Great Western American 1948-49

That is cool! JohnA

I've recently been restoring one of these, and unfortunately it's completely missing its original drive. Could someone take theirs apart and show the gearbox, motor, and how it all mounts? If it's possible, I'd like to mimic the original drive as closely as possible. It'd also be helpful to see what the top and rear of the tender looks like, since mine is missing the top and toolbox.

If anyone's interested, here's mine so far. I've had to dismantle and re-solder both the cab and frame...

Something neat I discovered is that the axles are split and use a set screw and sleeve to hold each side together - very clever and works well to remove the drivers without having to re-quarter them. Has anyone seen this before?

Also, does anyone know what the prototype of these might be? I've been unable to find any 4-4-0's that have such a tall cab and high boiler, though those may have been compromises to be able to fit the motor in the tender and still look right.

Athearn drivers.  Difficult to work with, and the castings are hard, as in made from old ball bearings.  But they work if you don't need to machine them.  I think the set screws were unique to each axle - that is, keep the pairs and sleeves segregated.

No idea on the gears - try a NWSL 653-6.  You will need to modify the case on the newer plastic production.  Tender drive, I think, on all these.

Irv Athearn did some O drivers like that I have a set of boxpok.  I do not know how many styles of drivers he made.  Also don;t know if others used the same method to quarter and retain the wheels.

Here's one I've had for a number of years - the previous owner made some changes.

Johnbeere, here's the top and rear of the tender

Thanks! I'll need to mimic something like that. I wonder if that casting the coupler slots into is original? Mine doesn't have it. Still looking for a photo of the mechanism - As a collector, I'd like to see if I can come up with something very close to the original.

Johnbeere,

I think these should provide the information you need - I made them 1600 pixels in width - if the images are too small let me know and I can send you the full size images

Motor mount

Tender underside and coupler mount.

  The opening in the cast frame as well as the various screw holes look to be original.  However, it appears the previous owner took some sheet brass and made a bracket which mounts in the holes in the frame and provides screw mounts for the coupler housing which I doubt is original.  Looking at the pictures Great Western provided in some of the ads in Model Railroader in 1948 my guess would be the original coupler mount was a white metal casting that was held in place by screws.

Thank you! Those pictures are very helpful. In that last picture I see they used their own bolsters - mine came with Lobaugh bolsters and wheels, explaining why it sat too high on the original trucks. I'm sure locating the original trucks is impossible, so I'll have to come up with something else.

For anyone curious, here's my progress... I've formed a few new pipes, new front boiler braces, made new check valves, fitted an air compressor, fixed some rough slots that had been drilled in the pilot truck and drilled a proper pivot for it, soldered brass plates to the top of each crosshead to keep them from sagging, made a new drawbar, and a few other things. Lots of work left still.

Out of curiosity, I've tried it on some O-36 Lionel track, 18" radius, which it can negotiate without any issues.

Great work !

It's now been over 2 years since I got my Great Western 4-4-0 - It's been sitting on a shelf all that time, always bothering me with how close - yet so far - it is from being a proper scale model, the proportions off just enough to not look quite 'right'. I had always thought that the cab needed to be shorter and the entire boiler needed to be lowered and moved back. Well, I've finally got free time again to work on these old models (I've gotten a '31 Ford that I've been working on for the last couple years in my free time), so I decided to finally tackle correcting this model. It's not done, but I've made significant progress.

I first started by fabricating a new cab out of brass - this was really a test of my skills, and is probably the most complicated part I've fabricated so far, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. I based the dimensions of the cab on CP 173, due to the fact that it shares similar dimensions and 54" drivers.

I then fit the cab to the loco, being very careful to set the running board in the correct positions for soldering. Also note that it now has the correct tender trucks, that I very fortunately stumbled across on Ebay.

And then lowered the whole boiler 1/8", requiring much of the running boards, frame, and steam chest to be cut and filed down...

I then reworked the pilot, moving it backwards 1/8", and doubling the number of bars from 11 to 21. I intend to set this loco up with link and pin couplers, note the WIP front link sitting next to it. I'm experimenting with actually forging the front link from a brass bar like the real thing. The holes in the end of it were punched through and expanded, rather than drilled.

