Locomotive Project due to Weather

[jonathan]

Well, for the umpteenth time this winter, we are snowed in and I can't get to work, and the kids can't get to school.

Before I commence to break my back with the shovel, thought I'd share my latest project.  This is a '77 Westside U-1, a B&O loco of course.

Took some picture during disassembly for obvious reasons, but this pic also caught the extra weight I was adding.  Through various size lead chunks I was able to find enough hiding places to add two ounces of weight:


Some of the little chunks fit in the frame:


Added lights by drilling #65 holes and using 30 gage magnet wire:


Painted the loco myself.  Here is a primer coat with the firebox and smokebox masked off:


Used the original coreless can motor.  For 38 years old, it still tests strong:


The coal load is made of foam rubber, spray painted gloss black, with a little coal sprinkled on top.  It is removable without causing damage to the painted brass:


The cab detail just slides right out of the locomotive.  Made is easy to paint and detail the interior.  I also added little bits of lead under the seats and in the roof lining:






I used more 30 gage magnet wire for the rope pulls because the magnet wire holds paint much better than brass or copper.

I was having a tough time photographing the final product.  The camera and I weren't getting along. Here they are anyway:












Regards,

Jonathan

[jbrock27]

Sweet !

[J3a-614]

Looks great!  And if the model is correct, it's a locomotive with screw reverse!  Oh, boy, I bet the engineers who ran it hated that!  Go into forward gear-turn, turn, turn, turn,  Go into back gear-turn, turn, turn, turn.  Go from forward gear to back gear-turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. . . .

Tolerable, sometimes, on a road engine like a passenger job (NYC Hudsons were among the types that had it, and the surviving NKP 4-6-4 in St. Louis does, too), but on a yard engine--whooee!!  You get a workout!

[jonathan]

Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.

Yeah, that's not a steering wheel in front of the engineer. 

As far as switchers go, this was one of the largest steam loco's ever built.  It was a modified Big Six (S-1a 2-10-2).  Could pull monstrously long cuts of cars, albeit slowly.  Without the leading and trailing trucks, it became unstable over 20 mph if I remember correctly.

The reason I added weight, and will probably add a little BFS to one of the drivers, was to pull long cuts of cars without a caboose... just to simulate what this loco was made for.

Thanks!

Jonathan

[richg]

Very nice. That got me to Googling the 0-10-0. The 0-8-0 seems to be a more popular switcher though.
The B&O had some incredible pushers/switchers.

Rich

[rogertra]

Really an excellent job Jonathan.

Well done.

Cheers

Roger.

[ebtnut]

I'm not handy to my "B&O Power" at the moment but if memory serves the B&O stole the boilers off of a pair of Class S (rather than S-1) 2-10-2's to built the first T class 4-8-2's.  They had two perfectly good ten-drivered chassis so built new boilers and tenders to turn them into the switchers. 

[electrical whiz kid]

Jonathan;
The "Steering wheel" reminded me of the old Art Linkletter thing with the kids; he had asked this one boy what he had wanted to be, and the kid replied "an engineer".  Art asked him what the most important thing to remember was and the boy said "not to drive the train off of the tracks".  I cracked up!!!

Rich C.

PS:  this will go into the folder with John Allen's "Stegosaurus in the forest"...