5" Gauge Princess Royal

[darrene]

Here's a question.

Has anyone seen (or own) one of these?

I'm looking at one at the moment and having done a bit of research for comparison purposes, I've turned up very little which surprised me a bit as it's not what I'd consider an uncommon loco to model.

I can find examples in 2.5" and 3.5" gauges but only found one to date in 5" and that includes looking at everything that's passed through SR&S!

There seem to be no offerings in terms of castings, so I assume folks tend to scale down from works drawings and fabricate.

Darren

[44767]

This is the only one I know of. This is it on display at the Midlands Exhibition 2010 (my photo)




And this is seen at the Nantwich track earlier that year (apologies, not my photo)



I have had a drive of it and it is lovely!

[darrene]

Thanks very much digging out these pictures. What a beauty and in good company there at Nantwich too!

I'm pretty sure that must be the same one that I'd found the only footage of since it was also in the same striking blue livery.

[Jim Scott]

Hi Darren

One of our club members completed his build earlier this year after many years in the making. Named Princess Victoria, the link below shows the first run under steam.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=elfTlfI6NUY

The only issues were the water feed to the RH injector (you can see a jury rigged pipe over the tender) and a mechanical failure of the regulator handle (removed and effected by means of a small shifting spanner!)

Dave very kindly allowed both myself and our club treasurer to put in a few laps with this lovely locomotive, a pleasure indeed...

Jim S

[darrene]

Thanks for posting this Jim, that was brilliant
It's good to hear of another joining what seems to be quite a small number of them!

Kind regards
Darren

[uuu]

Try this: You Tube Princees Marie Louise

Wilf

[darrene]

Thanks Wilf.
That's the only one I'd found during my searches and I'm pretty sure must be the one which 44767 posted the photos of above.
I also posed the question to Ben Pavier at BP Locomotive works, reasoning there was a chance some may have passed through his care. He reports only seeing two, to date.

Darrem

[44767]

Nov 20, 2021 16:49:35 GMT uuu said:

Try this: You Tube Princees Marie Louise

Wilf

Yes, that's the owner/builder driving it.

[darrene]

So this next post might be a bit contentious.
If the following is not to your taste, my sincere apologies - please bear with me or mutter something and stop reading

My interest in the 5" gauge Princess Royal stems from the posession of a boilerless chassis.
I certainly can't afford to re-boiler her anytime soon but she's a keeper and I would dearly like to see her used and enjoyed, rather than stuck under a bench. The children are also keen for a loco to drive that engages them and yet is suitable for their ages.

My medium-term plan is for a battery powered steam outline that the children and I can enjoy with the long-term plan being to return her back to steam power eventually (hopefully that might redeem myself somewhat in the eyes of anyone who just spat their tea over the keyboard!)

In order to keep the conversion woek as minimal as possible, my intention is to axle-hang 2 or 3 motors under the tender floorpan, driving the tender wheels via a spur/pinion and housing a pair of 12v batteries in the water void above.

Rather than an unsightly handset, I'm hoping to use the backhead of the scrap boiler for a conventional regulator handle actuating a speed potentiometer. A simple chuff trigger will supply accurate sound matching from a high quality onboard soundcard with the whistle also triggered by a conventional lever (or perhaps a chain-pull!)

Pictures to follow...

Darren

[manofkent]

Darren

There is (or was) a superb gresley Pacific, blue with two tenders, running at the Ramsgate track.

It is battery powered in one of the tenders, but is a really lovely loco to see.

So you are not alone...

John

[darrene]

Hi John

Thank you very much for the reassurance. It's extremely welcome.

That sounds a real beauty, too! I'm vaguely aware that some folks have gone this route, but other than a couple of items on SRS there seem to be very few pictures of any.

They must be a secretive bunch

All the best
Darren

[steamer5]

Hi Darren,
There is a guy this side of the round thing doing what you are looking at. There is an NZ designed loco of no particular type, many version have been built, that he is using. Sorry haven’t seen it just heard about it by the guy who came up with the design. From memory he was thinking about putting the batteries in the boiler.

Cheers Kerrin

[Cro]

Dan Jeavons used to do an A4 like this I don't know if it was tender or loco driven but someone picked up a load of his ex stock recently and there is A4 bits on ebay at the moment including the body shells.

Any photos of what you are converting?

Adam

[darrene]

Nov 26, 2021 8:07:14 GMT steamer5 said:

Hi Darren,
There is a guy this side of the round thing doing what you are looking at. There is an NZ designed loco of no particular type, many version have been built, that he is using. Sorry haven’t seen it just heard about it by the guy who came up with the design. From memory he was thinking about putting the batteries in the boiler.

