'SAMSON' Class, "Engineer Lancaster"

This loco was constructed from the LRM kit and was a delight to construct. It is fitted with my usual LH21 motor driving the rear wheels through a normal worm and wheel gearbox. The front axle rocks on a central pivot, the centre axle is sprung and the rear, driven, axle is solid in the frames.

I do not use hornblocks to allow axles to move vertically as I consider that they take up too much room between the frames of a 'OO' loco and that they are unnecessarily complicated. Instead I extend the axle holes vertically both upwards and downwards by between 0.5 and 1.0mm to allow the axle bushes to move up and down. On a sprung axle the springing is provided by lengths of about 25mm of fairly stiff phosphor-bronze wire pushing down on the top of the axle bearing inside the frames. The wire is prevented from sliding off the bearing onto the axle by a ring of wire soldered around the inside end of the bearing. I usually use 30 amp fuse wire for this. Spring tension adjustment is achieved by bending the spring by means of a poke with a screwdriver. What could be simpler?

This loco weighs 150grms and exerts a pull of 20grms.

'Samson' Left-hand side

'Samson' Right-hand side

'Samson''s works

The underside of 'Samson'