of them, but if it's not going to run in an O36 environment, it's not for me.

I looked at mine.  I can tell it binds right around the angle required for O-36, and definately by the time its turned to what would be required for O-31.  

 But I have decided not to try to "fix" it.  I have pretty good confidence in my ability to repairing and making things from new, but I know my limits.  I think the drive mechanism in this Shay might be beyond me