You really ought to think about canning those annoying disruptive telephone calls to him if you want your models delivered within a reasonable time.
If there are 100 people unnecessarily  ringing up and the average call takes 10 minutes, how many hours is the processing, packaging and posting procedure of the locos disrupted?
Let him do his work.

Generally good advise, but he did ask people to ring.  see:

http://eurekamodels.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/r-class-movements.html

If  I hadn't rung I would have been near the end of the  postout, if at all when I had fully paid. So I rang.  

Regards,
David Head

Generally good advise, but he did ask people to ring.  see:

http://eurekamodels.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/r-class-movements.html

If  I hadn't rung I would have been near the end of the  postout, if at all when I had fully paid. So I rang.  

Regards,
David Head

Some may have died or moved or something so ringing him is a good idea to update your details and also refresh his memory. Seeing as he asked to be contacted he must have the time. You only need confirm a few things, 10 minutes per phone call is a bit much you want to check your details etc not have a long chin wag with him.

Some may have died or moved or something so ringing him is a good idea to update your details and also refresh his memory. Seeing as he asked to be contacted he must have the time. You only need confirm a few things, 10 minutes per phone call is a bit much you want to check your details etc not have a long chin wag with him.

Eureka requested an update from all customers in September 2013, just on three months, I supplied information and he acknowledged such.  Why ring (or ask people to ring) when he has such recent detail from fully paid customers?

Maybe he is more interested in new revenue from part paid or new customers than supplying product to those who paid many years back?

Mark

Bill

I saw a similar method that you have mentioned, & I tried that & converted it back to how it was & simply put the extra bits of weight in the tank, along with the strip under the keeper plate.  I have always had a 1:40 grade on my layout before the lead weight was added that grade provided problems, now it provides none.

While adding the flashing to the rear or bunker unit is not needed, I have a strip for it just in case.

One thing I have found with all my plastic RTR models is that as the are run in a bit, & the polished tyres get some dirt on them, along with the smooth polished tread also looses their lustre the models all tend to pull better. Good idea to run them around the layout for several sessions with a non problematic load & wear the model in a bit.

I thought it might be a bogies taking too much weight off the drivers situation, so last Wed at my club I set up the same train of 14 Lima 4 wheel GY wagons and Z van and took both front and rear bogies of the loco, so that I had an 0-6-0 R class. Set it running on the same line, and it failed again on the same grade. So the problem wasnt that. Looks like I might see what happens with an application of Frog Snot to say the two rear driving wheels. application of this stuff is not irreversible and is used by some of the most fastidious modellers in our club.
I think there might also be something in the idea that a build-up of crud on the wheels might help.
fot the record, I tried my vintage Austrains 36, one of the first of the first batch, on the same train and it had no trouble getting up the hill with that load.
Later I put my full complement of GY wagons on, 28 plus van, and put my flat-top T in the shafts, and boy did it look good.

I thought it might be a bogies taking too much weight off the drivers situation, so last Wed at my club I set up the same train of 14 Lima 4 wheel GY wagons and Z van and took both front and rear bogies of the loco, so that I had an 0-6-0 R class. Set it running on the same line, and it failed again on the same grade. So the problem wasnt that. Looks like I might see what happens with an application of Frog Snot to say the two rear driving wheels. application of this stuff is not irreversible and is used by some of the most fastidious modellers in our club.
I think there might also be something in the idea that a build-up of crud on the wheels might help.
fot the record, I tried my vintage Austrains 36, one of the first of the first batch, on the same train and it had no trouble getting up the hill with that load.
Later I put my full complement of GY wagons on, 28 plus van, and put my flat-top T in the shafts, and boy did it look good.

I would try putting the bogies back on without the springs & see how it goes. The Austrains 36 as delivered in both batches are not the best pulling engines, with the 35 being slightly worse, the complete removal of the springs makes a difference to the pulling power though.

I would definitely look at putting some lead flashing above the 3 drivers if it was possible & if possible under the keeper plate between the drivers.

It certainly appears that the model is suffering from lack of adhesion if the wheels slip. But not if the locomotive just simply stalls, then it is a lack of motor power. It would be interesting, if someone could be bothered doing the measurement, to know what the weight of the locomotive only section is, and how the weight is distributed over the six drivers, i.e. is it tail heavy? Depending on the answers to these questions, you can then decide on how to add and place additional weight.

Adhesion is also affected by the type of metal used for the driving wheel tyres, in that nickel silver is more slippery than steel for example. These days the best material for driving wheels is probably stainless steel.

However I would never advocate the use of Bullfrog Snot, it is a very poor method of increasing adhesion. You loose power collection on those wheels and increase the amount of rubbish pick up by the wheels.