I also cut the side boards off the tender in preparation for shortening the tender tank 3/16", such that the top of the tank is lower than the cab windows. I'll then fabricate a new top cover to the tank.

And here it is sat next to my GMC pacific for scale...

I've still got a long way to go, but I'm very happy with how it's turning out. I don't believe I've seen any properly proportioned 4-4-0 models of this age, so I'm very happy to have one for myself. There is a bit of a dilemma of whether or not a model of this age and rarity should be so modified, but it's certainly still a Great Western 4-4-0 at its core, and the modifications really are showing its potential.

I've been debating how I'm going to power it - I don't think I can obtain an original drive for it, so I'm going to retrofit a NWSL 253-6 gearbox into it, with a motor in the tender. I believe it came with a Pittman DC92 originally, but those stick out the top of the tender quite a bit. I've tried a DC91, which looks like it ought to fit, but doesn't quite. I've also got a Pittman can motor that does fit very well, but I'd much rather use a period correct motor. I'm considering a DC71 - I've bought one from Ebay to see how it will fit. They're typically HO gauge motors, but ought to fit this loco. I just don't know if it will be powerful enough, but this is a small loco, and will only ever pull 2-3 cars at most.

That motor bears a resemblance to a Pittman DC-85, although there are more plates in the stack of the motor installed in the locomotive as compared to the thicker plates that the snaps in this thread show:

http://slotblog.net/topic/41217-dc-85-and-85x/

Nice work on your 4-4-0.

Well it's been a while since I posted, but I've made some progress. In my last post I mentioned I wanted to shorten the tender and figure out how to power the loco, and I think I've got it figured out now.

To start on the tender, I desoldered the old mounting plates from the tender shell, and then annealed and flattened it to prepare for reshaping and shortening.

I proceeded to clean up the metal, and I created two scribe lines just outside the rivets, and cut it down to that line, so the entire tank is vertically shorter. I then had a jig with the right curves 3D printed so I could form the shell into a better shape. Originally the rear corners were square, but I formed them with a 1/8" radius, and the front with a 1/4" radius.

After shortening the tank, I decided the entire tender was simply too long, so I cut about 1/4" out of the middle of the frame and soldered it back together shorter. Unfortunately this means that the Pittman can motor I mentioned previously would no longer fit, but I'd prefer an open frame motor regardless.

Upon reassembly, I'm very happy with the new proportions - much better than it was.

Since the rear corners were now radiused, the tender boards needed to be radiused as well. The math and scribe lines were a little difficult, but I got there in the end.

Before I made the boards, I soldered in the top plate for the tender, which was fairly difficult to keep the plate fully lined up with the shell. I didn't want to re-do that solder joint again, so I decided to rivet the boards in plate, with a little added solder between the seams. I also fabricated a water hatch for the tank and a little bracket to hold the brake wheel.

And back to the loco, I revisited the bell. I was able to reuse the old stand, but I had to fabricate a new yoke.

I also got the front coupler link finished and installed, and while I don't have any link and pin cars, it's functional. I decided to trim off the taper that was on either side of the pilot, giving it straight sides. You can see in this photo how wide the slide valves are - at some point I intend to cut both off and relocate them further inboard.

I also found that a Pittman DC81 fit inside the tender very well, so I fabricated brackets to hold it in just the right position and angle.

And I was able to fit a NWSL gearbox between the rear drivers. Unfortunately, due to the pressed on drive gear, I had to cut slots in the frame so the rear axle could be removed, so I fabricated a couple brass plates to hold the axle in place.

And I found a small silicone tube that's flexible enough to handle the job. It's not suitable for stronger motors, but works well for this little engine. It's not visible, but I had to add a little brass link from one of the screw holes of the gearbox to the loco frame to hold the gearbox at a suitable angle, otherwise it wanted to flex up and down. After quite a bit of fine tuning, the motor and gearbox drive it along very well, and it can pull a few cars easily.

And finally a photo as she sits today - a much finer model than she was back in '49. Lot of work left to do, but I'm very happy with my progress so far.

Beautiful!

Great modeling! JohnA