Do we have any Clockwork(wind up) tinplate fans here? Lets see your CW trains

I picked up a cute little Hornby at York last fall.  I really like it but it just doesn't go as far as it did for the first few wind ups.  I checked it for debris,  oiled all over.  Not sure what the issue is.   Although the first few wind it seemed to take more tension.   Now after a few turns there is a pop noise - like a wind stop maybe?  Don't know if its actually working as designed or not, it the only one I have!

jhz563 posted:

I picked up a cute little Hornby at York last fall.  I really like it but it just doesn't go as far as it did for the first few wind ups.  I checked it for debris,  oiled all over.  Not sure what the issue is.   Although the first few wind it seemed to take more tension.   Now after a few turns there is a pop noise - like a wind stop maybe?  Don't know if its actually working as designed or not, it the only one I have!

If it is popping, it sounds like the spring is broke unfortunately. That is usually a sign of the tension releasing. Sometimes it could be broke where it attaches to the winding axel and can be fixed. I haven't worked on clockworks, but did work on a pull-start spring. I don't have great advice on how to work on them. I just know it isn't easy. One thing to do is to lock the spring with something like a zip tie before disassembling the drive.

George

Lets not get all "wound up" over this guys. 

Lmao!   Lets wind up some trains instead!  Hopefully mine will be here early next week.  I will have my tinplate live steamer tomorrow.    

French JEP

Marx Joy Line

Hafner

A classic from HORNBY, a Royal Scott from 1934-35 of the LMS

And the French one in the livery of the North Railways,

Daniel

Clockwork is my favourite motive power. 

I like the pur noise of the governors as they kick in.It’s closer to steam power (in my view ) in that it is a stored energy.
I also enjoy the mechanical aspect and find them more logical to work on then elec-trickery ones.

Here are just few pictures of the many ones I have had over the years...

Nice Robilt, Jamie. Tough to find here in the US.

I concentrate on collecting O gauge windup toy trains that were made in the USA.  The majority of my collection are Marx, but I'm a fan of Ives, Hafner, and American Flyer too.  Plus, I like the Durham windups even though they are made overseas.  Yes, I do have a few from across the Atlantic as well...

This is a view of part of my windup train collection, as well as my windup layout.  The layout is all two-rail track with no track power... all I run are windups and the occasional battery powered train:

I'll look through my pictures and pick some out for this thread...

Here are a few of my favorites from the windup fleet:

1912 Ives:

1922 Ives No. 6... nothing rare, and has a broken pilot, but is a favorite because it is such a nice running locomotive.  I bought it with a motor that had exploded (not unusual when something turns loose and a fully wound mainspring unleashes all that stored energy at once) and did a lot of work to it to get it running.  The governor was broken, so I replaced it with a modified Marx governor.  By happy accident, it runs relatively slow and for a long time:

1936ish era reversing Marx Commodore Vanderbilt.  It was a "train wreck" that I restored some years ago, given to me by one of my Marx friends.  These early Marx locos with the die-cast drivers and screw-in key are nice running locomotives:

Marx Canadian Pacific 3000 - not only is it a hard to find locomotive, it's a treasured gift from (another) Marx friend of mine that also frequents this forum:

One last one, a custom I made from some Marx 401 windups... my 1203 Marx Triplex.  Yes, it has three Marx windup motors in it.  It will pull quite a few cars around the layout:

OK, that's all for now.  It's hard to narrow down distinctive or favorite windups to post!

Posted before in other threads, but the only ones I have to contribute.

Most of my toys are put away , along with my Hornby layout , but these 2 Hafner Zephyrs are among my favorites. I also have several domed engines and a number of cars. Red and a blue M10000 passengers, Several Marx M100005 passengers

I still have my Hornby 0-4-0 boyhood set with the braking slide, which I run now and then. I'll have to dig it out for pics. All the gents across the pond who used to run timetable-operated, scenicked clockwork layouts have all passed on, but there are a few pics out there. Norman Eagles' Sherwood layout was probably the best known - I have the June 1971 Railway Modeller article around here somewhere, and read it when I get the clockwork bug.

 http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/rai.../sherwood/index.html 

https://reader.exacteditions.c...ssues/60900/page/104

https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/59883/page/76

WindupGuy posted:

I concentrate on collecting O gauge windup toy trains that were made in the USA.  The majority of my collection are Marx, but I'm a fan of Ives, Hafner, and American Flyer too.  Plus, I like the Durham windups even though they are made overseas.  Yes, I do have a few from across the Atlantic as well...

This is a view of part of my windup train collection, as well as my windup layout.  The layout is all two-rail track with no track power... all I run are windups and the occasional battery powered train:

I'll look through my pictures and pick some out for this thread...

this is really nice, wish I could bring some of my cw over

Bassett Lowke Mogul.. tempermental.. fall-y apart-y.. time to go-ee. Clockwork was a curiosity that didn’t take root for me (thank god).

TedW posted:

Posted before in other threads, but the only ones I have to contribute.

love the one with the beard

PhillyChris posted:

Bassett Lowke Mogul.. tempermental.. fall-y apart-y.. time to go-ee. Clockwork was a curiosity that didn’t take root for me (thank god).

let me know before you throw it in the dumpster

Here is my Bing windup train. It really goes! I have a three rail layout but will run this without the power on. I haven’t run it on the layout yet. I think it will run on my reversing loop since the switches are not track powered.

George

Just for fun, a quick video of my windup triplex hauling a train of two dozen cars around my clockwork layout: