April 2008
Michael started off in engineering when he became an apprentice at a Roller Bearing Manufactures in King's Lynn way back in 1959. He served an engineering apprenticeship and attended Technical College. He then began to further his career in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. He has served on the Committee of a local model engineering club over the past 25 years from being an ordinary committee member to that of Chairman. His love of trains goes back to when he had an "00" gauge train set for Christmas at the age of 13 and his Father, “Len” worked on the railways. At one time the loft of Michael’s house became a main line layout having over 30 steam and diesel locomotives on it including several scratch built engines. He was also a member of several "Heritage Railways" and at one time was the Supervisor running the Driver Experience Days for a Heritage Railway. Michael was also a foot plate crew member and has written a safety introduction booklet for novices who came on his experience days. In 2002 Michael ceased working as a volunteer on the full size Steam locomotives footplate. A couple of years later Michael retired from the Model Engineering Society Committee on health grounds. Michael is now fully retired and spends a few hours each day in his workshop and sometimes gets to run his engines at various tracks. He is a member of the Seven and a Quarter Society and has recently made a couple of 7¼ inch gauge tram engines based on the pattern of the Drewry locomotive class 04 shunting engines. The first was built as an 0-6-0 tram with cow-catchers and the second as an 0-4-0 tram, without the cow-catchers. Both engines were recently featured in the Society magazines and have since been sold to club members. The current projects under construction are a 2-8-0 Gresley Goods engine in 5 inch gauge (which has been a long term job) and the Brush M7 Sri Lankan Locomotive is almost complete.
Construction Log - M7 Project.
In October of 2005 Michael made contact with Brush Traction to request some information (and drawings if possible) of the 16 Brush Bo-Bo locomotives that were made in 1981 and exported to Ceylon. These engines were of similar design to the Alco Sl switchers that were very popular with the American Railroad Companies. Michael really wanted to build a British engine that was different and have character so that it would be a "talking point" and arouse interest from it being on display and whenever it is operating on the track.
A two week holiday was arranged with Vinodh and Ifthar that allowed Michael to access these locomotives and take pictures and dimensions where needed. However a picture is worth a thousand words, if it shows the actual detail, since drawings often show what was designed but not what was built! How big will it be when finished? About 6 foot 3 inches long, 15 inches wide and 20 inches high at the cab roof. Work started on Brush M7 number 803 locomotive less than one week after returning home from Sri Lanka. The pre-formed chassis deck plate had been made some weeks previously was modified to reflect the shape of the steps at the front and rear sides of the loco and the front buffer beam supporting angle frame had been cut and bolted to it. The lower part of the buffer beam that also serves as a cow-catcher, would be a one piece part that will have strengthening struts very similar to what are fitted on these engines. In practice they will have to be strong enough to support the whole weight of the engine in case of a derailment. (about 250 lbs) but that excludes the traction batteries and two auxiliarry batteries that separately power the air compressor, the lighting and amplifier unit. These batteries weigh another 100lbs in total.
This engine has two Bosch 750 watt x 24 volt motors, one to power each bogie, a total of 2 hp of direct traction, powerful enough to pull about two tons on level track at about 12 mph. In order to make life easy, the engine has dual controls so that there will be no need to reverse or turn the engine when off-loading onto another clubs track. It will save a lot of bother but costs a bit more for the duplicated controller items. After completing the traction testing trials I changed one of the drive gears which now gives the locomotive a top speed of about 12mph.
There still remains many fiddly bits to be done to finish it, some small adjustments need to be made before the final colour scheme is applied. This will probably mean that the bonnet / body colour scheme will not be finished until about the middle of May 2008, much depends upon some warm sunny weather for the final painting to take place.
A dual braking system has been designed with the mechanical system already installed on both bogies. The engine has working air brakes that are controlled from a control valve mounted on the purpose built driving truck. Brake blocks are made from cast iron and the actuating rods are controlled from a centrally mounted dual cam system within the bogie equalising bar frames. The actuator rams or pistons act in a lever / crank type mode to apply the brakes using compressed air at about 30psi. The main reservoir(s) holds air at 40psi and give the neccessary volume to ensure a brake application. The air compressor system has a pressure switch fitted that automatically charges the main reservoirs once a drop in pressure has been sensed.
For engine sounds and control authenticity a “Phoenix Super Sound” control desk system is installed, this gives real engine sequence and noise sounds, plus the horns and the guards whistle. If you stand with your back to this engine you might even think it’s the full size engine.
M7 #803 – Commissioned Operational.
M7 number 803 became operational for passenger services as from Sunday the 13th of April 2008. Although this engine is passed “fit for duty” there are still several minor bits to make and fit that will improve its appearance and help give the engine its unique character. Driver training and familiarisation sessions have already started so that other club members may take over the controls. A Driving experience on this engine gives you a very similar if not the same one as being on a real engine. If you don't do things in the correct sequence it does not go, take your foot of the deadmans pedal and it stops! A reset sequence then has to be carried out in order to re-start the engine.
