my Roco Steamer
my Roco Steamer
This is Roco 2-10-0 steamer I spoke of. I believe it is an early BR44 model by Roco
When I first viewed this loco I thought perhaps it had just a very heavy small tender with a can motor that pushed the boiler unit. On closer inspection I found a drive shaft extending out the front of a flywheel that was mounted on that motor in the tender. This drive shaft went to some sort of gearbox in the boiler that provided rotation of the drivers of the boiler unit.
I could not determine the details of that gearbox, nor its robustness without further disassembly of the loco, which I did not want to do at this time. It appeared as though this gear box operated on the rearmost driver axle. The questions that remain in my mind are, 1) was this a real positive effort to provide driving power to those drive wheels, or 2) was it just an effort to provide rotation motion to the drivers??
That can motor in the tender also drove the 4 axles of the tender
Not sure of the exact details of this tender drive either, without further disassembly. I would rather like to find specific drawings/photos rather the taking my model apart at this time.
Some notable features of this Roco steamer:
1) There is a very unique and adjustable drawbar connection between the boiler and the tender. It allowed that very close spacing between the two, and it could adjust its length when negotiating tighter turns (supposedly as little as 18”)
Here are a few photos of the engine on some 22” track I had,..
There are 2 flexible panels on either side of the loco's cab area that hide that driveshaft between the two.
It took me a while to figure out how that special drawbar worked.
2) The axles on both the boiler and the tender are allowed to move side-to side by a considerable amount. This is one of the reasons she can run on small radius curves.
Here are the ones on the tender. Note that the side-to-side allowance is considerable, and that allows this tender to NOT have to use rotating trucks for even small r curves.
3) Here is another very similar model of theirs that makes use of traction tires on 4 of 8 of those tender wheels,...BR43?
I believe it might have been indicated that this loco didn't find a need to provide that drive shaft to the boiler drivers? (don't quote me on this yet, I need more time to research,...but the traction tires back there would seem to indicate this possibility)
EDITED: That BR 43 loco is the one I just purchased a couple of nights ago. I will disect it when it comes in, and get it a test run to compare with my other Roco steamer.