Cheers Kerrin

Hi Kerrin,

Great stuff! Thanks for letting me know.

I'd initially wondered about the boiler for the batteries too, or a fore-aft motor. In the end I decided against it for this job as the boiler void is still quite restrictive, it seems to make sense for me to co-locate batteries and motors, and I wanted to keep the loco untouched if I could.

What gauge is the NZ loco, out of interest? It definitely gets easier as the gauge increases.

Darren

[darrene]

Nov 26, 2021 9:04:26 GMT Cro said:

Dan Jeavons used to do an A4 like this I don't know if it was tender or loco driven but someone picked up a load of his ex stock recently and there is A4 bits on ebay at the moment including the body shells.

Any photos of what you are converting?

Adam

Cheers Adam. I'd noticed those body shells on ebay but didn't realise they were ex Dan Jeavons.

I'd dearly like to have seen his A4, I'll but it was quite something. I've heard mention of it in the past but frustratingly, haven't managed to dig up anything on it other than John (Baggo)'s post that confirms it was tender-powered and he used four, 285 watt motors

I'll dig out some pictures of the old girl.

[darrene]

Here she is - LMS 6200 The Princess Royal. I am in the process of trying to find out a little more about her history. She still needs a thorough clean. From the patina of the paintwork (what's left!) she would seem to be pretty old - If I had to guess I'd say more than fifty.

Scratch built and with all 4 cylinders operational, she is incredibly smooth to push along the track. I shall try a compressed-air run on the bench next year but need to attend to a few jobs first such as the valve end caps for the inside steam chests first.

Although she desperately needs repainting - in fact it should transform her! it will be a real shame to lose the original builders lining and numbering which were done by hand and beautifully too.

The tender looks to have had vacuum-operated brakes.

[

The tender space I have allocated to batteries has maximum dimensions of 240mm wide x 340mm long x 180mm high, which should accomodate a pair of 24v 34ah batteries perfectly. This retains the top plate area behind the rear coal bulkhead (which actually looks to be have been placed a bit too far forward, or is it just me?)

I have a scrap boiler shell which I should be able to use to complete the look, once I've detailed it a bit.

Darren

[mbrown]

You have an excellent precedent in having a non-steam powered Princess Royal in that Hudswell Clarke built several for, I think, 21" gauge pleasure railways in the mid-1930s, fitted with diesel engines. One or maybe two of them are, IIRC, at the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley, although whether they are restored yet I don't know. I saw them in semi-derelict, "as received", condition there some years ago.

So, if we have model diesel locos with battery power, why not a model of one of the Hudswell Princess Royals with battery power in place of diesel? The Hudswells were quite close to scale and I am sure you could pass your model off as a 1/4 size model of one of them!

A good line to dumbfound the critics, at any rate!

Good luck

Malcolm

[darrene]

Nov 26, 2021 20:20:57 GMT mbrown said:

You have an excellent precedent in having a non-steam powered Princess Royal in that Hudswell Clarke built several for, I think, 21" gauge pleasure railways in the mid-1930s, fitted with diesel engines. One or maybe two of them are, IIRC, at the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley, although whether they are restored yet I don't know. I saw them in semi-derelict, "as received", condition there some years ago.

So, if we have model diesel locos with battery power, why not a model of one of the Hudswell Princess Royals with battery power in place of diesel? The Hudswells were quite close to scale and I am sure you could pass your model off as a 1/4 size model of one of them!

A good line to dumbfound the critics, at any rate!

Good luck

Malcolm

Thanks Malcolm. I had no idea of their existance.

A diesel-powered steam outline must be an incongruous experience indeed

I think I found a 9yo picture of one of them in the 'as received' condition you mentioned. Amazing!

I think they'll have their work cut out getting that tube plate fitted....

[mbrown]

That's the one! (or one of them). They are fairly chunky machines when you get up close but, as you can see, good likenesses.

Malcolm

[darrene]

I've been doing some thining about the potential powertrain.
I am looking at using Parvalux 150w motors which seem the between-axle size for 5" gauge. These run at 3000rpm @ 12v, 6000rpm @ 24v. 24v is prefereable on the basis of higher voltage, lower current.
With the driven tender wheels being 314mm in circumference and aiming for a maximum speed of 8mph, the gearing would need to get their rotational speed down to 700rpm
Running at 24v, I can assume 8.5:1 gear ratio so I'll try a 12T pinion and 100T spur.

Hopefully I can get away with 2, possibly 3 motors, each driving an axle: 300-450w which I would have thought should be plenty to haul 3-4 adults which is all it will be doing, in addition to the weight of the loco itself?

Darren