Here Thomas is on the turntable at the end of the line waiting to do a return trip. My eldest daughter in the background. 

Thomas is a 12 volt single electric motor powered by one car battery with a three speed mechanical controller.

It appears to be a home made design and was originally a diesel shunter style body which was altered to give a loose resemblance to Thomas the tank engine.

Loco No1

Loco No2

This is where it got serious having built a Maxitrak Ruby Loco which is real steam.

Cheer up Dad!

This is a magnificent electric loco. It has four electric motors and two car batteries running at 24volts.

This was inherited from my late Uncle.

Unfortunately when I tried it on the railway it was very unhappy getting around the 10 feet radius curves on our line.

This is due to the triple axle layout.

Having taken advice I ground off the flange on the middle axle wheels by Running the loco jacked up off the ground so the wheels were rotating slowly and then used the angle grinder to trim off the flange. The improvement was substantial.

This loco is our most powerful train.

Loco No4

This was an interesting project.

I inherited this loco from my Late Uncle as well. However the loco did not work having had an accident whilst being used on a club Railway the electrics had overheated.

The electrics were very old and the controller was a mass of capacitors/resistors etc which I couldnt fathom out.

I decided to replace the electronics as a whole with a 4qd controller. (a vortex VTX 40 24)  www.4qd.co.uk

After reading the vast array of info on the site I decided to try running the 12volt single motor at 24volts via two golf trolley batteries purchased off ebay for £20 each.(these batteries are ideal as they are designed for deep discharge)

Before reading about running at 24 volts I didnt believe that you could run a 12volt motor without detonating it.

However the result is fantastic comparing the performance with our single motor Thomas it is in a different league.

Without going into it in detail running at 24volts is alot more efficient as you half the current and improve efficiency dramatically as there is alot less waste to heat.

The control is via a lead to a hand held controller also suplied by 4qd. It requires the driver to hold down a button for forward or reverse and then turn a speed control dial. The only slight problem is kids find it tricky to hold down the button and twist the dial and tend to set a speed on the dial and use the forward button as the control by pushing in and releasing it. By adjusting one of the pots on the speed control this can be made so it is not too aggresive on take up.