That is much better performance than I've seen from any of the ones I have encountered. My surviving shay will just barely do four cars on the clubs 4.5% grade up the big hill.
experience with other shays tells me that the fit of the lineshaft gears to the gears on the wheels is critical to getting good power out of shays. NWSL now makes replacement line shaft gears and line shafts (they say some of the lines hafts ate not true). If that is the case, it could definitely knock the pulling power in the creek.
I'm glad you got a good one. Someday when I have enough other projects finished, I'll have to replace the line shafts and gears with NWSL, and re evaluate. In any case I have owned two, and had experience with two or three that Dr. Tom has had, and I would only recommend them for layouts with 20 inch or more radiuses, and grades less than 3%. 3% is pretty wimpy, as I have been running on my Mountain Division, with 8.5% grades for twenty years or so. some of my brass geared locomotive required modifications to work well up on the mountain, The Riverossi Heislers can handle it unaltered, and I was not able to make the Bachmans work up there at all.
Bill Nelson
experience with other shays tells me that the fit of the lineshaft gears to the gears on the wheels is critical to getting good power out of shays. NWSL now makes replacement line shaft gears and line shafts (they say some of the lines hafts ate not true). If that is the case, it could definitely knock the pulling power in the creek.
I'm glad you got a good one. Someday when I have enough other projects finished, I'll have to replace the line shafts and gears with NWSL, and re evaluate. In any case I have owned two, and had experience with two or three that Dr. Tom has had, and I would only recommend them for layouts with 20 inch or more radiuses, and grades less than 3%. 3% is pretty wimpy, as I have been running on my Mountain Division, with 8.5% grades for twenty years or so. some of my brass geared locomotive required modifications to work well up on the mountain, The Riverossi Heislers can handle it unaltered, and I was not able to make the Bachmans work up there at all.
Bill Nelson