[MOC] Balin & Sons Mining Co. Narrow-Gauge 8-Ton Plymouth Locomotive

[Laura Beinbrech]

I know it's been a while since I posted any completed train MOCs, especially narrow-gauge ones, however I recently had two strokes of good fortune that allowed me to finally get some long-abandoned projects finished.  The first bit of good fortune was getting into one of the drafts at BrickFair a month ago, and said draft involving two of the LEGO Friends 41130 Amusement Park Roller Coasters.  And to make a long story short, I managed to get ALL the small train wheels & axles from both sets, which meant that I could finally at least start work on my narrow-gauge stuff again.  The second bit of good fortune was when I was at my LUG's monthly meeting yesterday, and one of the guys who runs a second-hand LEGO store brought 2 bins of unsorted bulk LEGO to the meeting to sell.  I managed to get a few more sets of small train wheels, axle plates & the 2x2 plates with small towball that I use as the couplers for my narrow-gauge trains.  But the piece de resistance from that lot was a matched set of small LEGO City car doors, which were the main (and critical) missing pieces for this particular build.

So, after sorting all my recent narrow-gauge train parts, I got to work & finally built the small narrow-gauge diesel locomotive that I had originally based on the mining locomotive that came with the LEGO City set, 4204 "The Mine", however, after further modifying the locomotive so that I could put a second coupler on the front (after all, what good is a switcher/shunter that can only couple to cars from the back, right?), and the more modifications I made to it, the less it looked anything like the mining locomotive & the more it looked like some of the 8-ton Plymouth Gas/Diesel locomotives that were commonly used for yard work on Narrow-Gauge railroads in the US during the 1940's & 1950's, so that's what it ended up as. ;)

So without further ado, I present the Balin & Sons Mining Co. Railroad 8-Ton Plymouth Bio-Fuel Switcher:

Plymouth Hauling Ore Carts by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr
 

In the years following the Final War, as demand rapidly grew for various ores, particularly Iron, Titanium, Tungsten & Mithril (the main components of Unobtainium alloy used in laser-resistant armor plating & for making certain high-end weapons), the dwarven deep-mining outfit known as Balin & Sons rapidly expanded in the territory of what would become the Federal Republic Of America.  However, due to the fact that much of the transportation infrastructure was in shambles after the Final War, and they needed some way to get their goods to market, Balin & Sons Mining Co. began to build narrow-gauge railways from their mining operations to the standard-gauge main-line freight railroads (mostly Norfolk-Southern or CSX) for hauling ore & other mineral products.  Soon after, various small-time locomotive works began to pop up in the Federal Republic to meet the demand for small, narrow-gauge steam & bio-fuel locomotives, one such being the reincarnation of the old Plymouth Locomotive Works in Plymouth, Ohio.

Plymouth 8-Ton Right-Side by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr

While small, the Plymouth 8-ton switchers were perfect for working staging yards at the mine heads to sort ore carts into trains for different destinations along a particular narrow-gauge route.  They could even haul decent sized trains on their own, albeit rather slowly.

8-Ton Plymouth Front View by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr

8-Ton Plymouth Rear View by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr

And a bonus pic of the Plymouth hauling part of another narrow-gauge project I hope to be posting about later on this week or next week:

8-Ton Plymouth w/Intermodal Car by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed looking at my little narrow-gauge diesel (well, biodiesel at any rate) locomotive as much as I enjoyed making it. :)

Edited September 4, 2018 by Laura Takayama
typos

[Trekkie99]

 Thats the cutest little train I've ever seen! 

[Laura Beinbrech]

9 hours ago, LegoMonorailFan said:

 Thats the cutest little train I've ever seen! 

Hey, thanks!  And RL Plymouth switchers are tiny!  There's a good reason that they're commonly called "Critters" or "Dinkies" by railroad workers & railfans.

This particular one is inspired by the two 3-foot gauge Plymouth switchers that the East Broad Top RR & Coal Co. has for yard duty.  If you do a Google image search for "East Broad Top Railroad Plymouth", you can see just how small they are:  The 3rd pic that comes up shows the 16-ton M-6 Plymouth with a work crew hanging off it (there's really only enough space in the cab for the driver), and the 7th image result shows the 14-ton Plymouth, M-4 next to their M-7 55-ton GE center-cab diesel switcher, which looks huge in comparison (and those GE center-cab locomotives aren't that big)....

[Man with a hat]

ooh. Nice. It looks simple but it is very cleverly put together. The proportions look really great for such a small locomotive. And the ore cars are great as well. I am not sure about the intermodal. Seems a bit of for this type of train. But great job.

[Feuer Zug]

Sweet little locomotive and consist.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Brilliant project ...I love this mini KOF and those lovely short wagons!

Great work!

