When Marklin came out with the new Mogul, I knew I wanted one. Tom Knapp had one on his Nn3 One Track module at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds last November, and he had modified it and repainted to look real nice. He even modified the tender for oil instead of coal: I went in on a group purchase with Tom and a lot of other guys and got a good deal on mine, but I needed to paint it to look more NP style. It's very close to an NP D-2 Class, but I also wanted a newer tender to justify the locomotive still being in use in the 1950's, so I built a tender and painted out the Bumble Bee, and into NP: What I did was to remove the shell, and mask off the smoke box/stack, then spray paint the shell Krylon Flat Black hardware grade canned spray paint. I also sprayed the piston cylinders and the sand dome cap (which hides the shell screw). Next I brush painted the head lamp housing with Floquil Engine Black, as well as the drivers. Then I decaled it for NP, and applied a wash of "dirty black paintbrush dipped in Dio-Sol" to the silver stack and smoke box to tone down the silver a bit, Polly S Flat finished the whole thing, then killed the gray stripes on the valve gear with PBL Neo-Lube. I like the looks of the Mogul in Black much better then Bumble Bee orange.
I plan on DCC'ing this thing someday, including light and firebox flicker, however as is I am happy. I only spent 2 hours total on it, and another 2 hours for the scratch built tender. This is a very pleasing locomotive, as it runs very nice, and pulls small trains just fine. This loco is just a little large for Z Scale, and a bit small for Nn3, but it is a welcome addition to both the Z and Nn3 modelers rosters. -Robert
I keep going back and looking at those pictures, they really look great! Are they taken on your layout? Any updated photos of the layout to pass on?
I took those pictures last weekend in the back yard. A friend had came over and we were building his module frame, so I setup my 2 end modules in the backyard to run some trains on and have an example to work with for his module. Later in the afternoon, the sun was shining just right, so I whipped out the Olympus C765 and took a few pictures. The end modules are pretty bare, withone just having ground foam, and the other has a mountain with rock castings, tunnel, and some trees. I got my order of Marklin manual switches came in, (found some for $8.50 on ebay) so I will add the siding on the mountain end module and add my grain elevator this weekend. -Robert
Great! I look forward to seeing pictures. If you have manual turnouts, are you going to remove the coffin box on the sides? I did with mine. If you unscrew you will notice the little clear plastic strip that controls the points. Just cut everything else out with a hobbly knife or good snips and keep that strip in place. Beleive it or not, I use instant roadbed packed around that strip with ballast. To move the points I use a small screwdriver. It seems to work well for me. Hint though, only use instant roadbed on the out side and around the bar. Otherwise it will foul up the mech.
I will look into removing that big black box first thing. I hope I can use an under the table switch machine on it, but even a caboose ground throw is an improvement.
I am sure you already know this, but remember if you go with the caboose throw, you have to make sure that there is no down or up pressure on the bar that controls the points. Otherwise you will raise the points and the trains will have problems negotiating the turnout. Don't ask me how I know!
