? Building a powered tender to boost pulling power of a scale Steam engine? any tips?

You will be the first.  Pull it apart and look.  The steel floor of an MTH Diesel is easily cut with a hacksaw, and you will need to do a lot of cutting. The two floor halves can be re-joined with brass bars and screws.

An easier way is to park the aux tender, and get another GS-4.  You can see plenty of photos of double-shotted steam on the Daylight going up Cuesta Grade.  I saw personally two Daylights with full skirts on passenger trains in 1949/50.  They ran through my back yard.

I think Bob2 is right. Powering the tender would be tough to keep it looking scale. You would have to find a diesel with the same wheel base as the tender to do a good job. IMHO.

Good Luck.

Ron

An option is to power one of the passenger cars.  The lead truck of the second or third car behind the tender might be the best.  Baggage car or RPO.  John in Lansing, ILL

FYI, if you power a passenger car you might consider an MTH SW diesel or Scaleking F3 for the donor as they use lower (shorter, or shorter flywheels) RS-365 motors which might fit without hitting the roof of baggage car.

Have you thought of adding weight to the locomotive? I'm presuming the locomotive is slipping rather than stalling under load.

AGHRMatt posted:

Have you thought of adding weight to the locomotive? I'm presuming the locomotive is slipping rather than stalling under load.

That's my guess. The locomotive should have enough power to move 10-12 cars on flat track, unless the wheels on the cars don't turn freely, then all bets are off. 

bob2 posted:

You will be the first.  Pull it apart and look.  The steel floor of an MTH Diesel is easily cut with a hacksaw, and you will need to do a lot of cutting. The two floor halves can be re-joined with brass bars and screws.

An easier way is to park the aux tender, and get another GS-4.  You can see plenty of photos of double-shotted steam on the Daylight going up Cuesta Grade.  I saw personally two Daylights with full skirts on passenger trains in 1949/50.  They ran through my back yard.

Darn!I wish I could have seen that.I bet they shook the ground as they pounded the rail going by.And I bet the passenger train was longer than your normal train.

They were usually pretty slow.  It seemed like a ten car train would go by every hour.   I am sure some of them were Golden States - but there were heavyweights, Daylight cars, and Golden Rocket cars. Great fun to watch.

I was just a kid - the frightening one was the Sunset, coming through at midnight. Sounded like a tornado - did not slow down for the depot.  Often part of a nightmare!  Diesel-powered.

Before you get too crazy,  weight on drivers and free rolling ability of the cars is crucial.   As for weight there is always room for some lead weights somewhere.   As to your news cars just make sure the wheels are in gauge and roll freely.   I pull alot of tinplate O gauge and occasional oiling is a must. 

As for putting a motor in the tender or a car there is certainly precedent in the real world and in modeling.   Some high end o scale models of smaller locomotives have been offered with a powered tender truck as the only propulsion.   Several carnival rides and even one full size steam engine were equipped or retrofitted the same way. Lego trains are commonly offered this way as well,  even very detailed custom engines.  And lets not forget that many large steam locomotives were equipped with booster engines either on the tender or loco trailing truck assembly. 

Starting with a donor railing diesel is how I would attack the issue,  although the two rail options are more limited. 

Assuming you are running full dcs, creating a lash-up is easy. 

Good luck 

When you said “old 10 car set” the first thing I thought of was the trucks. I have not seen many old trucks from the 1950’s and back that roll good out of the box. The first thing I would do is make sure the cars roll freely, very freely. You may want to replace the trucks if they are rolling the the brakes are on. 

What is the radius of your curves? Do you have any grades on the main line? 

Add as much weight as you can in that boiler. Make sure your cars roll freely. If that doesn't get you where you want to be, do what the real railroads do... add a helper engine on the front or rear 

This discussion reminds me of the old AHM 0-8-0 switcher that had auxiliary drive on the tender.

Dick

I knew of a person who had a Kohs GG1 and wanted to pull a nice reasonable train of mixed passenger cars, all brass, I would say around 7.  The engine itself was the pittman drive version and was loaded with lead but still not enough so he had a custom baggage car built by Jerry Snow which mated nicely with the GG.  

