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The ready-made tender Class S. This was made together with the tenders of the Class 327 models, as a 3rd member of the tender group. The chassis and the trucks are the same, as it was in case of the prototype Class R and Class S tenders. The superstructures are visibly different. This Class S tender box is higher and it shows vertical riveted strips. |
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The Class S tender backside. There was no place for a short coupler shaft, the trucks are simply too close. |
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The Class R and Class S tenders together. One can observe the similarities and the differences. |
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All components of the gearbox before soldering the structure, without the gears and gearshafts. The wormshaft bearings are not soldered, they are kept in place by 4-4 screws. The bent brass sheet covers the gear of the driver axle, as it is not inside the firebox, but between the frame sides. |
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The mounted gearbox with driver wheelset and motor on a testbench. The trailing wheelset is simply screwed on it to keep it upright for these rolling tests. The current is connected to the motor with two wires and hooks as this setup has no current collectors on the wheels. |
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The mounted gearbox. From this view one can observe the shaft coupler between the motor and the flywheel. This is not yet the final coreless motor, just a simple cheap motor for testing. As the new gearbox might clog, I did not want to destroy an expensive coreless motor. |
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The gearbox, rear view. As usual, the slanted cogwheel is below the worm, the straight gear with an offset to the left side. |
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The gearbox, front view, without motor. One can see the shaft coupler with its oval holes. This is placed inside the recessed flywheel, thus fits in less space. |
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The wiring was a problem with this model, too. The slot between the gearbox and the frame is not wide enough to feed through the wires there. There is place for them inside the gearbox, as the gears are on the left side, the right side is empty. Thus the wires for the motor current, front lights and speakers enter through rear part opening into the gearbox and leave through holes below the flywheel. |
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This picture shows all components needed for the mainframe. Unlike in the Class model the boiler support sheets belong to the frame unit, not the boiler. However, the first one was cut out later, as it was in the way to mount the cylinder block. The frame has a cut to clear the trailing wheels, unlike the real loco frame. This is necessary as the model should negotiate smaller radii than the prototype. |
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This model is equipped with a compensation equipment between the first and second driving axles, as all earlier models. However, here the first driver has connection to the internal cylinders, the axle is cranked, the compensation cannot be arranged by a single balance rod. The compensation is made here with a more complex part, its rear side is a simple rod, but the front part, balancing the crank axle, supports the axle on the top of the bearing blocks. This also turns in order to allow rocking movements for the axle. |
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Unlike the former models, here a stronger nickel silver part keeps the axles in place. It fits inside the frame and will be fixed to the frame fixing sheet using two tiny, M1.2 screws. |
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The trailing wheels on this loco have 14 spokes. The prototype diameter is 1220mm which makes exactly 14.0mm in H0 scale. There is no wheel available on the market with these dimensions. The model wheels are self made. The wheel star was made with 3D printing. The tyres were turned on lathe from nickel silver and glued on the wheel. |
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The tender connection is a simple rod with holes on both ends, cut from 1.0mm nickel silver sheet. This model, however, has a long overhang backwards, thus the tender connection rod gives a considerable sideways force to the loco. This cannot be corrected, hopefully makes no problems in curves with heavy train. |
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The brake rig was the very last component made for the model. There was no prototype drawing available, the only remaining loco brake rigging is not complete. The model follows the most probable scheme. The rig was made using a template that contained small holes for every rivet. The parts were fixed by brass wires through the holes and they were soldered together. When the rig was ready, it was removed from the template and the wires were cut to form river heads. |
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This template was needed to solder the reverse link support. The template was also used when the support for the internal valvegear lever was soldered. Without fixing the template on the reverse link support, it would unsolder during the process. |
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The internal crosshead of this loco, that served the internal cylinders, had single guide. Manufacturing this guide needed precise work. After long considerations I decided to construct the crosshead captured on the guide. When the guide is soldered into place, the crosshead can not be removed any more. All other solutions would weaken both the crosshead and the guide. |
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Both crossheads side by side, the upper one is the external one, for two guides, the lower one is the internal one. The hole for the crosshead pin is also different. The external one should be electrically isolated from the main rod, thus the pin is smaller to give place for the isolation. |
