Modern 4-4-0 question

[sedfred]

The modern 4-4-0 seems to come with extra more domes and a different leading truck, I like the other domes because they are more ornate, how exactly does one take off the current domes and put on the older looking ones?

[Trainman203]

Those older domes don't go well wiith the more modern frame with the rear driver set forward to allow the brake cylinder under the cab.  It implies putting an old boiler on a new frame in a rebuild. reboilering  on older frames was the more common practice.

Look at this  to see what I mean.  Rear driver all the way to the back under the cab means old frame, but the engine was reboilered after 1900, has the more modern domes.  This is the more common look.  I've seen pictures is similar MP rebuilds, I'll see if I can find them on line instead of in books where I've seen them.

http://www.thedoublet.com/engine.html

Incidentally, the BW photo called "Southern Pacific" is actually ex T&NO 216 at the Erath Louisiana sugar mill, about 10 miles from where I grew up.  When I was a kid we visited that engine all the time, along with 4-6-0 ex T&NO 314 which was also on the property at the time.

I really liked the Bachmann GN 4-4-0 with the older fluted domes but always  thought something didn't look right, it took me awhile to figure it out.  I have two of the modern Baldwin ones and five of the now discontinued Richmond 4-4-0.  All great engines.

[Trainman203]

The 1957-1965 bellows falls dates for the 4-4-0 in the article is incorrect.  We saw  that engine in Erath  Louisiana up until 1965, when one day in 1965 or 1966 quite by accident I saw it through the window of SP train 2 which I was riding, being shipped out loaded in a gondola.

[sedfred]

this is going a bit off topic, i want to know how to remove the current domes and smokestack and replace it with the others ones so it looks more like the GN one.

[Irbricksceo]

The Smokestack is held in by a screw, look down it, you'll see it. You need a small philips head to get it out though. As for the domes, I have no idea, I've tried, and failed, to find a way to remove em.

[Trainman203]

You have to take the boiler off to unscrew the domes.  That's a nice feature,  wish the 2-8-0 was like that.    But I was trying to tell you, the 1900-plus-era engine is too modern for those 1870 domes.  Bachmann should not have included those domes. It's your engine to do what you wish with ........and it may not matter to you, and my first explanation with pictures may have been too long, but the old fashioned  domes really aren't correct for that engine.

If you really want to do that, exploded drawings of the engine are on the bachmann website.