The 2-6-0 Project. Part 1

Steam locomotives are impressive, captivating, ingenious, complex, and dangerous devices all wrapped within a single frame. Nothing else in railroading has ever been quite as alluring. 

Prior to the turn of the last century, the 4-4-0 class of locomotive was perhaps the most successful, and most common wheel arrangement. These ran the gauntlet of design from colorful and gilded trimmed machines of the 1850s and 60s to the robust and
conventional units of the 1890s and the early 1900s.

According to Wes Barris' authoritative website, SteamLocomotive.com, there were around 25,000 of the little buggers manufactured from the mid-1800's through the following century. More then any single class of wheel arrangement before, or since. No surprise this class gained the name “American”.

The archetypical 4-4-0. Baldwin built. Circa 1870

Before I go any further, let's touch up on locomotive classes. On this blog, I toss around a lot of numbers. 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 4-6-0, and more. The technical term for this is the "Whyte Notation," developed by Frederick Whyte, which classifies a locomotive by its wheel arrangement. The system counts the number of lead wheels (non-powered, found at the head-end to negotiate curves), driving wheels (located directly under the boiler, providing all power and adhesion), and finally the trailing wheels (also non-powered these are located near the cab for support of the firebox and weight displacement), all of which are separated by dashes. 

The 4-4-0 in all it's mechanical glory

The American's Whtye Notation is broken down as follows: "4" lead wheels (two axles), "4" drivers (two axles), and "0" trailing wheels. Thus...a 4-4-0. (And the “0” is pronounced as “oh” not “Zero”. If you see a friend pronouncing a class as “four, four, zero”, and not “four, four, oh”...well, you need better friends. ;-) )

The iron horse continued to grow in an effort to meet demand and as boiler building technology and metallurgy allowed larger boilers and stronger frames to become available. Other popular 19th century wheel arrangements included the 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler, 2-6-0 Mogul, and 2-8-0 Consolidation. These successful designs gave way to the technologically advanced variants of the post-1900 period.

A roster of the W&A RR Circa 1862. All 4-4-0s.

So far, the motive power fleet of my W&A RR consists of six 1860s-70s 4-4-0s, one 4-6-0, and one 1890s 4-4-0. Historically, the real life Western & Atlantic mostly ran with 4-4-0s, although a batch of Baldwin 4-6-0s was obtained in the 1880s. Part of why I wanted to model a fictional version of the W&A was to expand upon this fleet with "could have been" pieces of motive power.

Two wheel arrangements I wanted to tackle were the 2-6-0 Mogul, and possibly the 4-8-0 Mastodon. Both projects I put off as I worked on perfecting the 4-4-0s. Part of the reason being that there really aren't good representations of these wheel arrangements available as ready-to-run 19^th century locomotives. There are some older models, such as Mantua open frame motored varieties, all based on the movie diva-I mean-star, Sierra Railroad #3. However, these older models have very poor molding, open frame motors, and the amount of work to re-motor them and deal with their running issues would be paramount to building from scratch.

The typical 1870s 2-6-0. As built by the Brooks Locomotive Works

There is the Model Die Casting/Roundhouse 2-6-0 “Old Time” model. The kit was pretty common from the 70s on through the 90s, and to this day you can find dozens on ebay. 

An MDC 2-6-0 with the fat boiler that was present on all MDC old timers.

I had never really liked the MDC/Roundhouse models because they were kind of odd— odd-drivered, with a high-mounted, straight, fat boiler. (The same boiler across the line of available models) It was hard to find a prototype that resembled it. Definitely not a typical 2-6-0 for my 1880–1890 modeling period.

John Otts, owner of the wonderful Miskatonic Railroad published an article on building his own 2-6-0 using the MDC/Roundhouse 2-6-0. His site is a gold-mine of information, and well worth a look. This got me thinking about the possibilities in the MDC frame.

Marco's 2-6-0 project loco

Then, as I did research into the idea, my friend Marcos Hizizal started working on his own 2-6-0 project by combining a MDC/Roundhouse small driver 2-6-0 frame and running gear with an old AHM 4-4-0 wagon-top boiler and cab. He nursed and developed the idea enough to get a model up and running of his own design. Watching him, and witnessing his trial and errors gave me enough thought to attempt a similar style bash on my own. 

I started out by obtaining a second hand MDC model from everyone's favorite online auction website. It came as "new-old stock", and had never been out of the package. I pulled the model from it's packaging to instantly discover that it had an odd knocking noise coming from the mechanism, and that it ran with a clear "thump". After much diagnoses, takeing things apart and putting them back together multiple times, some fowl language, and a beer, it turned out it had a cracked spur-gear that needed replacement. 

Well done MDC, well done.

I already had a AHM 4-4-0 boiler and shell, from a model that I picked up second hand. While Marcos took the original 2-6-0 and worked some voo-doo magic to rebuild the spur-gear.

The general idea of the build was to graft the AHM boiler to the MDC frame. This required a little butchering on behalf of the AHM boiler. I stripped the boiler of all components and paint, before giving it a good solid cleaning. I massaged the boiler so it would snuggle down more on the frame, and rebuilt the running-boards out of styrine so that they lost the "diamond plate" pattern that was cast into them. 

Test fitting the frame and boiler.

While this was happening, Marcos determined that the spur-gear was a loss, and quickly magicked up a 2nd MDC 2-6-0 doner. I assume he had to sacrifice a virgin and a lamb to do so. Either way, I'm indebted to him for popping another MDC out of then air. Once I had the MDC loco back, I disassembled the model down to it's frame, removing the pilot and lead truck. A new pilot would be fashioned and I added a new lead truck using a the old MDC lead truck assembly with a NWSL 26" flush end wheelset. To help with weight, a stick on lead weight was added between the frame. 

 The locomotive has a real Civil War look to her thus far. Which I really do like. I've started aiming for a locomotive that looks like a Manchester or Rogers product of the late 1860s or early 1870s. The big balloon stack helps to hide more weight. There is still a lot of work to be done. Such as a tender to scratch build, wiring to be done, and a decoder and speaker to fit. 

The boiler and runningboards

 

The weight between the frames.

 

Freshly painted cab!

More on this project as it develops...