POEM
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 A "Baldwin-style" 2-8-0T+T
(combined side tank and tender loco) built by Murray Lane,
Howick, NZ.POEM was designed for a railway at Manu
Ariki Marae a few miles north of Taumarunui in the central north
island of New Zealand. She was to be able to haul a load of 54
adults up their 1 in 100 gradient, including a short stretch of
1 in 40 on a bend. Due to a lack of suitably trained staff at
the line they decided not to buy the loco in the end and Murray
retained her for himself. The railway is still open and now
extends to just over 3km (just under 2 miles), or a 25 minute
run.
- POEM is unusual in that the builder
(Murray Lane) combined features of several different locos
to build this one. It is vaguely reminiscent of a World War
I American
ALCO
or Baldwin trench loco, but it is a 2-8-0, not a 2-6-2.
- POEM is a combined side tank and
tender loco making it more like a sugar-cane loco. There
were no eight-coupled sugar-cane locos in Fiji,
though there were still a few in Java (as of 2006 and
most of those were German-built).
- POEM uses
Allan straight-link valve motion, which was unusual on
full-size locos and even rarer on miniature locomotives.
- POEM will have to be repainted, it
simply doesn't look right to have a blue and purple steam
loco. That said, many of the sugar-cane locos in Java (and
Australia) were painted some fairly garish colours.
Murray was originally going to build a model of Palm
Oil Estates
Management (P.O.E.M.) railway locomotive #3 but she would've been too
small for the intended use so he changed the design to the
semi-freelance 2-8-0; but he kept the name POEM.
Murray said that POEM has been running for
about five or six years and he has rebuilt those parts that were
not satisfactory, so there is little chance of it developing a
fault that he hasn't already uncovered. For instance he re-made
slide valves as the original phosphor-bronze ones distorted and
he made new cast-iron ones. Murray is a superb engineer and
there is no faulting his workmanship.
This is a loco built for hard use and is
not a finescale model. The paintwork is a bit tarnished in
places but the underlying loco is in very good condition.
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Specifications |
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Mechanical |
| Wheel arrangement |
2-8-0 |
| Cylinder bore & stroke |
70 x 94mm |
| Length of engine |
2085mm |
| Total length with tender |
3675mm |
| Height |
900mm |
| Width |
600mm |
| Engine weight empty |
490kg |
| Engine weight loaded |
567kg |
| Tender weight empty |
180kg |
| Tender weight loaded |
360kg |
| Wheel diameter - driver |
166mm |
| Wheel diameter - pony truck |
114mm |
| Wheel diameter - tender |
275mm |
| Fixed wheelbase |
615mm |
| Water capacity |
120 litres |
| Coal capacity |
35kg |
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Boiler |
| Type |
Briggs |
| Capacity |
30 litres |
| Internal diameter |
200mm |
| Total length |
1200mm |
| Length between tube plates |
843mm |
| Grate size |
300 x 294mm |
| Fire tubes (20 off) |
19mm OD |
| Ash pan |
330 x 320 x 100mm |
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 I will probably repaint POEM in the same scheme as VICTORY on
the
Bredgar &
Wormshill Light Railway.I may also take the opportunity move the headlight to the top
of the smokebox and to rename her (to PETER after my father). If
I do, I might move the nameplates to the side-tanks.
John Bremner and I spent an hour or so discussing our
discoveries so far on POEM.
- There is some quite bad surface rust under the flare on
the tender sides. This will need to be rubbed down and
repainted.
- John made up a prototype (crude) replacement bracket for
the regulator that swaps the pivot and rod holes around thus
making the regulator work the "correct" way.
- After a quick chat with John he made up a new headlight
bracket to mount it on top of the smokebox.
- The chimney looks slightly too short to my eyes.
- Both John and I agree that the cab sides are too low.
We're looking at options to raise the floor of the cab to
the tops of the frame - about 70mm. This should make the
proportions about right for the Baldwin/ALCO originals.
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August 2008
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 POEM's new headlight bracket is done and I have turned
down all of the brass valves. We just need to finish fitting
the coiled wire grips.
We managed to get the cap and base off
of the chimney tube. I am going to raise the chimney by 35mm
to be more in-line with the top of the cab - it is a bit
"dumpy" at the moment.
We took the cab off and will make a
start to raise the footplate. This will help raise all the
pipe work up off the ground too and make the whole loco look
more balanced.
The chimney is done. We've actually
cut the tube longer than originally planned; the proportions
of the chimney look so much better. Once the cab is back on
we can re-assess the height of the chimney and if necessary
trim a bit off of the top; taking the brass cap off is easy
enough. Checking with prototype photos, the chimney should
be higher than the top of the cab by about the diameter of
the chimney barrel.
POEM's new, higher chimney and relocated
headlight. Notice in the photos above that the
base of the brass cap is roughly level with the top of the dome.
We all think the proportions look much better now, but once the
cab is back on we can always trim a bit off of the barrel to
lower it if we need to.
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 Interestingly, John took one of the
side tanks off and POEM looks rather nice as a tender loco! |
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John and Grant are contemplating the new footplate - which has
been raised at the sides.
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September 2008
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John Bremner performing somewhat "brutal" engineering on POEM's
cab - I didn't have the nerve to do it myself and John does this
sort of thing all the time, so "leave it to the experts" I say!
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This is POEM's cab tested-fitted back on (compare the shot below
to see how much of the cab has been pruned away). We need to
re-fit all of the pipework, injectors etc. under the cab, but a
strip down and re-paint is going to be next.
Having seen how
it's worked out, we'll probably trim about 20mm out of the
barrel of the chimney.
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We are making progress. All of the pipework on the righthand
side is back on. It looks a lot neater and is up out of the way
of the track. we're now working on the lefthand side. After that
it is a bit of a tidy up and we take the boiler cladding off to
go for painting along with the side tanks, cab and tender body.
I'll get the chassis steam-cleaned and then we can go around and
touch-up the black. I am not prepared to strip the whole loco
down to do a bare-metal repaint, it doesn't need it and it is a
heck of a lot of work.
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October & November 2008
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Not done much recently as John Bremner has moved
premises, so POEM has taken a bit of a back-seat. |
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