It certainly appears that the model is suffering from lack of adhesion if the wheels slip. But not if the locomotive just simply stalls, then it is a lack of motor power. It would be interesting, if someone could be bothered doing the measurement, to know what the weight of the locomotive only section is, and how the weight is distributed over the six drivers, i.e. is it tail heavy? Depending on the answers to these questions, you can then decide on how to add and place additional weight.

Adhesion is also affected by the type of metal used for the driving wheel tyres, in that nickel silver is more slippery than steel for example. These days the best material for driving wheels is probably stainless steel.

However I would never advocate the use of Bullfrog Snot, it is a very poor method of increasing adhesion. You loose power collection on those wheels and increase the amount of rubbish pick up by the wheels.

The TOR 32 has Stainless steel wheels, & I find they tend to pick up a lot of black muck on the wheels more so than other loco's, also being polished until the wheels are worn in a bit tend to also be more prone to slipping than the other NS fitted wheels.

As they wear in they do improve in the pulling power, the problem is really getting the weight distributed evenly, & why I like getting the lead flashing under the keeper plate right across the length of the driving wheels, rather than just in a single spot such as the dome.

I understand that other than the Rclass, the only remaining steam loco's to be built at the old SDK factory is the 59cl, not sure about the 38cl reruns which will mean the 59's are likely to come with the same problems if it comes with plastic body, anyway like the 40cl the 59cl were quite prone to slipping so may be prototypical I guess, but will be also a pain for the modeller to overcome.

The use of the snot, is it not designed more for using on models that have traction tyres?

Has anyone tried adding weight yet? If so how and where. Mine also has some issues with bits falling off. Brake gear under the tender, staff exchanger and no number on the tender. Also the loose brake gear caused it to derail and the fall plate broke as a result. It doesn't like the slight grade on my layout at all. All help gratefully accepted.

Has anyone tried adding weight yet? If so how and where. Mine also has some issues with bits falling off. Brake gear under the tender, staff exchanger and no number on the tender. Also the loose brake gear caused it to derail and the fall plate broke as a result. It doesn't like the slight grade on my layout at all. All help gratefully accepted.

Like like the real thing with the tender number plate falling off! haha

Bullfrog Snot is touted as being the answer to all sorts of problems, but it is no better than traction tyres, which in themselves are evil devices. The best approach is to increase the adhesive weight, which means adding weight over the drivers to increase weight on them alone.

But until someone can post here saying what the loco weighs, it is hard to give a figure. We also need to know if there is room in the boiler area. Under the keeper plate is dicey as often there is too little clearance there. Granted, it is probably the ideal place to add weight, as it is under the drivers and low down.

I think the centre driver on these things sits higher, or lower depending on your point of reference, so at any time only 4 drivers are actually touching the rails. I added a strip of lead to the keeper plate with some double sided tape but it still slips at low speed on the grade. Can someone else run a straight edge over the drivers to confirm my theory please.

Ok, removing the front spring actually makes it run worse. The pony truck is very light and derails easily.
So remove trailing tuck.
Remove pony truck
Remove 4 screws that hold the boiler onto the frame.
Top will come off
There is room for lead in the dome and I also got a piece above the motor.
Insulate with tape.
Reverse process to put back together.
I also slipped a strip of lead under the brake rigging and attached it to the keeper plate with double sided tape.
The only weight from the factory is in the smoke box. I think this is the problem. No weight over the drivers.
$600+
7 years wait and I'm pulling it apart 2 days after I got it to try and make it run.

I'll see if I can borrow some scales while I'm at work tomorrow and measure the weight of the loco on its own.

Unfortunately the front bogie is quite 'fleet of foot' and does come off most of the time (saying that some of the joins on my track are pretty bad and certainly do need fixing...!)

Wolfpac

Ok, removing the front spring actually makes it run worse. The pony truck is very light and derails easily.
So remove trailing tuck.
Remove pony truck
Remove 4 screws that hold the boiler onto the frame.
Top will come off
There is room for lead in the dome and I also got a piece above the motor.
Insulate with tape.
Reverse process to put back together.
I also slipped a strip of lead under the brake rigging and attached it to the keeper plate with double sided tape.
The only weight from the factory is in the smoke box. I think this is the problem. No weight over the drivers.
$600+
7 years wait and I'm pulling it apart 2 days after I got it to try and make it run.

While the model was without trucks did you see how much the lack of truck springs improves tractive effort? I have found springs on trucks can typically cause a decrease in tractive effort of over 20%. If you add some weight to the trucks they will track without any problem assuming your track work is OK, and have minimal impact on tractive effort.

Terry Flynn.

Terry, running it without the front spring seemed to make no difference to the tractive effort. However I am going to try adding weight to the truck and removing the spring, as despite all my mucking around, it STILL is not setting the world on fire going up grades (very slight ones) . Max load is 6 AW type coaches and the loco has to be run at top speed ,still, to make it up any sort of grade. It slips still going up also. I don't think I can fit anymore weight in  but I will pull it apart again and have another shot. I am also going to try Bullfrog Snot, as a last resort. Were the 38's this much trouble?

Terry, running it without the front spring seemed to make no difference to the tractive effort. However I am going to try adding weight to the truck and removing the spring, as despite all my mucking around, it STILL is not setting the world on fire going up grades (very slight ones) . Max load is 6 AW type coaches and the loco has to be run at top speed ,still, to make it up any sort of grade. It slips still going up also. I don't think I can fit anymore weight in  but I will pull it apart again and have another shot. I am also going to try Bullfrog Snot, as a last resort. Were the 38's this much trouble?

Before you go any further, get rid of the spring on the trailing truck if there is one.  Then check if the tender and carriages are free rolling. Do this by setting up a piece of track on a 1 in 50 grade. Your tender and carriages should roll down it without pushing. The Eureka 38's have no trouble pulling a 6 car hub set up 1 in 40 grades after the truck spring is removed. It had metal weights factory fitted to the lead truck so there is no derailing at high speed on reasonable track.

Terry Flynn.

Before you go any further, get rid of the spring on the trailing truck if there is one.  Then check if the tender and carriages are free rolling. Do this by setting up a piece of track on a 1 in 50 grade. Your tender and carriages should roll down it without pushing. The Eureka 38's have no trouble pulling a 6 car hub set up 1 in 40 grades after the truck spring is removed. It had metal weights factory fitted to the lead truck so there is no derailing at high speed on reasonable track.

Terry Flynn.

I shall have a crack at this tonight. Thanks.

Could someone answer sensibly a question I have. I am not slinging mud here just asking though.

Why is it that Eureka have a lot of problems with models, while others only seem to have minor things, Trainorama gears in locomotives aside. Eureka seem to have the knack of making as many foul ups as possible on any one model. Yes I know there are mistakes on other models, but Eureka's mistakes all seem to be major ones and easily seen as well in most cases, minor ones are not so much of a problem in general. Is it just me or do others think like this too.

I would like to get an R class but with all these problems popping up I think I will try for a brass one or similar. I will probably end getting a Eureka R class though. All I ask it that it pulls a prototypical load up a grade without stalling or slipping it is not much to ask and other locomotives I have steam ones will usually pull more than a prototypical load before they start to protest. My Bachmann Tornado model is one such loco on a test in a British railway model magazine it pulled twice what the real one can in the way of cars and still had some power left for more. Not being unreasonable but pulling power to me should be more priority than anything else really.

Hi all
     Got my R707 today, so finally was able to do the Warrenheip reinactment, a long time coming
     but we got there !
[img]http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u37/transam351/BTR_zpsf6e87c47.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u37/transam351/IMG_0137_zpsa0f9ff9d.jpg[/img]

    Cheers

Could someone answer sensibly a question I have. I am not slinging mud here just asking though.

Why is it that Eureka have a lot of problems with models, while others only seem to have minor things, Trainorama gears in locomotives aside. Eureka seem to have the knack of making as many foul ups as possible on any one model. Yes I know there are mistakes on other models, but Eureka's mistakes all seem to be major ones and easily seen as well in most cases, minor ones are not so much of a problem in general. Is it just me or do others think like this too.

I would like to get an R class but with all these problems popping up I think I will try for a brass one or similar. I will probably end getting a Eureka R class though. All I ask it that it pulls a prototypical load up a grade without stalling or slipping it is not much to ask and other locomotives I have steam ones will usually pull more than a prototypical load before they start to protest. My Bachmann Tornado model is one such loco on a test in a British railway model magazine it pulled twice what the real one can in the way of cars and still had some power left for more. Not being unreasonable but pulling power to me should be more priority than anything else really.

I would suggest that a lot of the problems are certainly quality control from the factory, & so far we have not seen any new models from their new factory, I also tend to think that after a while the importers end up just wanting the model to get here & let things go a bit when they check out the final production sample, reason being any changes at that time ends up costing serious dollars.

Certainly what we have seen so far is locomotive models made from plastic, which has no weight at in it, a reason that TOR changed the boiler & body from plastic to metal on the 32cl to hope that it would pull better, that along with gear drive to all wheels certainly helped it.  The change from the plastic body to metal also caused delays as well as the $100.00 price rise as new tooling was required, something I doubt that Eureka could have done for the Rclass to be a viable product. A reason I suggest that all the future Steam models will all have gears & metal bodies, the exception may be with the 59cl which would depend on which factory is producing it, & how far advanced the tooling was/is with the change over.  If its done in plastic without gears for the driving wheels, it will be quite prototypical owing to how easy the 1:1 version was very slippery on its feet.

