Has any body ever upgraded a postwar steam locomotive?

Hopefully a buddy of mine will respond, he’s done a postwar style J, with a can motor swap, and ERR goodies, and he did a 2037 Postwar with ERR AC commander....those are real good runners!......never seen a 2037 run like his does....I’ll hit him up, .......Pat

I would expect most items fall into one of the following when going beyond ERR additions:

• The original piece is too nice/collectible/sentimental to molest
• The piece is too far gone to warrant "upgrading"
• The costs/logistics are too high compared to later releases that have command control and can motors
• The result is more of a kit-bash than an "upgrade"

That is not to say it hasn't ever been done, but it isn't very common from my perspective.

I did my 2037 with a AC Commander. The board had to live in the tender and I made a universal railsounds boxcar that goes behind it. I put the reed switch on the tender and ran a one wire tether out the back.

On my J, it was the Warhorse with the pullmore. I sent the motor to Timko for the can conversion and used a Cruise commander inside the shell to control it. I used the factory tether and railsounds in the tender. I used the stock puffer smoke unit as well. 

Both run great but will not creep like a modern command controlled locomotive. I enjoy running the J now as I can’t stand the growl that it had with the pullmore and the inconsistency in the speed. I don’t have much real estate for running so the noise is a no go for me. The 2037 runs well but doesn’t see much run time. It has never ran as well as it has since I converted it to command control.

The 2037 was the first locomotive that my parents gave me and I no longer use conventional control so I had to adapt it if I wanted to run it. 

I've got a million to-do's on my train to-do list, but only one involves any upgrades to the 7 PW engines I inherited from my grandfather. My mom bought him an O27 General in 1960 and it's never good a good runner/puller. It consumes a lot of oil and just never had any guts. Despite being over-sized and my only 19th century set running among all 1900-1960 era items, it's a fan favorite. My grandpa's other items all still run as well as when I remember them as a kid, so I won't touch them, but I almost feel like I'd be doing grandpa and mom a solid by upgrading the General.

I put a modern fan-driven smoke unit in a PW Turbine.  Worked quite well! 

Mitch 

If you can get the parts...you can still buy the diecast shell turbine style tenders with rs2.5...if you can get a chip set used in the tmcc turbine you can put those chips in the tender and have a diecast tender to pull behind any turbine and have turbine sound.

I put a modified lionel fan smoker in a turbine with a tender set up like this...will smoke you out while whining away...

I know Gunrunner John upgraded a PW engine for Pine Creek Dave.  I seem to remember it was not a simple thing, but GRJ pulled it off.  Maybe there is something you can search.

bmoran4 posted:

I would expect most items fall into one of the following when going beyond ERR additions:

• The original piece is too nice/collectible/sentimental to molest
• The piece is too far gone to warrant "upgrading"
• The costs/logistics are too high compared to later releases that have command control and can motors
• The result is more of a kit-bash than an "upgrade"

 

That is not to say it hasn't ever been done, but it isn't very common from my perspective.

No - more to it than that. The above has kind of a "not worth it/worthy" sentiment.

I have known of several done, and done well, on average-to-nice PW equipment. "Very common" - no; but not hyper-rare. I have considered it on my first loco, a 2055 Hudson from 1955, but first it would need to be completely refurbished after a squillion miles of use, then upgraded to ERR. Just for grins. May yet.

I have heard of a Pre-War Std Gauge steamer upgraded to command - talk about a unicorn.

As much as anything else that keeps PW out of the ERR, etc., column, it's the people that tend to own this stuff. This is not a group that leans toward such things. Not on their To Do lists. (Now, I know there are exceptions.)

If, for example, your PW 773 Hudson, or other 700E/700E clone, means a lot to you - and it should - a "new Chinese one with a can motor" isn't going to replace it. If you want it to swim with the new stuff, upgraded it should be. It's not even a destructive process.  

I did a tin plate O-gauge in command.

D500 posted:

bmoran4 posted:

I would expect most items fall into one of the following when going beyond ERR additions:

• The original piece is too nice/collectible/sentimental to molest
• The piece is too far gone to warrant "upgrading"
• The costs/logistics are too high compared to later releases that have command control and can motors
• The result is more of a kit-bash than an "upgrade"

 

That is not to say it hasn't ever been done, but it isn't very common from my perspective.

No - more to it than that. The above has kind of a "not worth it/worthy" sentiment.

I have known of several done, and done well, on average-to-nice PW equipment. "Very common" - no; but not hyper-rare. I have considered it on my first loco, a 2055 Hudson from 1955, but first it would need to be completely refurbished after a squillion miles of use, then upgraded to ERR. Just for grins. May yet.

I have heard of a Pre-War Std Gauge steamer upgraded to command - talk about a unicorn.

As much as anything else that keeps PW out of the ERR, etc., column, it's the people that tend to own this stuff. This is not a group that leans toward such things. Not on their To Do lists. (Now, I know there are exceptions.)

If, for example, your PW 773 Hudson, or other 700E/700E clone, means a lot to you - and it should - a "new Chinese one with a can motor" isn't going to replace it. If you want it to swim with the new stuff, upgraded it should be. It's not even a destructive process.  

@D500, my comments were with regards to the posters initial query which was upgrading PW with command control AND can motors AND more. There are plenty of examples that do a fraction of that, such as just ERR, or a liquid/fan smoke unit and such, but very few go full out.

The only upgrades I've done to my postwar is adding LED headlights.

For those of you that upgraded tinplate (O or Standard Gauge):  What did you do for an antenna?  I did a die-cast tender once.  Floating the shell took a LOT of grinding to fit over some tape around the edge of the chassis and it's still not 100% reliable. 

I made new handrails on the tinplate I did out of nickel wire so I could solder it.  I insulated them with clear heatshrink where they went through the shell.  I joined all the handrails inside into a common antenna.

FWIW, I've floated a ton of diecast and brass tender shells, I've never had a big issue getting it done.  One key item is to use the proper tape, I use Kapton tape, it's very thin and doesn't require a lot of grinding and filing to fit over it.