Today's accomplishment

[Darth Santa Fe]

Today I added a new electrical system to my old AHM/Rivarossi 0-6-0 steam engine.[:D] I don't have any pictures, so I'll explain it.[:D]

The first thing I did was replace the old plastic tender wheels with metal wheels from Intermountain. The Intermountain wheels work well because they have metal axles and wheels.

Next I made some electrical contacts out of copper sheet, which contact the metal axles.

Next I soldered flexible wires to each contact plate, and fed them through a couple rivets in the tender frame.

Then I drilled a hole in the front of the tender in a spot that can't be seen easily and fed the wires through it.

Next I soldered the wires to the motor, making sure the wires were from the correct truck so it wouldn't short out.

Then I added a 1 oz. weight to the tender and put everything back together.

The engine now gets power from two wheels on each truck, and each truck picks up electricity from a different rail, giving the engine 4 pickup wheels on each side (4 on the engine and 4 on the tender, giving it 8 wheel pickup).[:D]

The 30 year-old Rivarossi steam engine is now one of my smoothest running steam engines, proving that even the old Rivarossis were good runners.[:D][:D][:D]