thegrindre wrote:Thanks, Ken, and you are right... They don't leak down the middle.
Found this fact out after my stay in Cass. I noticed something a little odd about the track. I've been playing around railroad tracks all my life and am familiar with the basic look of rails but, something was wrong in my mind at Cass.
Boom, then it hit me, the light bulb lit. Cass is basically Shay country and I notice the very dirty track OUTSIDE the rails.
AFAIK, conventional steam locomotives don't leak down the middle, either. That seems to be a diesel and electric thing (maybe because of oil dripping from the traction motor?). A conventional steam locomotive would probably drop oil directly below the crossheads and directly under the driver bearings, so two small lines on the outside and two larger lines either inside or outside the rails (depends on if it is inside or outside framed). I think solid bearing equipment will already make two lines right outside the rail because of oil seeping out of the box.
Again, this is all guess work, based on what I saw back when I was working at a railroad museum.
Oil from crossheads - from moving RR&G 104. It might have behaved differently if it was under steam.
Oil from journal boxes - A guess based on
this. Specifically, the dark patch right above the stick, and the other one that is about a truck length to the right.
Oil from driver bearings - a guess based on the journal box lines
The key here is to make the grease stains very light, more a hint of grease than anything.
By the way, this isn't a request. This is how I plan to weather the track for my 30ng route. (but you can make use of it if you want)