For the MTH loco, if you will keep command in it, your best bet is as most folks suggest get a doner diesel and kit bash it into a car.

Another option I am taking.  I have a JLC N&W Y6b and its tender is heavy as heck.  Luckily I was able to source a PSC brass tender which is considerably lighter.  I will be putting in ball bearings and painting soon, unfortunately, this project has been on my workbench for several months but the potential is there.

pitogo posted:

I knew of a person who had a Kohs GG1 and wanted to pull a nice reasonable train of mixed passenger cars, all brass, I would say around 7.  The engine itself was the pittman drive version and was loaded with lead but still not enough so he had a custom baggage car built by Jerry Snow which mated nicely with the GG.  

For the MTH loco, if you will keep command in it, your best bet is as most folks suggest get a doner diesel and kit bash it into a car.

Another option I am taking.  I have a JLC N&W Y6b and its tender is heavy as heck.  Luckily I was able to source a PSC brass tender which is considerably lighter.  I will be putting in ball bearings and painting soon, unfortunately, this project has been on my workbench for several months but the potential is there.

Welcome back Michael!!! 

My JLC Y6b is a great puller, FWIW.

A couple of things:
Is your loco fairly new/unrun? I bought a new 3rd Rail PRR K-4 that wouldn't pull at all. After running it for a while it vastly improved. You could go to a lot of trouble and disassemble your loco and check to see that the unpowered chassis rolls freely.
On your cars: Build an inclined track that you can adjust for grade. From way back in my HO days, the rule was a car should not roll on a grade less than 1% and must roll on a grade of 1% or greater. if your passenger cars don't roll on a 1% grade you need to refurbish or upgrade your trucks.

bob2 posted:

You will be the first.  Pull it apart and look.  The steel floor of an MTH Diesel is easily cut with a hacksaw, and you will need to do a lot of cutting. The two floor halves can be re-joined with brass bars and screws.

An easier way is to park the aux tender, and get another GS-4.  You can see plenty of photos of double-shotted steam on the Daylight going up Cuesta Grade.  I saw personally two Daylights with full skirts on passenger trains in 1949/50.  They ran through my back yard.

Ron H posted:

I think Bob2 is right. Powering the tender would be tough to keep it looking scale. You would have to find a diesel with the same wheel base as the tender to do a good job. IMHO.

Good Luck.

Ron

C&O Allie did just this with his CSS Aux Tender. But he had to supplement his Lionel CSS due to the Pullmor motor. The link to that thread is below. If you have any questions, I'd check in with him. Unfortunately, His photos are on Photobucket and are blurred out. Hopefully he'll chime in.

https://ogrforum.com/...51#72805549148226151

Hi Rob, thanks.  First time checking in, in years.  Not very active in the hobby.

Hi Rex, Mine was 2 railed and has no traction tires.  Steel wheels on steel rail... As is it does pull well but has much more potential with a brass tender.

Hi,

I would add weight first.

I added weight to an MTH N&W J and it pulls 12 cars up a 3 percent grade now with no problem. It could pull more but my siding for this train doesn't hold any more cars. The train consists of 4 weaver head end cars, 2 heavy Overland brass cars and 6 Golden Gate aluminum cars. I bought a variety of tungsten weights from Mi-tech metals and wrapped them in sticky back velcro to place them in various places in the engine.

I've was wondering last week what was up with Mike Pitogo. I hadn't seen anything from him in a while.

I forgot about plated drivers.  Some Sunset imports came with nickel plated driver tires.  They would slip pretty easily for the first hour or so, then the plating would flake off and the steel would bite the rails.  I think MTH used similar tires on their 2-rail steam.

I have a 4-4-2 with cast iron drivers and small Pittman.  It walks away with ten heavy Kasiner and Mac Shops cars with heavy wood floors and Lobaugh trucks.

If the cars have wipers, I would get rid of them....