Mojave Northern No. 3 is cosmetically finished and awaiting a mechanism, so I will be putting that locomotive on the back burner so that I can start my next major project: a scratchbuilt Baldwin 8-18c in HOn3. (The FED Spartan 4-4-0s in HOn3 are far too much of a hassle to serve as a starting point for the level of detail and proportional accuracy that I aim to replicate.) The Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad, to my surprise, did have a 4-4-0 No. 2 on its roster, a Dawson & Bailey product named Platte CaƱon [click here for link 1] [click here for link 2], but it was vacated by 1890 or so. My locomotive will be based off of what could have been: an orphaned 8-18c finding its way onto the early C&S around the turn of the century. By that time, Congdon stacks had given way to the McConnell "pancake" stacks, new headlights, brackets, and cabs were being fitted, and early experimentation with boiler-mounted air tanks was being carried out, much like C&S No. 64 in 1903 [click here for link]. But this 4-4-0 will be designed as an assortment of leftover parts from the DSP&P era that may have been sitting around in the corners of roundhouses and machine shops. Florence is actually the flagship locomotive in an upcoming webcomic that I'm working on, and after a bit of persuasion, I decided to give her a shot. I'm taking dimensions from various sources and assembling a list of materials that I need, with several DSP&P brass parts from Precision Scale on order. A few hiccups did surface, though: If anyone knows if or where one could find 45-48" HO scale drivers, that would save me a considerable amount of time, as my current option is extensively milling out and rebuilding a few drivers I have in my parts bin. Furthermore, I planned on simply scratchbuilding the crossheads, rods, and valve gear, but references to any pre-made offerings of those would also be appreciated.
Yes, all DSP&P, DL&G, and C&S 3-footers burned coal, C&S #70 notwithstanding. Both the Congdon and McConnell stacks--as well as earlier diamonds and Nesmiths--were designed for coal-burners. The "hungry boards" on the tender were also a standard feature of engines on those roads.
Just made a quick scale drawing to get an idea for overall size. These early three-footers really are tiny, but they have a proportional symmetry and elegance to them, e.g. the distance between tender truck bolsters is the same as the distance between the driver axles, which is roughly the distance between the lead driver and the cylinders, and the rear driver to the lead tender truck. The tender trucks are Blackstone caboose trucks with pickup wipers, the lead wheels are also from Blackstone (soon to have the pointed axle ends removed), and the drivers are spare HO scale Spectrum saddle tank drivers that I had lying around. In the comic, Florence had high-stepping 48" drivers, but with new counterbalances, these 45" ones will suffice, as it's only a difference of 1mm.
Update: I have found suitable 48" Romford drivers and self-quartering axles for this build. The 14mm/12-spoke drivers are exactly what I needed to match Florence's specs. All that I have to do is add crank pins (also on order), add my own counterbalances, and splice the axles down from HO to HOn3.
After correcting a few errors, I redrew my scale plans for Florence, adjusting for proper boiler diameters and 48" driver size.
Recently finished re-building the Congdon stack and adding a whistle & pop valves to the steam dome. The stack modifications were necessary for two reasons: firstly, the PSC offering didn't match most of the Congdon stacks that I've found in drawings and photographs, and secondly, I needed to bolt on an extended base that would be built into the smokebox and provide a place for the boiler to screw onto the front of the frame. Next on the to-do list is cleaning up the casting imperfections on the dome and other detail parts, as well as rebuilding the headlight to match those on DSP&P locomotives. I'll also experiment with making my own antlers to mount atop the light...
I've seen a fair number of photos, showing a proud crew with their decorated and polished steam engine. But models, it's been a awhile. I believe John Allen had one of his narrow gauge locos decorated.
To Wings & Strings, You may not be aware that Romford/Markits make axles for HOn3. Their catalog number is MRAX/HOn3. Quantity of 1 equals two axles and four nuts. Regards, Gary
I've actually continued the build thread on Railroad-Line, since there's a lot more narrow gauge and turn-of-the-century modeling there. There's about 9 pages as of now: http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=45351&whichpage=1