Since I was about 15 I've had this photo enlargement either at home or up in my office. It's a local railroad, the Sheffield & Tionesta, at a now-ghost town, Kellettville, PA. The kick is that the photo date is about 1904: As I've become a better researcher, the photo gets better and better. Although it's 1904, the locomotive is a secondhand C&NW 4-4-0, and it's beat, dented, the pilot wheels don't match, and the S&T was basically a logging railroad - no tie plates or ballast. The coaches are D&H gravity cars dating back to the 1850's, and from what I've found out the ceilings were 6'9" tall. Tiny cars. Even better, I found what I'm convinced is a wonderful photo of the 4-4-0 nearly new on the C&NW on the Shorpy site - it was a magnificent locomotive. http://www.shorpy.com/node/14355 I'd tried a Bachmann 4-4-0 about 20 years ago, and I gave up on it. Performance was just too bad. So when the Atlas came out I thought I'd try one more time. I got the PRR one, and it's an amazing model. But between modifying it to resemble S&T 4 a bit better, and making the performance better, I lost six months here tinkering. I think I'm finally done.... Now, a disclaimer. I'm not looking to 'improve' it further, so if you want to try something more, do it on your own, I'm not doing it except MAYBE adding the air pump when I get it in. This thing is just too difficult and fragile to work on. Getting it this far has been a breath-holding exercise in two-steps forward and one step back. I'll lead you through it on this thread, you can pick and choose what you may want to attempt to make a later-1870's version
The basics are that the locomotive had marginal pickup, and relatively poor balance. The first thing you'll notice on a side shot is that I've made a cast metal cab casting (custom master) and also elevated the tender coal bunker - also cast metal. That added enough weight to get it to balance better on the drivers, not torque the front of the tender 'up'. More weight on the tender greatly improved the pickup. Balancing the locomotive put more weight on the rear drivers, also increasing the pickup effort, so it was a significant improvement by itself. I made these with the intent of offering them; not everybody wants an extended coal bunker but I did want it to stop stalling even more.
OK, weights first. The cab weight comes in at 6.7 grams, the tender weight at 6 grams. The cab weight turned out to be more complicated than I thought to miss the cab screw, the worm gear bearing, and have a little cutout for the torso of an engineer. I just goo'd it onto the roof. The tender weight used the original 'coal load' surface on a box, put right back on the tender deck. If anybody else wants these I will sell them, see the randgust.com web page or PM me. Next thing was the locomotive to tender connection. I was able to make a great improvement in the Atlas 2-6-0 by hotwiring the locomotive to the tender; those little brass finger wires on the zinc casting just don't work all that wonderfully well; it does corrode, and it's also erratic. That connection is tiny and it's moving all over the place, up, down, and around. Hotwiring this one was a LOT harder. I ended up drilling out and tapping the frame halves right above the rear driver so I could have a detachable mount for wires, and then ran wire under the tender deck, connecting to a piece of removable .030 wire bent in an "L" shape that contacts up into the motor pickups. That works, but it kept snapping off the solder connection. I ended up lightly goo'ing the pickup wire end to the inside of the gangway stirrup so the stress point was away from the solder connection. If you study the side view you can see the pickup wires going into the cab. This is all about reliability, because while the tender is 8x8 and the locomotive only has two hot drivers, it still needs them to bridge over an insulated frog.
OK, now on the curvature issues. While I had NO TROUBLE AT ALL on my big layout (11" minimum, 13" nominal) when I moved it over to the portable logging railroad modules for testing pretty much everything went wrong. The original HVRR module has 8" curves and four Trix R1 switches on it, and I immediately discovered that 9 3/4 was just as tight as she would run without piling up the lead truck on...something. Any tighter and the lead wheel of the front truck hits the cylinder, torques up the truck and tips it, and it inevitably derailed. But worse than that, I was seeing 'drops' of the lead axle in the point area of some switches, so I checked gauge, and the lead axle was narrow. Hmmm. So the attack became threefold: 1) widen the gauge (easy, twist wheels and check) 2) get a hair more clearance on the lead truck by taking off the 'fenders' off of the lead axle and trimming the inside of the cylinders a hair where the wheels rubbed 3) Put some more weight on that lead axle to hold it down a bit when it does bump into something when pushed over HARD going through switchpoints. Here's what that all looks like: That's a very small piece of soft lead hammered, trimmed, and bent to clear, and hung over the lead axle, secured with Goo. That did the trick. I can do 8" curves now, although it's really, really close and unless you really need to do this, I don't particularly recommend it. My new module is 9 3/4, it doesn't mind those at all now and rolls through Peco ST tight switches without any issues where before it was a bit iffy with periodic derailments.