The other issue is the amount of parts that simply fall off models, which has plagued the plastic stuff from the beginning, especially when its all plastic, or Delrin that is not glued into position to make the bits secure. Judging by the photo's I have seen the front bogie on the R really is very basic & hard to see there is any substance to it weight wise, certainly the bogie frame looks to sit high as the wheels also look large.  The rear bogie though should be more solid owing there being more in the frame work of it, but being Delrin also not a lot of overall weight.

Without weight above the bogies, with the spring removed they simply are not heavy enough to hold themselves on the track, as that is the reason for the spring to keep pressure on them to not derail, catch 22, unless metal bogies are made with insulation on them.

Unfortunately with so many modellers wanting all the detail possible whether seen or not, with calls for finer tolerances in the end reliability suffers.

This Austrains 36 class I've been working on, also suffers from a VERY light front bogie. Rather than adding weight to it, I just removed enough of the spring so that it still applies a very small amount of downward pressure on the bogie. It works well.....spring does not detract from tractive effort but does keep the bogie on the track.

Roachie.

I got an answer about the Eureka R Class weights, and the Eureka engine only section weighs around 250 grams, while the SEM engine only weighs in at 400 grams. So the SEM model is roughly 60% heavier, and that will account for quite a bit of performance difference. As has been pointed out by 'a6et', plastic steam locomotive bodies are just too light.

So if you want you Eureka R Class to perform better, then you need to be looking to add around 150 grams or more of additional weight to the locomotive only.

This Austrains 36 class I've been working on, also suffers from a VERY light front bogie. Rather than adding weight to it, I just removed enough of the spring so that it still applies a very small amount of downward pressure on the bogie. It works well.....spring does not detract from tractive effort but does keep the bogie on the track.

Roachie.

Bill

I have 4 of the 36cl, one from the original run & 3 from the current run, on the old layout prior to moving here, which had 1:40 grade with 22" radius curve the original would pull around 6 TOR RU's & van without slipping to a stand with spring in place, removal of the spring gave me 1 extra RU plus an S truck, not significant but still more.

With the full spring in place its possible to see the front driving wheel just off the rail on a straight section of track, no matter level or on a grade, cut the spring in half, & the front driver sits on the rail, seemingly problem solved, however put the model on a curve & you can see the outside front driving wheel is still off the rail, & cutting the spring in half again, barely has the wheel touching the rail but as soon as it moves the wheel comes up & again the loco stops moving.  

Take the bogie off & the model lifts the load on the grade & curve, put the bogie back on with the lead weight in place & it moves off no problem, & I do not have the problem with the light bogie derailing anywhere..  From my perspective, far easier to simply remove the spring in the first place & add the weight to the top of the bogie, rather than the muck around of getting just the right amount of spring pressure on the bogie.

I set about adding the weight to the top of the bogie barely 4mm wide on both sides of the cutout, I added thin strips of lead to the inside of the Main Reservoir tanks both sides, a flat piece inside the smokebox, a curved piece to the inside cab roof, & small amount on the floor in front of both cab seats.  That added an extra 2 BWH, & another RU to the load on that grade.

While the lead on the body certainly made the biggest difference, the removal of the spring also made some difference.  I have also adopted the spring removal from all my other plastic models & it has helped also.  The Eureka garratt was typical of light type garratts as it would slip to a stand on the front tank unit, remove the spring & it helped with a couple of extra 4 wheelers, then add the flashing under the keeper plate, with some small shims inside the tank brings the pulling power up to what I see as a prototypical load of BWH on a 1:40 grade for a light type garratt, something mine did not do prior to the mods.

My current layout has a similar grade to that of the old layout, that is 1:40 but this time its on a minimum radius of 28" rather than the 22" of the old layout but its still a tight grade & tests the models.

... A reason I suggest that all the future Steam models will all have gears & metal bodies, the exception may be with the 59cl which would depend on which factory is producing it, & how far advanced the tooling was/is with the change over.  If its done in plastic without gears for the driving wheels, it will be quite prototypical owing to how easy the 1:1 version was very slippery on its feet.

a6et,

I remember reading somewhere that the D59 will have gear drive to all axles.  However, don't know if it also said a cast boiler.  I wonder if 8 drivers might help.  Probably not because that puts less weight on each axle for the same mass unit.  However, an extra set of wheels might give more friction.  Dunno, have to wait until my D50 gets here and try it out.

Best regards,
John

Returning to the subject of this thread, anyone know where I can get 150+g of depleted uranium?  I might need some when my R class eventually strives.
Mark