Looking for a battery loco, read on...

[Andy Lowman]

First off, I don't mean one that is actually powered, for running on a track, by a battery. I'm after suggestions for a mine loco or similar. Such as the open cab Clayton (not so keen because of the chassis needed) or the Huwood Hudswell Mine loco (Light Railway Stores). It'll be used for hauling wagons in a couple of quarries and will have to pass through some low tunnels. Does anyone have any other suggestions? And if anyone has such a loco that they would like to sell I'd be happy to hear from you as well. Thanks.

[JulienW]

Having just looked up 'Clayton 009 model loco' on google I see some 3d printed bodies to fit the Tsugawa TU-7T.  What don't you like about the chassis?  Admittedly it comes with a 6 volt motor, but that can be sorted either by fitting a resistor (about 150 ohm) in series with the motor - a reasonably easy soldering electrical wires job - or by replacing the 3 volt 6mm diameter can motor for a 12 volt one - Tramfaberike sell them (and I've seen similar motors on sale elsewhere).  The motor swap is a little harder as you need to get the worm off the old motor and on to the new one, and as the 12 volt motor is 3mm longer than the 3 volt one it may not fit into the 3d printed body (which are often a bit of a sod to modify due to brittle resin prints).

To make thing easier I've just looked at the Tramfabrieke website where one can purchase the Tsugawa chassis with a 12 volt motor pre-fitted here.

The other thought would be to go for one of the Tsugawa chassis with a horizontal motor (TU-9A, TU-16A or the TU-DB158 with jackshaft drive) and scratch build a (freelance?) body to fit the chassis. That shouldn't be too hard as all you need is a bettery box and a footplate at one end for the driver to sit.

Due to the small size of the average battery mines loco I think you'll be hard pressed to use anything other than the Tsugawa chassis.  There are other 'electric mice' from Japan but they generally are only available purchased direct from Japan (try 'Plaza Japan' and 'Hobbysearch'), or a Kato 'portram' or 'centram' bogie (generally you'll need to buy the tram, extract the 2 power bogies then fit a resistor to allow them to run independently on 12 volts).  The final option would be to build the chassis yourself (but getting the parts may be tricky).

Or you could use the 3 volt motors as they are and rig up something that will only apply a maximum of 3 volts to the rails - a battery powered controller, resistor fitted between the controller and the rails or reducing the AC voltage going into a handheld controller (the usual is 15 V AC in 12 V DC out and I know the Z scale guys use 12 V AC in to get 9 v DC out to better drive the Rokuhan Z scale stuff).

Finally I recall seeing a 3d printed body to fit the Kato 11-103/11-104/11-109/11-110 chassis, though in my view the way the battery box has been stretched to fit the (very long) chassis made for a not too convincing loco.