I'll also mention that if you're really looking for a small steam chassis that works well on tight curves the Atlas 2-6-0 is rather superior, I've done three of those (one stock, one tender drive, one converted to a tank) and all three negotiate the tight curves I've got on the portable layout modules with ease and very little modification. The 4-4-0 is really on the ragged edge, and because the front truck is just rolling along with no springs or weight on it, it takes very little provocation to derail on any track irregularity on a sharp curve. OK, now... another thing that annoyed me (and seems to annoy just about everybody on this one) is that HUGE honkin' coupler on the rear. An MT is big, an Accumate is bigger. Yeesh. So I carved the box off and expirimented with putting a Z 905 on the rear. It was low, and while you can sometimes get away with that on an MT you've got not much vertical slop to work with on a Z, but here, you have to deal with it. I did two things; first cut as much as I could up into the bottom frame and got about another .015; and then even cheated a little bit and deliberately tapered the cut so that the box is tipping up slightly to get another .010 or so. End result: Yes, I use the trip pins. Yes, it still works fine after rebending it. Yes, it delay uncouples with regular MT's.
OK, so in that shot above you can also see two more annoying things that I dealt with - one being the inexplicable missing cab wall behind the rear driver (you can see underneath the cab in front of the tender on the stock model) and second the low-relief drivers. The cab wall was solved with two rather small pieces of styrene that I ACC'd right onto the rear fenders and that go up into the cab. The pickup wires are right behind them and kind of float around in that pocket. That made a big difference on appearance as well has hid my new pickup wires. David Smith has made some rather slick replacement driver centers with full driver relief, but they do require that you pull the drivers and requarter everything. On this one, that was enough to talk me out of it. After I repainted everything grimy black (Floquil) the driver relief looked even worse than it did to begin with. The solution, and you can judge for yourself on how effective the illusion is, was to 'color in' the open spoke areas with a micro-fine dark black Sharpie. Yeah, that's really cheating, but it's also really easy and it doesn't compromise the drive train - which on mine, was excellent, anything I did to mess with it was only going to make it worse, not better. You're free to go either way, and word on the street is that Atlas second run will have better driver relief anyway.
I haven't had time to play much with mine, but one simple easy thing I did was add a fake bolster to the rear truck and a center sill. They are just some styrene strips painted black. All this is just to help hide the see-thru effect of the tender and this also helps to hide that the trucks are attached ridged to the tender.
Wow, that's nice. Maybe I can do that much without breaking something else off! I see you've stuck a Z coupler box on yours as well. I've looked under that tender and wondered if there's enough slop space to hang a Z2 decoder under there for the DCC guys. I think it might clear, have yet to measure it. With all the weight I added I think the reliability 'might' be good enough now for DCC.
OK, so.... next major change here. And I think the best one. If you go back and look at the Shorpy photo during the C&NW era - this thing had a Russia Iron jacket that just glowed. I mean, that thing is just freakin' gorgeous. No regular paint can do it justice. And if you read the history about Russia Iron on boiler jackets, color is rather variable and subjective. But one thing for sure, it sure wasn't flat black, or painted silver. I looked at every paint and technique out there, wasn't too particularly convinced any of them would work right. And, in the 'order of battle' on this project, this was an early expiriment as soon as I painted everything else, because if I couldn't get this to look right finishing the rest of it seemed pointless. So the expiriment was to try Testors Steel - out of the jar, and the dark silver stuff. Better, not great... and then I tried something that shouldn't have ever worked. I brushed on neolube over top of it, let it dry, and then started buffing it out with a tissue held in tweezer points. Wow, the shine came right out, like.... polished steel. It started to have a deep reflective tone with the silver underneath..THAT'S IT!!! If there's anything you get from this thread, I hope that's it. I've never seen anything that looks quite as effective for Russia Iron jackets as that technique. If you 'colored' the paint underneath of it, you could get the blues and the greens you've heard about, but buffing out a final coat of Neolube...well, that's the ticket. There's the luster shine, right there. It sure doesn't look like any paint you've ever seen. It's a really cool effect, and it's pretty much a happy accident.
OK, so now for the downside. Before anybody 'messes' with one of these, here's the list (so far) on everything that's required repair, replacement, or otherwise driven me nuts while working with this thing... 1) Stack crooked, VERY CAREFULLY straightened up with long-nose pliers, although I half-think I may have cracked it in the process. 2) Lost count of how many times the pilot truck fell out and had to be put back in, and the retainer plate pushed back up 3) Both flagstaffs broken off - forget those, lost cause. 4) Whistle snapped off and replaced with brass .020 wire 4) Handrail stanchion snapped off at base and replaced with .010 wire 5) Handrail stanchion cracked at base, will have to be replaced 6) Headlight doesn't appear to work at all, but unlike today, headlights were only used at night, non-issue 7) Crosshead guide dropped main rod and had to be reattached 8) Water line (RH side) support cracked and broke off 9) Sandbox lid (over top of screw) doesn't fit properly, leaving a gap underneath Those handrail stanchions are a particularly bad idea, because you can't get the boiler off of the frame without taking the handrails off, and the stanchions break off incredibly easily. Whistle is equally unbelievable as a styrene cast part. Just sayin' that if you're going to work on these, accept the fact that you're going to have to fix these and just accept it rather than subjecting yourself to mental abuse, just part of the work plan.
