Kriegsloks building shops

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Wow I don’t think I’ve ever seen a loco with three trucks, I’m gonna look that one up!
I have a passenger car with three trucks, bet you’ve never seen that before.
(Because I built it lol)
Fairly common in Japan and Italy. Russia also has one or two classes of them. Besides that not many other countries tried. Spain, Switzerland has one class each currently working. But yes, super rare in America.
 
The body is extended...and it came out half a foot too long. I'll have to shorten it tomorrow;
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There were a bunch of angles and steps i've had to cut out in the main roof section and apparently the back wall is thicker on top where the roof connects, than on the bottom by about half a milimeter, which in this scale added about 3 scale inches to the overall length. Back to the drawing board, but the drawings themselves also have discrepancy between each other. They both are supposedly to scale but there is also a difference of half a foot between left side and right side drawing. Both E2c and E3b had supposedly same overall dimensions and their boddies were identical from what i've seen on pictures.
 


Not much going on lately, but today i managed to install the rest of the electrical installation on the front of the boiler of Pennsylvania RR decapod
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The round rod going around the top of the smokebox front is a typical Pennsy look among other details and is pretty much visible on most modern Pennsy steam power.
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The picture from Pennsy Power clearly demonstrates the electric installation on I1 decapod:
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Almost done with details on the boiler of this locomotive and the last thing will be the headlight on top of that mount near the top, and a set of steps visible below the halfway point on the smokebox door.
 
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Work is continuing on the Pennsy "Hippo" (that was the official nickname for the I1s). More detail added: headlight, steps on the smokebox front and on the side of the boiler and i think i can spray the boiler now with a primer and see if any imperfections came out:
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My attention has turned to the pilot of the locomotive and i'll be ruffling some feathers of die hard Pennsy enthusiasts, because my plan is to install an early bar pilot on what is essentially 1940s detailed locomotive and "Coast to Coast" tender:
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When the first I1 #790 was built in Altoona back in 1916, it sported a typical cow catcher:
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Pennsylvania Railroad picture from "Pennsy Power"
After that the first series coming from the factory had what looked like a typical passenger bar pilot, familiar to many fans, especially on K4 passenger locomotives:
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Pennsylvania Railroad picture
Some of the bar pilots had extra plating on the bottom half:
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Both pictures Pennsylvania Railroad
This is the type i'd like my locomotive to have, but there's a catch; extended "wings" for the poles as was typical for freight power:
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So I'll be doing some soldering today since i've never seen a scale reproduction of that particular pilot and was only able to find the passenger version without the "wings". The picture of the brand new #4300 also shows extended piston rod pipes, i'm not sure if any of my curves are wide enough for that with the swing of the guide wheels. Best known to railfans are the late 1930s, war and post war steps below the pilot beam and variations included plating, no plating and "missing plating"
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Pennsylvania Railroad picture
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The night shot taken by Jim Shaughnessy
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"Coming at-ya" shot by Don Wood. All pictures are in "Pennsy Power"
 
Initial work started on the pilot beam, this turned out to be tough to do because one side "wing" just didn't want to stick. I've had to clean one side of all burned trash and try again and again. Finally was able to heat it up and keep it clean enough to get a good joint;
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I used a mini torch on this one.
Time to start shaping it into proper dimensions.
 
Pilot shaping:
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Then the ends had to be rounded off and while studying the pictures of real ones, i also saw pole holes on the rear of the pilot beam, never noticed that before (i wonder if they were ever used in switching). Well, on principle those rear pole holes had to be done also:
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And front side in all its glory:
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Lots of burned fingers today, so i'm done for now. I will still have to solder front piece of the frame to the rear of the pilot beam, so it can be screwed into main frame just like original Penn Line pilot. I have also previously done the pair of air tanks with separate piping to replace the solid cast piece:
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This will complete the 1920s look up front.
 


Some more numbering and lettering done on the 2-6-2;
The numbers on the sand dome were especially tough to do...and i screwed them up. Tomorrow maybe another day.
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The squewed number board which goes on top of the boiler might not get any numbers, unless i can find dry transfers that small in my collection;
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Engineer side numbering has just been applied and i'll spray the clear protective coat on that tomorrow.
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Finally a little more time on the Santa Fe 2-6-2 and today i figured I'll try to finish the model. I bit the bullet and decided to mount the angled number board on the boiler as on the prototypes:
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Drilling in the boiler i found out that MDC was using harder material than Penn Line to cast their boilers. But after drilling and tapping, the number board is in:
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Both of the mounting pins immediately after the smoke stack had to be cut and filed. Also did fix the piping on the engineer side:
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Not perfect, but definitely a lot better than before. Will still have to clean up and touch up all the work areas with paint.
 
I have finally decided to tackle the front end look of Pennsy "Hippo". After some digging, i found larger set of cylinder block in my parts. Placing it on the frame of the I1, i found that it needed to be dropped down 2mm. Afrer hand machining both the cylinder saddle and the main frame, it now sits just about right, will have to straighten up a little to fix leaning to one side. Original Penn Line cylinder block was not only way too small, the cylinder rod holes were too high and didn't line up with main axles on the wheels. So this is the look i'm going for:
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Cylinder rod aligned almost perfectly with wheel axles as is generally common with most conventional steam locomotives;
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Front end 1920s look:
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That firemans side will need to go down just a tad, and i might have to sand the top of the cylinder saddle to drop the front of the boiler just slightly. Chow time.
 


I was on the Pennsy "Hippo" today and finally the new bar pilot with push pole ends for typical freight engine is done. It was time to tackle the build up piece of main frame which is connected to the pilot beam and that was definitely a challenge. I wanted that piece to be able to screw into the main frame just like original Penn Line part. So after cutting off few pieces of brass and bending them, i've got a pretty close match:
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The bar pilot definitely gives the slow lumbering 2-10-0 a more racy look. I still have to figure out how i will mount the air tanks on top. I'll most likely drill out a hole in the tank assembly, cut thread in it and just use one screw to mount the pilot beam and the tanks to the main frame.
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