WESTPORT TERMINAL RR

BLT 2002

update Aug 2004

Pick up for the P2K 0-8-0  tender

0-8-0 out of the box

Westport Terminal RR has got a steam engine: Life Like's P2K 0-8-0. This engine should get a ESU Loksound2 decoder. At first I equipped the tender with electrical pick up. You will find more infos at Gerry Leone's site or from Gerry Hopkins.

I've used this method already with my commuter train cab car:

commuter cab car   commuter cab car, with LED

pick up at commuter cab car

 

Tender

The first picture shows the wire. I used steel wire with 0,3mm (0.01'') diameter. You'll get it from Walthers. Piano wire or phosphore bronze wire will work too. I bent a loop which fits just into the hole, the truck has already.

wires for tender pick up

The upper wire is inserted and fixed with ACC. It's also bent so that the ends just touch the wheel flange. The lower wire is not yet installed.

installing 1   installing 2   installing 3

The speaker found its place where the coal pile used to be!

speaker installing

Here you see the wires from the trucks. The holes I made a little bit wider.    I've removed from the weight the unused parts to make a better place for the decoder.

wires from pick up

installing decoder

open tender and loco

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There's room enough for the decoder. The arrow shows the little connector for the speaker. So you can remove the body for better working.

The switcher went into service!

new out of the box

But now I recognized: the tractive effort was too little! This engine needed lead.

lead into the boiler   lead into the cab floor

The boiler got bruised grain lead and the cabin got lead at the floor and under the cab roof.

measuring tractive effort

Tractive Effort without additional lead: 0.39 Newton and with lead 0.49 Newton, 25% more!

This is not much. My Kato GP WT 512 has no additional weight and has a force of 0.76 N and the Kato switcher NW2 has 0.74 N.



With no grades traffic effort is no problem. So this switcher with sound is a pleasure first class to drive. You drive so slowly listening for the sound. And the engine look right. Peter "poured out his bucket with dirt over this engine". His words!

an very old and dirty engine

 

Still any questions?     Write to Wolfgang Dudler

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© Wolfgang Dudler