An 'almost' Climax for the Kotanga Tramway.

I know I've already put a picture of this loco in my Garratt thread, but I thought it might be a good idea to give it a thread of its own.


This little loco has taken quite a while to get built as I tried out different ways to end up with a loco that looked like a geared logging tramway lokey. It wasn't entirely uncommon for a local engineering works to be presented with a pile of second hand steam loco parts and requested to build a logging locomotive and this is what I was aiming for with Kotanga Tramway's new No:4. If anything she does look a bit more tidy than most of her breed, but then the Kotanga Tramway is supposed to be a working preservation line and I suppose No:4 must've been prettied up a bit during her rebuild and restoration.
The mech on which No:4 is built is an early type I 12volt one fitted with clip-in type pickups and sliding bogie blocks. Yes I know it's a cheat to connect the piston rods to one of the driving wheels if this is supposed to be a geared loco, but that was the best I could come up with for the moment.

The red wheels are going to be replaced with black ones as soon as my latest Bricklink order gets here btw. And I'm also waiting for my order of new traction tyres to get here too.

This morning a Bricklink order arrived that had been somehow delayed in some far off European postal limbo. It had taken so long to get to me I could barely remember what I'd ordered, but one of the items in the order was a type II 12volt mech...... http://www.bricklink...tem.asp?P=x550b ......and I think I will be able to use it to give No:4 the appearance of having a proper countershaft drive afterall.

More pictures of No:4 soon once I change over the mech.

Nice 12V loco 'Annie'........your topic title got me to look !
Brick On !

Thanks LT, - it was only after I'd posted the new topic that I suddenly realised that the title could have another meaning

Cool little Loco you have Annie. The piston arm ?( not sure what its called) is cool. where do you get those pieces from? also is it hard to make a train with this effect on it.

Ps whats your cats name in the pic? does he get upto any hi-jinks in your rail yard

SnapLock wrote:Cool little Loco you have Annie. The piston arm ?( not sure what its called) is cool. where do you get those pieces from? also is it hard to make a train with this effect on it.

Ps whats your cats name in the pic? does he get upto any hi-jinks in your rail yard

The cat's name is 'Ticket' and he seems to get everywhere, including where he's not supposed to

The red counterweight and crankpin piece is 70s Lego, but the connecting rod itself is made by an AFOL who manufactures custom loco side rods in a range of lengths and configurations. They really do make a steam loco MOC look a lot better as compared with using Techic parts. His Bricklink shop is here....Zephyr's Steam Rods
The piston rod parts are Technic though and the cylinders themselves are a puzzle shape made of bricks, tiles, a modified plate and a couple of Technics pins. It took me around half an hour to get the cylinder block sorted out as there wasn't a lot of room for it to fit into and still line up with the piston rod..
So hard? - not really. I look on Lego as being a 3D jigsaw puzzle and I enjoy the challenge of figuring out ways to make the parts I want for my MOCs.

Well done LA. This little loco looks great.

Thanks Brickie, I'm very pleased with how well it turned out considering how many times it was taken apart and begun over again. It came very close to being put back in the brick bins, but I'm glad I persisted with it.