Father Christmas has been particularly observant this year. He somehow spotted me looking at the hobby bench grinder that was on offer in Lidl!
Something I've always quite fancied and never really had much experience of using. Of course you have to test these things and I found some suitably worn pickups for test purposes:
I was able to re-profile the pickup spoons and polish them up, they came up pretty well and can certainly be used:
Time to try some more, deeply grooved ones, using the soldering technique that I've used before. Clamp the spoon in the vice, clean and then apply solder:
Which leaves this rather ugly finish:
But after grinding:
I also acquired some polishing compound, this shines them up an absolute treat:
Meanwhile, back in the loft, after completing (hopefully) the VEP, I turned to another locomotive that's never been run outside the loft. A Bachmann class 25. I have two of these, the other is a Hornby and is much lighter. As this one has modern couplings it's been pretty useless so far but it's low speed gearing and weight distribution means that it has potential to be a good runner.
The coupling was cut away and an old truck coupling was riveted into the remains of the original coupling. The height is almost perfect:
For testing purposes, I dug out the three coaches in the picture below. It's worth pointing out that the green SR coach is badly corroded, filthy and very stiff on its wheels. The two other coaches don't run that much better so in effect, the resistance of these three coaches is probably the same as running six passenger coaches. The Bachmann class 25 pulls them with very little effort - no slippage, no derailments and perfect running over the new test track.
So with the VEP and the Class 25 working, I decided to revisit my first ever three rail conversion experiment. The clue is in the background, two pictures up!
The Pacer.
Not British Rail's finest hour, not Hornby's finest hour and certainly not something a purist would ever want to see whizzing around a three rail layout. This was bought at a time when I had very little stock and was looking to experiment on cheap rolling stock, eventually installing Castle / 8F plunger pickups in each end and wiring the two coaches together (as the couplings are broken)
Needless to say if you've read my ramblings about the VEP, this thing is lighter, has fewer wheels and two plungers that are very tight. Basically it ran in a straight line only and would then just wheel spin at the sight of a bend or a pair of points. Also the pickups are mounted so far forward of the axle that they can drop between the centre rail and the outer running rails. A lightweight, low-resistance solution was required and I suddenly have a couple of spare sets of shiny pickup shoes!
Time for more creativity:
One of these mounted towards the centre of the train, one in each coach and lined up perfectly over the top (or underneath) the non-driven axles:
And the result is, it works! - No derailments, no more wheel spins. Scale speed is far above the 75mph you would normally find in one of these.
Probably the only Pacer allowed on three rail!
But the question is, do I exhibit it..?
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