Gallery – N&W class M (English captions)

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- N&W – class M twelve wheeler -

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This is a model built after prototypes of Norfolk and Western Railway - a 4-8-0 of class M twelve-wheeler.

A different view of N&W class M model in HO-scale, imported by Sunset Models in 1999 and equipped with a long 6-axle tender as they run in later years of services.

The model, shown is the side of fireman. The wheel arrangement 4-8-0 is a more seldom one and it's more yet rarely to find a slow freight engine with a 4-wheel leading truck.

Nice looking model and I think that this will be the right steam engine for my 1930 freight train.

The 475 - the only existiing steam engine of class M, now in a regular tourist train service on Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania. A free usable picture after rules of Creative Commons.

One of these class M engines of N&W which is equipped with a large six-axle tender. This engine looks with its tender very close to my brass model. Copyright NWHS.org

A picture with two of these engines of class M - after original caption ''waiting for the trip to scrap yard''. In front the ''422'', prototype of my model however with a regular 8-wheel tender. A free usable picture after rules of Creative Commons.

Three M's including #393 and #481 pictured after a head-on collision at Rippon, WV. Also the third engine has been heavily damaged. Copyright NWHS.org

Again the 475 of Strasburg Rail Road in front of a short freight train. A free usable picture after rules of Creative Commons.

The no. 422 - ''my'' engine! This picture shows that the model of my collection obviously seems to agree with the model in every respect. This picture shows the loco with a six-axle tender, even if there exist other pictures of this locomotive!

Please look, is this a well looking distance of engine to tender? I think that I ought to shorten this!

And now the errors are well visible! Which height of foot boards is correct? That one on the tender is positioned extremely over that on the loco and this ought to be wrong, I think!

A view inside and a surprise - the shaft of motor drives directly the worm of gear without a flexible connection! Good or bad? However the motor is softly fixed with a spring and can follow the movements of axle and gear.

Is there in the boiler enough place for a speaker? Currently a big lead block is mounted into the front of boiler and smokebox.

The running gear is well sprung, a seldom realized solution. In most cases the springs are too strong and press the bearings only against a strong bottom plate. I think that this is a permanently wrong solution which I try to correct by soft springs, every times!

This looks very well! The wheels follow the uneven rails und this is an extremely heavy step in the track here!

However, there are some problems in opposite direction! The rised wheels of leading truck lift also all wheels of enigine out of the last one. This needs some changes for a better rail contact of all wheels while all situations!

Now, the work can start! The tender as first with all mechanical changes.

The outer wheels of each truck received additional power feeders on the insulated wheels.

This small screws prevent a too wide sideward move of trucks because these could turn 360 degrees before.

The bore on side with the pickup contacts were deepened and equipped with small steel balls in order to reduce the friction in the axial direction. And the tender rolls a lot better!

As seen before the height of foot steps was not that what could be called correctly - I thought that the tender boards ought to be changed as the most simple way for correctness.

The tender foot board has been lowered to a height which fits the engine very well and I added a new shovel board as help for the fireman on a hand-fired steam engine.

The engine received also new cab apron that not was to mount with the different and wrong height of foot boards before.

A view from the side shows also the reduced distance of engine and tender and so I received a good looking impression of this model together with the cab apron, I think.

The coupler at the pilot was a dummy only how in nearly all cases of imported brass models. How I should to switch a train with such a not working coupler?

Sorry, but a Kadee coupler box was not to install at the pilot! My solution - a special fixing without a coupler box only by using a very thin and softly working phosphor-bronce wire.

A view of below on the mounted pilot with the new installed no. 158 coupler.

And a regular shot on the pilot with its new and now working coupler including a small addition - a connection link from the coupler lift rod to knuckle lock lift.

Yet the frame looks like before, almost an identical image to one of the previous one, but almost not needed parts were removed.

Insulated bushings for the planned additional power pickups were quick to install, but for reasons of space, there are only these two.

However, this does worry! The axial play of the axles amounts a little bit more than to one millimeter (.04 in) - and this is contra-productively for the additional power pickups!

But how to take remedial action? Maybe by spacer rings made from MS-wire, which is annealed as first and then wound around a rod?

Yes, cutting the helix into separated rings by a fine saw-cut ...

... and thus I received a whole lot of raw rings by an only saw-cut!

Each ring is hit flatly with two, three blows of a small hammer as first.

Now the rings must be reduced with a fine file to the necessary Thickness and this goes best on the fingertip.

The ring must be spread and pulled over the axle ...

... and press it back again where the use of the bearings is a good help, with both hands, of course. (Here I needed the second hand shooting this picture.)

A last aligning with a flat plier and bending back the ring into a closed shape - done!

This is the result of the correction, which is substantially reduced axle play and still far enough to drive through normal curves.

These are the parts for the power pickup at the loco; two contact pins and a narrow metal strip with contact springs which I glued on an insulating surface.

Important, the mounting option - a plastic bush with a thread hole, which was glueed into the frame. Therefore, all parts for power pickup are isolated against the frame!

So it looks mounted, including the two contact pins which slide inside of the tires on third and fourth axle, and a fine litz wire for power transmission.

