Detailing/correcting Railking camelback

Very nice project.  I've had to re-do a couple of cabs/repaint myself and can appreciate the effort and attention to detail needed.  The window looks good.  

Thanks Lee! Given the quality of your work I take a compliment from you as high praise indeed!

Wowak,

 what did the foot plate to locomotive area look like on the prototype?  I looked at the mth catalog pictures of the new imperial camelbacks and it just looks like the tender is held onto the engine by a thread.  With the fireman exposed to everything were there any safety chains or other devices to keep from falling off the edge of the footplate?

 

JZ.

Now you know if they did that you would have so much fun reworking them all. 

 

Nice work as usual!  Love watching your threads.

 

Not really any different than any other locomotive.  I'm sure most have safety chains.  

Mine was like that, a buzz that got worse the more tack voltage you applied to the track.  Turned out to be the bottom board.  But mine also had a really really bad vibration.  Turns out that the motor/counterweight was off balance.  So it sits for now until I get around to getting a new motor.  It explains my too good to pass up deal I got on it...

Mine had 2 broken stanchions on the engineer's side handrail along thefirebox,  I'll just order 2 next time I order parts from MTH.  THE static-y chuff actually sounds just like the old Lionel "Sound of Static(steam)" system from the MPC Era. The whistle however sounds like nothing but static.

Goodbye stupid cast-on markers!

 

An astute eye will notice that where the dynamo was moved, there were cast lines running to it.  The idea of filing them off seemed really tedious, so I just added a small box that suggests a feedwater heater.  (Close enough for me.)

 

Also my more accurate lettering.  My more knowledgable friends tell me that at no time did Reading ever use white letters and numbers on their locomotives, so the 30-1142 camelback was just sloppy research.

 

Added the new "over the top" handrail.  Still need to add the dynamo between the tanks.  Replaced the turned bell with a bell from an MTH 0-8-0, and the whistle with one I turned myself from brass rod.  Still haven't added any detail to the pilot.  I might eventually rework it entirely.

This is going really well.  A good project! I was wondering if cutting off the cast-on markers dulled or damaged your saw much.  I have one that looks just like that and I've never used it on metal because I'm worried cutting metal, even "soft" metal, would damage the teeth. 

Nice work! My kind of project!

Lee, I buy new razor saw blades pretty much every time I'm at Hobby Lobby (who is pretty much the only game in town now.) I just consider it a "cost of doing business."

 

Other than fixing the broken stanchions on the engineer's side, I'd say that's more or less done.  I took a dremel to the side of the pilot (why make it so thick?!) added a coupler lift bar, the support bars from the pilot to the smokebox, neolubed the rods, and did some very light drybrush weathering.  

 

Dang, now I kinda want to convert it to PS2.

Looks nice.  More than I'd ever do to mine, as I'm not the picky about the detail (yet).  The one thing I would do though is add a useable coupler to the front.  These things have always screamed yard engine to me for some reason more than road engine.  But then on my railroad, every engine gets both duties if need be (Yes, even my Big Boy would be shunting cars if it had a front coupler on it.).

Very nice Brian.  Two questions from a fellow Reading fan... Do you find the "porch" protrudes too far in the front of the loco?  In many pictures I've seen the L7 camelbacks appear to be more "pug-nosed" than the MTH model.  Also, is there any way to "cut down" the tender shell to a more prototypical height?  I know the ERR boards wouldn't need that much head room.

Please keep sharing photos of your excellent work!!  -Ted

Sinclair of course the rule is "your toys, your way," but the 4-6-0 Camelbacks were passenger power right to the very end.  Reading had more than enough 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 camelbacks.  In fact I have a K-Line A-5 0-4-0 that will eventually get the camelback treatment.

Ted, I hadn't noticed the pilot being too long, I thought it looked too big because it was devoid of detail.  Now you're going to have me looking closer.  As for the tender, the PS1 chipset uses every last bit of the height of the tender. Maybe after conversion lowering it would be possible.   I'll probably be scratch -building a "correct" tender for my I8 2-8-0 Camelback.

The UP 4000 class steam locomotives do indeed have "fold away" front couplers, just like the fronts of the 3900 class Challengers and the FEF-2/FEF-3 Northerns.

I know the real ones did, but all my 'none' scale steamers lack real front couplers.  They are either cast with the coupler folded away, or with a really fake looking "scale" coupler.  So it makes shunting and double heading impossible.

As I said, I would never deign to tell you what to do on your railroad,  but I suspect the majority,  myself included, would balk at giant thumbtack couplers on the front of otherwise scale models.  Now on my Reading E5sa 0-8-0 I designed it so the scale front coupler is mounted to a removable draft gear that is mounted to the stock coupler location, so I can indeed easily swap the Lionel coupler back on for switching or doubleheading.

I admire what you do to railking engines. The "compression" is so bad on these engines that I wouldn't even know where to start. Makes one really appreciate the postwar Lionel engines. Had a MTH railking 2-8-0 and just couldn't imagine making it look like a real engine it was so out-of-proportion.

Very nice work Brian !

 

I find it interesting and also did not know...(because I do not have a eye for such things) that the railking model and the premier model too have the wrong cab windows in them.

 

I bought my Premier model from a friend for a more than fair price it was used once to try it out and around the same time I had the opportunity to buy the very early Railking version from a forum member for 100.00 it was barely used if at all.

 

My version has only a reverse board and a "sick" whistle and a thumbtack coupler,it does have a protosmoke unit though.

 

Here is a somewhat side by side comparison that I took a few months ago...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the looks of things they just used the same boiler casting and just dressed it up a little.

 

I cant wait to see your finished product !

 

 

That window configuration is correct for a CNJ model. The Reading's camelbacks had the 3 window arrangement.

Oh OK ...Thanks for the clarification !