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This small support keeps the internal valverod in place. It was cut and filed from 2.0mm brass sheet material. The small pin on its bottom plate enhances the mechanical strength. |
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Detail of the valvegear. You can see the combination lever with forked end. In its upper part the connection rod is visible that forwards the external valve movement to the internal valve. |
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The valvegear mounted on the model. This unit remains assembled also for painting. It makes little sense to take it apart, it would be a major task to assemble it again. Rather the moving and unpainted parts will be masked, partly using aluminium foil, partly with liquid mask. |
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As usual I made first the smokebox for the boiler. The front was turned from an 1.0mm nickel silver sheet. The cylinder was rolled from two 0.25mm nickel silver sheets. The rivet pattern was made this time by etching, as the double river row is impossible to be made by punching. The surface itself was made from two sheets, as the prototype, too. These sheets were soldered to the front disk. The surface bottom was perforated in order to open it for the sound, this way the speakers will sound stronger. |
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This picture show the components of the boiler saddle. The cover sheets of the steam tubes were made by etching as their shape should be very exact. The front sheet of the boiler saddle is not yet visible here, that contains the caps of the internal valves. |
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The water-cleaner of the Class 301 is not mounted simply on the boiler top, like for other Hungarian steamers, but it is mounted on a small frame. Building this was a real challenge. First I made it from four separate components, but this was extremely fragil, the thin sidewalls bent easily. Thus a second one was made, from one single thick nickel silver sheet. This is the lower one on the picture. |
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The reconstructed 301,001 was among the first Hungarian steam locos that were equipped with electric lights and generator. Visible on the pictures it was a German generator from AEG that was already widely used in Germany. A model casting of a generator is available from the German company Weinert, but it does not model exactly that type used on Class 301. Thus the end of the casting was cut off and a more similar head was turned from brass. The Weinert support was also a different type, it was scratch built. The cabling was modeled, too. |
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The shape of the Class 301 firebox is rather complex. The side walls widen downwards, the backhead is slanted, the lower part of its front is also slanted, to make place for the rear drivers. In the model the top and side walls are from one single, 0.3mm thick sheet of nickel silver, its cut shape was calculated with CAD program. The backhead is from a 1.0mm sheet and there is a "rib" in the front part. The picture shows the structure after soldering. The box still has sharp corners, these were rounded afterwards using a file. The bottom part of the reinforcement "rib" is still closed. This was cut off later, it should be open on the bottom to pull down the firebox around the gearbox. |
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The ready-made firebox with all handles and components, together with the cab floor that keeps the injectors, too. The Class 301 locos had a sliding firebox-door, "butterfly" type, the fireman could open it by one hand. One can see the water level indicators and the feedwater taps, too. |
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The ready-to-run model before painting. For the paint job it needs to be taken apart, remove all components that can cover the surface below. But first of all, before painting the model needs a long series of test runs. Only the prefect rolling model can be painted, as the mechanical bug fixing would require to take it apart again, possibly destroying the finish. |
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The side view picture shows the perfect proportions of this loco. |
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From this angle one can see the boiler backhead, too. In addition this picture also shows the tender details. |
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The left side of the model. This is hard to compare to the prototype as there are very few original photos that show the fireman's side. I do not know any about the 301,001, the prototype of this model. Thus it is not fully known how the piping was mounted on this engine. Was it similar to the other members of this Class or were there differences? |
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The front view of the model. Actually there is a similar prototype photo available, the engineer proudly poses in front of his loco. A missing items of the model are the steps to the front part. This is intentionally left out, I did not dare to mount a such fragile component on the model front. |
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A detail photo about the left side of the boiler.
The Westinghouse air pump casting is removable,
to make possible to paint the boiler behind.
The feedwater pipe is also removable.
This is necessary, as it connects two different main units,
its rear end is fixed in the injector that is soldered to the cab floor,
the front end is connected to the long boiler.
An interesting detail is the external ashpan, visible below the firebox, with the rods to open the air inlets and to remotely move the grate. These are not mounted on the engine in the Locomotive Museum. But this component is well visible on photos, it influences the whole appearance of the engine. I modeled these parts using old photos and the 1:5 model on show in the Budapest Transport Museum. |
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This page was updated last time on November 15th, 2023
© Erő János