Ready! The engine runs autonomously without the tender now, that previously brought the second pole onto the motor.

A small thing only, however one which looks extremely bad in my eyes - such ''horrible'' oversized screws for fixing the excenters.

Here's how it's going too! This looks definitely better and more realistic with this setscrew, however it is really very small with .05in diameter and .06in length!

The change for securing the excentric is even better to see here and so the solution is really acceptable.

Now a test run with full equipment, again without the tender. However the same including tender gives the model a significantly improved power supply!

I am sure to handle quite carefully with my models, and, nevertheless, this gear part was broken while working without a warning at an eye with an extremely weak edges.

Fortunately the parts were easily to solder together with a spacer ring behind them.

The repair was a more simple thing, however this picture shows another problem. Recognize the unusual length of this combination lever, which moves just above the rails!

A picture repeated from the beginning here, only to show a comparison, how this lever looks at prototype!

A picture with the shortened combination lever and think that this shows a lot closer to prototype.

Unfortunately, this change was not quite successful! There had been a mistake with the shortened lever. So I must change it again, the lever was a bit too short!

Which speaker is the best one to place it in the smoke box and sounds good, a RailMaster one or by Uhlenbrock? The smoke box will defintively the best place for a speaker!

Of course, a few pins had to be smoothed and even the stack had to be shortened inside, but the Uhlenbrock speaker fits in comfortably and even with a sound capsule.

The speaker is clamped into the smoke box held by the slightly enlarged back of the sound capsule and can also be removed again, should it be necessary.

There is also enough space for the wiring behind the smoke box front plate, ...

... and thus the lighting of front and classification lamps works when even without a decoder in moment.

This was how the installation setup looked like, when I wanted to test different speakers in order to find the best possible sound. But it came differently!

Now, after the dilemma with the decoders a repetitive picture, all the lamps on door of smoke box is newly wired!

The cabling on the back is secured with a two componet resin so I should receive an absolute safety against short circuits.

This picture is also an iteration, but now with a temporarely used old decoder in the test setup, where a possible loss would not be so dramatically.

Just some time ago installed, but now the cab lighting is also connected.

Again a look inside, where I always try to give a bit of clarity. Above all, there should be no cables or other obstacles which will interfere the motor!

The locomotive is now ready - and all functions can be used as wished. It's not to recognice here that the wheels rotate, the exposure time was probably a little too short.

At last the tender is connected and thus everything is now ready for operation, the power feeders on the locomotive and tender are working as well as the reversing lamp. And why all this in such small steps - because I still just do not know the cause of the multiple decoder failure.

The wiring for the TCS decoder is completely prepared, now the ''hot'' commissioning takes place. The last new part is the keep-alive unit which I replaced also receiving an absoletely new digitalzing with 100 percent new components!

Once again a step-by-step commissioning, first the motor - it runs!

Now the lighting - is working like wished!

Finally the rest, sound and tender lighting. This is the result where I have been several times! Until to next morning where all decoders before were burnt with the first ''power on''. And why? I don't have an answer until now!

A picture almost like at beginning, but now with working electronics inside. I am very satisfied with the result, even if I did not install a second speaker into tender.

But small problems came nevertheless. There was so a fine jerking especially at very slow speeds! This broken washer in the gear box was one of the triggers!

A picture where you can see the problem more clearly yet, which was one of the causes of jerking. However there are more reasons yet!

In addition, it's never a really good solution where the gearbox is mounted directly on the motor shaft. Motor and gear will have different axial plays and so they are generally hindering each other.

The solution comes in the form of a ball joint that I want to insert and so I had to dig deep into the trick box again - making of a swivel head from a railing post of ship modeling.

Also the motor will be replaced by a new one from Faulhaber which is pictured here together with the new drive shaft. Does this rebuilding work although I plan to use only one ball joint?

Of course, a new engine mount needs to be made and I've been thinking about how it can work in spite of a sprung axle and a single ball joint.

A fixed assembly of the motor on the frame was not possible, but a double-sided torque prop is probably the best solution to the mutual and nevertheless movable positioning of motor and gear.

Again a picture of finished odel? Yes, however the problem with decoder and core-less motor is actuelly furthermore!

A last small change, center holes on axles are added. A small detail and almost to overlook, but for me an absolutely necessary detail!

There were some discussions with TCS staff because the need of a full usable decoder also for models with a coreless motor ...

... and some days later I received some pictures of the Strassburg 475 where new sound files were recorded with this engine for their decoders!

Some members of TCS crew on picture who worked on that class M engine which is a very close prototype to my model! And the last one of this class in a daily tourist service.

The gallery by Dan Drennen with very nice pictures of N&W class M no. 382

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

Norfolk and Western class M #382 on tracks of Strasburg Rail Road. Photo and copyright Dan Drennen.

• A special thank to Dan Drennen from Hatboro, Pennsylvania
for permission of use his pictures on this website! See also his gallery on Facebook.

I have inserted this first video of this locomotive model here on this page because it belongs to this content. It was the first chance to run this model on a very small modular layout where I could present this model to my friends.
You will find many more videos abaout my trains in collected form on my video page Züge-Züge-Züge – my trains, of course.

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