I agree, Excellent. This is definitely a keeper technique. I noticed that boiler difference in your earlier pics and wondered "I must have picked the wrong roadname to get that paint job." Kudos Randy. Cheers, Craig
Another thing I did was take apart the crosshead sliders to files away the flash and man I agree they are very easy to break. If you plan to take one apart you might as well rip off the front pilot boiler supports cause they won't last long... Also I've heard Atlas fixed the wheel spokes for the next run, but it doesn't look like it: http://www.atlasrr.com/NLoco/n440loco1.htm I found this 4-4-0 working at Folsom Prison:
Well, It's Chris' fault. I was pretty happy with it until I saw that easy tender truck modification. And, once it's back on the workbench, may as well do another round: 1) Added Chris' rear tender truck bolster and center sill (genius!) 2) Shortened the stack to look more like the coal-burner shotgun 3) Put on the single-stage air compressor - found one in the parts drawer 4) Changed the headlight over to a more modern one (stolen from an Atlas/Roco 0-6-0, I think) 5) Put on a front drawbar and a dummy coupler, again, stolen from something Atlas in the parts drawer. 6) Added left and right side injector line piping to match the prototype; left side purely a guess. There are only three known photos of this locomotive, two right side and only those are clear. Still no clue where the main reservoir was. And, as predicted, this round resulted in another broken handrail stanchion replaced by wire, two more popouts of the lead truck, and some more paint touchup.
The first one I bought was a Disney locomotive and the tab that holds the pilot truck on was super glued down so it couldn't pop out at the factory. My Atlas version isn't like that. Sometimes air tanks were between the frame rails, like under the boiler where the bell sand dome are. Would be hard to see there.
Stevenson valve gear is enough of a PITA with the cranks and eccentrics on the lead drive axle tucked inside the frame that there really isn't a lot of room in there. I sure can't see it on either my photo or the Shorpy. York 17 (the new build 4-4-0) ended up with the main reservoir under the cab and between the drivers. Much of that was for cosmetic reasons rather than practical. I'm going to dig on some similar-era Schenectady-built 4-4-0's to see where the put the main reservoir. You'd think it would be hung on the left side of the boiler, somewhere. Air brakes were new, and you can see all the piping for the compressor headed off to the other side under the boiler. The Shorpy photos shows an air compressor, so it certainly appears it was built with link and pin couplers and air brakes, great era! The other thing it 'looks like' is that there were steam brakes, not air brakes, on the locomotive itself. HVRR5, the 1910 Lima 2-6-0 had an oversized main reservoir and a single-stage air pump, a clear sign of a logger.
This isn't the same locomotive, but same era: Schenectady 4-4-0 built 1880 on the Milwaukee. Many of the same details, including cab, domes, extended smokebox, etc. are identical to the C&NW 605, this is the other side....and something with pipes running to it behind the cylinder saddle...... http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr1200/tw60.jpg Sure looks like a Schenectady in the details, another link-and-pin job with an air pump: http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_cnj511.jpg This may be the best clue; Schenectady 1886 for the Fremont & Elkhorn Valley then to C&NW; look right behind the cylinder saddle, modernized extensively, but no doubt about it, that's a similar locomotive and the main reservoir is there: http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0301/bl77.jpg That's a cool shot; the full evolution of an 1880's 4-4-0 into 1924; steel cab, possible updated tender, turbogenerator, but must be in the dead line because the headlight is off of it. But compare that to the original and some things can't get erased. Chris, I was thinking it would have been mounted under the center longways, but no, it's more like a beer keg size and it's right behind the cylinder saddle and before the Stevenson valve gear linkage to the drivers. And if you look at the Shorpy photo of C&NW 605, there's a lot of 'plumbing' headed there from the air compressor, at least 4 lines, so if you did have the air reservoir there that would explain everything. So there really wasn't a reservoir on the left side!
In the steam cyclopedia there are two 4-4-0's showing the air tank parallel with the ties and one PRR 4-4-0 with the tank parallel with the frame rails.
The new Atlas eight wheelers have shown up. I purchased a B&O. It appears that they have corrected the rakish cant of the cab from the first run. Mine ran fine in reverse, out of the box, but it had a pronounced hitch in the getalong in forward. My PRR from the last run was similar. The painted/unlettered and NYNH&H that I bought first did not show the problem in such a pronounced fashion. The problem has mostly smoothed out with run-in. Funny, Atlas has yet to do a Virginia & Truckee on this one. Atlas did a V&T on each run of the mogul, for a total of three different names/numbers.
