Thanks to those who responded so graciously and accurately in timely fashion to
my EA decaling question. The photo is especially nice, not only answering the
direct question, but raising the question of “Who is at the throttle?” as this
TC Zephyr is sweeping around a bend to a stop (it is probably the fireman
hanging out the left hand door)!
I am finding once again that the Oriental/KMT body shell modeled from these
six identical EA early diesels is really quite good, and very finely finished.
I live little criticism, aside from “excessive shine?”. The B-B chassis is
driven by typical noisy KMT tower drives with plastic gears and vinyl
universals connecting to a 2032 can motor through intermediate cardan shafts.
Our of box, it did not run well, could not negotiate sharper curves, and the
noise was distracting. I will be painting all the grills black, as well as the
recesses around the exhaust stacks. I will also install windshield wipers and
a crew in the green house cab.
The can motor is of a make and type that I had not seen before, and I found
that one of motor brushes had come loose from its soldered connection to its
sprung mount. The end of the motor was removable (1.4 mm. set screws), and I
successfully resoldered the brush. The strong ring magnet was an ALNICO metal,
not the expected ceramic magnet deemed common to modern can motors (other early
can motors, Sagami, etc. also had Alnico or Ferrite magnets). I rubber mounted
the motor, lubed every bearing and geared interface (laBelle silicone grease,
and 108). As is my routine, I also installed power pickups to enable all-wheel
pickup.
The problems with curve negotiation were definitively solved deep-sixing the
very stiff clear vinyl drive line tubing in favor of silastic (silicone rubber)
tubing.
These simple and straight forward fixes dramatically improved quality of
operation, and…important to me….reduced noise to at least what may be
tolerable. I have a temporary DCC TCS A1 decoder in place, awaiting imminent
install of a Tsunami 2 decoder with one of two sugar cube speakers. Will the
drive noise drown out the Tsunami….? Time will tell.
These very short locomotives had the same @900hp EMC Winton engines that the
E5s did, which they and other E’s to follow did in a much longer car body. The
difference seems to be because the EA's had no steam generator (nor the water
storage needs), nor the front end safety spaces, nor the long wheel base three
axle A-1-A, or 1-A-A trucks the other early diesels and ff. needed to reduce
the excessive at-speed nosing commonly experienced with B-B locomotives at the
time, both diesel and electric. It is interesting that these locomotives could
only pull trains provided with otherwise independent steam generation, and I
suspect the photos showing these locomotives so often paired up with various
E’s was simply because their steam generation was the only alternative
available.
I have also recently rebuilt extensively Hallmark/KMT E5’s, using only the
original car bodies and floors as cores. If interested, I will write this up
at another time. I find that I have an orphan Hallmark E5 B unit (dummy) that
I expect to have no use for (an E5 ABB set does look spectacular, but…..). If
interested, let me know.
Denny
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento, CA 95864
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Posted by: Anspach Denny <danspachmd@gmail.com>
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