Big plans - first locomotive bash

[Trainman203]

I've always really liked 1880's 4-4-0's as modernized at the end of their lives in the 1920's and 1930's.  They were usually by then long since bumped down to branch line and short line service - right up my alley.  The Spectrum 4-4-0 is too modern for such a locomotive.

So.  I've started a plan to turn this-

http://www.trainworld.com/manufacturers/bachmann/bachmann-ho-scale/bachmann-steam-locomotives-2/bachmann-52701-4-4-0-american-steam-loco-w-dcc-value-added-sound-up/

Into this-

https://www.google.com/search?sclient=tablet-gws&site=&source=hp&q=missouri+pacific+4-4-0&oq=missouri+pacific+4-4-0&gs_l=tablet-gws.3...3123.24065.0.24998.42.24.10.8.8.0.381.3620.0j14j5j1.20.0....0...1c.1.64.tablet-gws..4.37.3510.jIUiGwQ5vn4#imgrc=_6CHhlOBWrBwFM%3A

It doesn't look very hard to do.  Replace the headlight, shorten the stack, put on a better bell and whistle, add an air pump and paint and you have a 90 percent good model.

[electrical whiz kid]

Whenever I see posts like this, I am glad that this aspect of the hobby is still alive.

Rich C.

[J3a-614]

Whenever I see posts like this, I am glad that this aspect of the hobby is still alive.

Rich C.

Great sentiment, but I wonder which 4-4-0 in the photos Trainman is referring to!   

This one, with its "wedding cake" domes, looks like the Baldwin version of the 4-4-0 Bachmann had, although this might be a larger engine than the one Bachmann made (which is based on the Ma & Pa Alco-Richmond model):

http://www.trainweb.org/screamingeagle/other/mp_steam_RUN08606.JPG

This one, which appears to be an ex-Southern Pacific locomotive based on the cab design and the tender trucks, is closer in size and proportion to the 19th century Bachmann model, which is based on a Virginia & Truckee prototype:

http://www.trainweb.org/foothill/images/rrlc1349.jpg

Of course, it might be interesting to see what V&T itself did, which included conversion to oil firing (the road's early power burned wood):

http://www.virginiaandtruckee.com/Locomotive/images/No11CarsonCity.jpg

http://www.virginiaandtruckee.com/Locomotive/images/11%20-%20UNRS-104.jpg

Oh my, this looks like something that would be at home on John Allen's G&D!!  Can you imagine the challenge in reproducing this state of dilapidation?

http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/las/las5.jpg

One thing about that photo page is the variety of engines, including this little gem from the SL&SF:

https://thelibrary.org/lochist/frisco/friscoline/images/photos/p01515.jpg

Finally, I must comment that it is great that Bachmann updated this engine with better wheels, a better mechanism, and a working front coupler!  All of that really cuts down what you would have to do to make the 4-4-0s more useful.

[Trainman203]

When I look at the prototype 4-4-0 link, the photo I mean to show is a big photo at the top of the page of a Louisiana Southern engine, obviously long out of service and still with a wooden cab, spotted next to a shop building. And when I open that link on the forum, that is what I see.  It may not be what you see........

I couldn't find any web photos of very similar MP  engines on the  NO&LC and the St.LB&M in the 30s but those are what I am aiming for.

The MP 953 was freshly shopped in May 1948 in Kingsville Texas for another 5 years service on a branch with a bridge made of toothpicks. The morning it came out of the shop, the yard crew ran it head on into an inbound freight and destroyed it.  I cannot find a photo of it to post here, but rest assured, it was a beyond beautiful piece.

Google T&NO 216.  That engine survives to this day although "Steamtown" in all its wisdom, after buying it, did not respect it and butchered it trying to backdate it, when as it was in 1965 it was a perfectly preserved 1900 rebuild of an 1880s engine, exactly what I am doing.  It worked a sugar mill about 6 miles from my old home and we regularly visited it after it was out of service but before "Steamtown" hauled it out.

[Trainman203]

This is the picture I mean, j3a.

http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/las/las5.jpg

[J3a-614]

That was the one with a bunch of other engines that came up; it's the one that looked like it would be at home on the G&D!

As noted, these engines are based on Baldwins built for V&T, but some have had some slight modifications to represent other engines, some by other builders.  I know B&O had some, and so did Cumberland Valley (which later became part of the PRR).  The former CV runs only about three blocks from my house, and when you could still get alphabet decals from Walthers and Champ I considered making up a Cumberland Valley passenger train.  Even the passenger cars were available from Model Die Casting-Roundhouse.  But the decals got discontinued and Champ went out of business, so the engine and cars are sitting around. . .

[Trainman203]

So many of those 4-4-0 engines in the 19th century were so alike that they could have been a catalogue model.  Don't forget that the name of the 4-4-0 type was "American 'Standard' ".