SUPER CHUFFER RULE 17 IN ACTION

Very nice Alex.  Its like getting a new loc when you add features like this.  I wonder when Lionel will add Rule 17 to their Legacy engines?

 

Very nice Alex the smoke and the green marker lights look great. 

Looking good Alex. The Mikado is kind of dwarfed by the SP Cab Forward at the end.

well done my friend

Steve

Looks Good - Did you replace the mech puffer smoke unit with a fan driven one??

Question I always had  Did steam engines have radio communications?  Did they have a Rule 17 ability?

 

They do now Ben!

 

Yep, the Super-Chuffer is only for fan-driven smoke units.

 

Guess I should have added that when these engines were released by Lionel (2000 - 2001 CY) they came with a mechanical puffer smoke unit - not a fan driven one. I have this engine and is one of my favorites - but I don't like the mech. puffer smoke unit.

It is possible to swap them out for a fan driven unit, and then you can have a Super-Chuffer installed as well.

 

Thanks for all the great comment's,  yes I installed a fan driven smoke unit in this engine. it originally had a puffer unit

 

 

Alex

Very nice. Looking good.

A few steam engines may have had radio communication in the late 1940's and early 1950's. All the noise in a cab would have interfered.

 

They had a Rule 17 ability. A headlight can blind oncoming crews. At first a shade was placed over a headlight to dim it. Electric headlights were dimmed, as Alex's video demonstrates.

 

The Reading main line above Pottstown, PA, paralled Route 422. I saw RDC engineers dim the headlight so it wouldn't blind drivers on the highway.

Found on another forum.

 

Here's an example of an earlier version of rule 17, from the Santa Fe's 1927 Rules and Regulations, Operating Department:

"17. The headlight will be displayed to the front of every train by night. It must be concealed or extinguished when a train turns out to meet another and has stopped clear of main track, or is standing to meet a train at the end of double track or junctions. It must be dimmed while standing in stations where yard engines are employed.

"17(A). When an engine is running backward a white light must be displayed by night on the rear of the tender."

The illustration accompanying 17(A) in the book shows that this rule could be satisfied by use of a white lantern.

Also note the rule for yard engines:

"18. Yard engines will display the headlight to the front and rear by night. When not provided with a headlight at the rear, a white light must be displayed. Yard engines will not display markers."

Notice that no mention is made of turning the headlight on or off depending on the direction of travel, an artifact of model railroading.

On the Santa Fe, the rule book didn't require use of the headlight in daytime until the 1953 edition, although there's some photo evidence that the practice started a few years earlier.

They already have this for at least 2 years.  I believe this is where the desire arose.

I guess I should be getting myself a new engine

 

Alex,

 

The LEDs in the marker lights look great. I have recieved a lot of compliments on the LEDs you installed In my M1a. Keep up the great work.

 

JohnB

The genesis of the Rule 17 lighting and cab lighting control for the Super-Chuffer was that most of my Legacy locomotives have those features.  I figured if they could have them, so could I on my conversions.

 

blueline4c - there were few steamers with radio communications; some toward

the end of steam had it, but the reason that they did not have it has to do with

radio technology, and not the steam locomotive. Portable radio technology was crude,

clumsy, delicate, expensive, undependable - and unnecessary. Not that it hasn't become a

valuable tool, but RR'ing had been going on for over a century in 1950, and didn't

need radio to function well.

 

Rule 17 - steam locomotive headlights were controlled by a switch in the cab. 

Really nice job, Alex. Huge improvement and I do like the green marker lights.

Wow Alex,

 

It looks, sounds, and  runs like a new engine! The green marker lghts look so much better than the original red ones. 

 

Thanks for changing her from a "Roundhouse queen" to a "main line king" once again.

 

Richard

Alex

Great job on that engine!!
You made an older engine new again. It runs really well and the smoke as usual is abundant. The led lights really change the look of the engine.

Awesome upgrades as usual.

Mike R