[In a previous item, Ed King growled:]
I love the fact that these importers can get the last detail, even down to the bell cord, but don't know how to set the eccentric cranks so the mechanism will work like the real one did. Of course, they started not knowing this back in 1953 or so when the first imports started coming over. Ben (Blevins, in message above), if your Proto 2K Y-3 was real, and you fired it up, and put the reverse lever in forward motion and opened the throttle, the right side of the engine would try to back up and the left side go forward. The same is true of that new light USRA 4-8-2 that's out now, only the left side would try to back up, etc. All these years, and they still can't get it right.

[Ben Blevins is not afraid to ask:]

Mr. Ed K, I have no idea what you are refering to with the eccentric crank! Remember, after all, many of us are A.S. (after steam) persons, and unfortunately don't know much about steam locomotive physics! Can anyone help us out here?

[Kurt S. Kramke leads off:]
On a steam locomotive, the eccentric crank is connected to the pin of the driver where the main rod, (the one from the cylinders,) and is used to operate the valve gear. The crank is offset either forward or backward between 15 and 25 degrees, as near as I have been able to determine from photos, so that the drivers will move when steam is applied to the cylinders. When moving, the crank end traces an elliptical path. look closely at steam videos to see what it looks like. With the exception of some S and O scale models, I have not seen a brass locomotive come in with the crank set right(which I immediately correct).

[Ed King takes Ben Blevin's challenge to educate the rest of us:]
Kurt - you can't set the cranks "either forward or backward", your choice. Not if you want the engine's valve motion to look like that of the real thing. That's the problem with the P2K engine now. The cranks on the right side of the model lean backward, which is wrong. The ones on the left side of the model lean forward, which is correct. This is why, if it was a real engine, the two sides of the engine would try to run in opposite directions.

Ben - Without getting into far deeper technical aspects than this lmailing list is interested in:

1. The Y-3, in common with most N&W locomotives, used piston valves arranged for inside admission. (That refers to the steam going to the cylinder from the valve.)

2. With inside admission of the steam, the movement of the valve must FOLLOW that of the piston by approximately 90 degrees - in other words, when the piston starts its stroke, the valve will be moving in the OPPOSITE direction from the way the piston is going to move.

3. In order to produce the proper motion, the eccentric crank - that's the thingy out on the end of the main crankpin that is connected to the valve gear - must be arranged so that its connection with the eccentric rod - that's the rod that goes from it to the valve gear - is 90 degrees BEHIND that main crankpin as the wheel rotates in the forward direction. (Well, in actual practice with these engines, the crank-eccentric rod connection will be a little more than 90 degrees because the Baker valve gear's connection is above the longitudinal centerline of the drivers, but that's a quibble...)

Tell you what. If you loosen the crank on the crankpin and turn the drivers until the crankpin is at the very lowest point of its circle, and run a straghtedge from the center of the driver axle to the bottom of the rod in the valve gear that connects to the eccentric rod, and put the eccentric rod connection to the eccentric crank on that straightedge, you'll have them as close as it can be set, assuming that the manufacturer has got the rods and cranks the right length. In other words, on the straightedge will be a) main driving axle center; b) eccentric crank-eccentric rod connection; c) eccentric rod-valve gear connection. If you've got 'em in a straight line - and the crank must be pointing toward the front of the locomotive - you'll have them set as close as you can get them to correct. And that'll work with any direct valve gear - Walschaerts and Southern, too (Southern was always direct). Indirect injects questions we need not consider here, and
N&W folks living today would have been most likely to see it on the front engines of Z-1a 2-6-6-2s.

If I can figure this out, I don't know why the folks that design these models can't.

AGAIN: FOR AN INSIDE ADMISSION ENGINE WITH DIRECT VALVE GEAR OF EITHER WALSCHAERTS, BAKER OR SOUTHERN, THE CRANK CONNECTION WITH THE ECCENTRIC ROD MUST FOLLOW THE MAIN PIN BY 90 DEGREES. HENCE, THEY MUST LEAN TOWARD THE CYLINDERS (NO MATTER WHICH SIDE OF THE ENGINE THEY'RE ON), AND NOT AWAY FROM THEM, IF YOU'RE SETTING THEM ACCORDING TO KURT'S LAW. THE Y-3 HAS INSIDE ADMISSION CYLINDERS WITH DIRECT BAKER VALVE GEAR. IF YOU SET THE CRANKS LEANING BACKWARD, WHEN THE ENGINEER PUTS THE REVERSE LEVER IN FORWARD POSITION, THE ENGINE WILL MOVE BACKWARD!

