Re-powering the UP 680
by Mike Folkenroth

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How do you roll an 850 pound locomotive over on its back so you can easily work on the under side?

Well, we'll get to that in a bit - but let's start back at the beginning.

Long about fall of December 2003, I decided that it was time to re-power the UP 680. I had purchased this custom built masterpiece from Lee Wright two years earlier.

The new components were chosen after observing the operation of an electric locomotive owned by Russ Eldred at the White Creek railroad. His electric locomotives were quiet, responsive and strong enough to pull a house off its foundation - needless to say, quite impressive.

The heart of these locomotives was a Briggs&Stratton E-tek motor controlled by a Sevcon MilliPak 4Q controller. This is the controller specifically recommended by the Briggs and Stratton for the E-tek permanent magnet motor.

I purchased the E-tek and Sevcon components and began talking to Lee about my plans. Lee generously offered to take the lead on the project, which was a blessing for me as I might still be working on it today if I hadn't already completely destroyed the locomotive...

I delivered the 680 to Lee's workshop and in the same evening we'd disassembled the whole thing. It's amazing how easy it is to take this thing apart. We owe this to a key feature on all of Lee's models - they can be disassembled and reassembled without use of a torch, grinder, or sawzall. Nice.

At this point, Lee goes to work designing a new motor mount and gathers up the necessary materials and components.

The gearing was changed slightly to make the locomotive run just a touch faster than before. The final motor shaft to axle ratio was about 9:1. In a matter of a couple of weeks, Lee has fabricated the new motor mount and it's ready to be test fit along with the new pulleys, belts and motor.

Now that the new motor mount is ready to be installed, we start working on a floor plan for all of the remaining control components. I spent a few hours thinking this, but after Lee examined the components that needed to be installed, he found a perfect layout in about two seconds.

The next phase was the motor-to-drive-shaft connection. To accomplish this task, we *really* needed to find a method of getting underneath this stripped-down 350 pound locomotive frame.

This is where we left things for a while. I racked my feeble brain to find a method that would be feasible and not destroy the fragile details and paint that were already applied to the frame.

OK, this is where Lee has a moment of true inspiration and devises a method to allow us to flip this locomotive over with one hand - back and forth effortlessly. It's now known as the 'Wagon Wheel' technique.

The next day, Lee had already fabricated half of the 'wagon-wheel' solution out of scraps lying around the shop. After a little additional welding that night, the fixture was complete.

I've got to tell you - this is the way to do it. We were able to roll the unit back and forth with one hand - and did this all without a single scratch.

We installed all of the new drive chain components and fine tuned the belts alignment and pulley distances. It was also a piece of cake to check the movement of the drive shaft as we turned the trucks gently back and forth. Sweeeeeet...

In no time at all, the drive train was ready to go.

While we had the beast apart, we took the opportunity to perform maintenance on the trucks. After 7 years of running, almost no detectable wear. We cleaned everything up, put a drop of oil in the bushings, and upgraded the springs to support the additional weight of the new motor upgrade.

Soon after, the locomotive was placed back on its wheels and taken to it's newly constructed workshop at the Spring Creek Railroad.

After I completed wiring up the power, electric controls and configuring the Sevcon controller, the unit was smoke-tested at Western Illinois Railroad in late May 2004. Here's Lee taking it out for a test spin.

A few weeks later in mid-June, it journeyed to the White Creek 2004 Spring Meet in
Michigan for the ultimate endurance test on the ultimate railroad.