[Laura Beinbrech]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

@Man with a hat The inter-modal car also doubles as a flatbed when it's not hauling shipping containers. ;)  I'll be posting more about it (and other Narrow-gauge rolling stock) soon... I'm in the process of finalizing some LDD files & seeing about ordering parts in the near future in order to finish them up, but I want to make a thread for all of my narrow-gauge cars & coaches soon.

@LEGO Train 12 Volts The locomotive is not a KÖF, but rather a Plymouth Locomotive Works "Critter", but since they, and the British Motor Rail locomotives are all fairly similar (and designed for pretty much the same tasks), it's easy to confuse them.

Here's a handy video of a RL narrow-gauge Plymouth shunting a standard-gauge Shay geared locomotive (which appears to not be fired up in the video) over dual-gauge track to give an idea of just how small these things are & how big of stuff they can pull/push around despite their diminutive size (also gives you an idea of how noisy they are for their size as well): 

 

[Bricked1980]

That's a lovely little build.   I do voluntary work for a Heritage Centre/Railway near to where I live in the UK. We have a Ruston LBT narrow gauge diesel on site and I know this is not the basis of your design but even so, your MOC did make me think of this little engine when I saw it. 

[neonic]

Realy cute. Reminds me of those little locs, people riding through their garden.

[Laura Beinbrech]

Thanks again for the kind words.

On ‎9‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 6:45 AM, Bricked1980 said:

That's a lovely little build.   I do voluntary work for a Heritage Centre/Railway near to where I live in the UK. We have a Ruston LBT narrow gauge diesel on site and I know this is not the basis of your design but even so, your MOC did make me think of this little engine when I saw it. 

Oh nice!  Yeah, I'll admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for small, narrow-gauge locomotives, whether they be steam or diesel, and narrow-gauge railroads in general.  Part of this has to do with the fact that one of the oldest (mostly) intact narrow-gauge railroad in the US is not far from where I grew up (even though they haven't been running trains for the past 6 years due to the current owner trying to sell it & the non-profit looking to buy it having some trouble coming up with the funds), and I've been an on again, off-again member of the Friends of the East Broad Top Railroad (unfortunately mostly off, especially the past 5 years) as well as the neighboring Rockhill Trolley Mueseum, which runs standard-gauge streetcars on an old branch line of the East Broad Top (said branch line being dual-gauge for part of the way, due to it being part of the Wye that EBT trains used to turn around, and the rest being re-laid with standard-gauge track over the abandoned portion of the branch line).   In addition to the two Plymouth "Critters" that East Broad Top has, the Rockhill Trolley Museum also has an 8-ton standard-gauge Critter they use for pulling work wagons & the bucket truck for doing maintenance on the overhead trolley wires (you don't want to have power on the wires when you're working on them, after all, thus the need for the two diesel locomotives the museum has).

Anyways, which heritage railway do you do volunteer work for, Bricked?  I'm curious because one of my "Bucket List" items is, in addition to traveling to Great Britain & Ireland, is to also ride at least one British narrow-gauge heritage railway, such as the Leighton-Buzzard or one of the other ones I've checked out on Wikipedia (I've never rode on any 2-foot gauge trains before: I've rode 3-foot gauge & Cape gauge trains, but not 2-footers).

[Bricked1980]

2 hours ago, Laura Takayama said:

Anyways, which heritage railway do you do volunteer work for, Bricked?

I volunteer for the Mountsorrel Railway and Heritage Centre. http://heritage-centre.co.uk/

This is a small quarry branch line that had been closed since the 1950's. About 10 years ago the local community got together and re-laid 2 miles of track along the original track bed and built up a heritage centre/museum within the site of the old quarry. The branch line is standard gauge and connects to the Great Central Railway (the only preserved main line railway in the UK). But in the base of the old quarry is a small section of narrow gauge track which is used for shunting demonstrations using that small yellow diesel in the photo.

I confess I am less of a hands on volunteer and my work is more behind the scenes stuff. I do all the graphic design, promotional and marketing stuff for them.

[Connor]

On ‎9‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:37 PM, Laura Takayama said:

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

@Man with a hat The inter-modal car also doubles as a flatbed when it's not hauling shipping containers. ;)  I'll be posting more about it (and other Narrow-gauge rolling stock) soon... I'm in the process of finalizing some LDD files & seeing about ordering parts in the near future in order to finish them up, but I want to make a thread for all of my narrow-gauge cars & coaches soon.

@LEGO Train 12 Volts The locomotive is not a KÖF, but rather a Plymouth Locomotive Works "Critter", but since they, and the British Motor Rail locomotives are all fairly similar (and designed for pretty much the same tasks), it's easy to confuse them.

Here's a handy video of a RL narrow-gauge Plymouth shunting a standard-gauge Shay geared locomotive (which appears to not be fired up in the video) over dual-gauge track to give an idea of just how small these things are & how big of stuff they can pull/push around despite their diminutive size (also gives you an idea of how noisy they are for their size as well): 

 

I help out at this museum its cool seeing something that looks like our loco

has anyone done any 3 stud wide trains as 3 foot gauge?