FOR OUTSIDE ADMISSION CYLINDERS WITH DIRECT VALVE GEAR OR INSIDE ADMISSION CYLINDERS WITH INDIRECT VALVE GEAR, THE CRANKS WILL LEAN AWAY FROM THE CYLINDERS. THE Y-3 DOES NOT HAVE OUTSIDE ADMISSION CYLINDERS, NOR DOES IT HAVE INDIRECT VALVE GEAR.

I still cannot understand why modelers can get the damn whistle linkage right and can't set the damn cranks. The real thing would run without a damn whistle, and 90 percent of the other stuff they attach to the boilers. But the real thing would NOT run if the cranks weren't set correctly.

Oh, and don't knock the old Mantuas. Or Varneys. Same reasons. If they were full size they wouldn't look like the old Tenshodos and Crown Uniteds everybody went ape over, but if they had steam up they had valve gear good enough to run. And the Tennies and CrUds didn't.

I'll repeat the offer. If anyone who is interested enough will send me a SASE (put two stamps on it, please) to 10265 Ulmerton Road, #197, Largo, Fl. 33771, I'll send him a copy of a story that appeared in the May 1984 issue of TRAINS which explains all this stuff in words of two syllables or less. I mean, it's eight pages you have to read, but I've been told it's a good read . . . I'd send a copy to the folks who make the P2Ks, but I'm afraid I'd just p*** them off.

Sorry, guys.

[Ben Blevins:]
Thanks, Ed, for explaining that! I will confess it is hard for me to comprehend all the aspects of steam locomotives, considering all the N&W steam I ever saw was 611, I always had to work when 1218 came through here. I haven't seen 1218 since I was 5 when my father took me to Roanoke to see her in 1976. It broke my heart when I didn't get to see her at the convention, I wish they could have let us in to see her, even in her current condition. I don't go see 611 much, it breaks my heart when I do. She just sits quietly, no hissing, or pumps running, no occasional chug of the stoker, she just sets there lifeless, AND IT HURTS! Just some of my thoughts...

[Kurt again:]
Ed King is correct, I forgot to specify prototype. On cab forwards, SP locomotives, the cranks face to the rear of the locomotive. Also on some of the non US equipment this arrangement is also used. On a few South African locomotives, the cranks face both directions due to the cylinder arrangement.

[Ed King further elaborates:]
Oops again. I should have been more specific. Inside admission locomotives with direct valve gear will have the cranks leaning toward the FRONT of the locomotive (the cab end of the cab-forwards being defined as the front - that's the end that has the cowcatcher thingy). That takes care of 'em all. Espee cab-forwards having the cranks facing the rear of the locomotive will be found to have indirect valve gear.

On Beyer-Garretts, if the rear engine has the crank leaning to the rear, that engine will be found to be running in reverse - in other words, its valve gear is working as indirect.

The only situation that I'm familiar with where DIRECT Baker valve gear was used on an outside admission engine was on the front engine of the rebuilt Triplex when it was returned from Baldwin. It kept the triangular frame Baker it originally had, and they leaned the cranks backward so it would be acting direct.

Of course, to further cloud the issue, there is IC 2-8-0 700, which has INDIRECT Baker valve gear on its inside admission piston valve cylinders. Its cranks are leaning backwards . . .

[Ed King is still cranking on 17-Jan-2000:]

Any of you guys familiar with the folks at P2k know if they'll set the eccentrics properly on the next run and the 0-8-0? I know I'm sounding like a broken record (anybody remember those?), but to me, it doesn't make sense to do details properly that the locomotive could function without, and half-ass the details without which the locomotive couldn't run.

In their present state, the P2k Y-3 is not a model of a locomotive. It is a model of a locomotive-shaped artifact that, if it was full size and made of the appropriate metals, could still not perform the function of a locomotive. See the product review of the P2k 2-8-8-2 in March MODEL RAILROADER. I'm not the only one....

I hate to say this, but importers have been doing this for forty years. Tenshodo and United sold locomotives on the basis of boiler detail without regard to proportioning, performance, or mechanical accuracy. And in that forty years, model manufacturers have become conditioned to being able to sell their products that same way.

I've seen all the testimony of the guys that have bought the Y-3, so what I say is evidently true. You've cleaned 'em out. Someone imported something they represented to be an N&W locomotive and look what happened. So they don't really need to change, do they?