P&LE Berkshire

[Old97]

I'm going to buy a NYC Niagara 4-8-4, take off the smoke deflectors and change the front truck and make a     Pittsburgh & Lake Erie 2-8-4 Berkshire. Has anyone attempted this before? If so does anyone have advise?

[ryeguyisme]

Um, well right off the bat, the Drivers on the Niagara would be much too large for the P&LE berk. You'd get better results by taking a berkshire bachmann already offers and crop a niagara boiler on that.

The Niagara's  running gear setup wouldn't look right either condering it's primarily a passenger locomotive, the main rod connecting to the second set of drive wheels, and the berkshire connecting to the third set of drive wheels

[ebtnut]

It would appear that one would have to take a course out of the Niagra boiler to fit it to a 2-8-4 mech.  I agree that using one of the Berks as the mech basis is the way to go.  I would also note that the P&LE Berks had a rather unique all-weather cab that the Niagra doesn't.