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I am pleased to present my rendition of the preserved GN S2 class 4-8-4 northern, #2584. This locomotive has been on my to do list for quite some time. I was waiting for the cheese slopes to come out in sand green and then it was only a matter of time. I first saw this engine many years ago while taking Amtrak through Havre, Montana where she is on static display. How bold to paint a steam engine such a bright green. Sure, she was an oil burner, but still, imagine the work to keep that boiler looking clean. The US railroads loved to do this sort of thing and fought to keep their equipment clean (remember, these trains were the equivalent of today's business class on transcontinental flights, heck, the NYC's 20th Century limited is where the phrase "roll out the red carpet" originated, but I digress). Delivered in 1930, the engine arrived in the Glacier Park paint scheme and the fleet of S1 and S2's were used to pull the finest passenger trains on the Great Northern. By early 1950's they were reassigned to freight and repainted black. The 2584 was retired Dec 1957 and stored. GN decided to preserve this locomotive and after restoring it, put it on display in 1964 (more details can be found here). When I saw it, it still had "no trepassing, BN Ry" signs on the fence. So presumably it has been under railroad ownership throughout.

When I started building the custom valve gear parts, I knew it was time to build this engine. It took a few months, but here's my model. I must say, building in rare color like sand green is extra fun. Let's take a tour from the front to the back. On the nose I had to have the air compressors, and here was the first collision with the limited parts availability in sand green. I almost gave an arm and a leg to solve it but in the end I managed to keep the arm. Getting all of the snot for the smoke box working was an exercise in multi-dimensional optimization. On the side the stairs up to the running boards turned out well (I'm not sure if I came up with that solution on my own or if I first saw it on another model). Also note the hand rails, a refined design from my earlier northern's. Within the boiler, the framework is largely unchanged from my J, and later used on two other northern's.

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The design is solid for operating at shows with uneven tracks- the drivers are pulled from the pilot truck and the boiler itself rides on just two trucks. This has the added feature of keeping the swing within reason on curves. Allowing me to put the tender foot plate at the cab foot plate (with the aid of a few wedge plates). I must say, when building a locomotive for tight curves, you come to understand why the rear corners of the cab roofs and top corners of the tenders were cut off. The frame is also strong enough that you can put two or three of the northerns on the point of a heavy train and pull through the front couplers.

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While viewing the second image above, note the sloped front to the cab borrowed from my NP northern, the mud ring on the bottom of the firebox borrowed from my Milw northern, the cab roof details borrowed from my SP pacific. I think the vent hatches look particularly good in dark red. You will also see one of the design elements that I'm quite pleased with, the sand green ladder above the running board. I'm getting ahead of myself on this tour. Jumping back to the drivers for a moment, I used my custom rods and valve gear bars for the drivers, including modeling the Walschaerts valve gear.

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Meanwhile, up top, I managed to sneak in a 1/2 plate offset for the green boiler jacket (visible in the very first photo in this post, where the gray smokebox transitions to the green boiler).

Now moving to the rear, this oil burner had a Vanderbilt tender. I knew that wouldn't be much of a problem since I had already built one packed with PF equipment for my SP pacific. I had to build the complete engine first, so that I could figure out the clearance for the tender. This time it wound up being almost entirely snotted. Since I did not have to worry about putting anything in the tender, I could get the proportions better than the SP tender. I even included a rounded bottom (though no good photos yet exist). I've got to say that Vanderbilt tenders are hard to photograph and I'm not completely satisfied with the quality of the photos of the tender, but this one should give you an idea,

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If you look closely, you will also see my Indiana Jones moment. I was faced with figuring out how to get the ladder on the front of the tender. On curves, the couplers swing out to 6 wide. So there wasn't enough room to get any design I liked in there. Seeing the man waving a pair of machetes at me, I dropped my whip and picked up my six shooter. Voila, as I slip another rung down the lego purity slope, the custom ladder was born. They looked so good, I decided to hang another pair off the back of the tender (I'll post more about the ladders soon).

Now returning to the prototype for a moment. The Havre locomotive looks striking in its green paint, but while I was digging up reference material for this model, I quickly learned that it was the wrong color. From everything I've read, the Glacier Park paint scheme was commonly used on passenger locomotives, but it was never an official scheme. For the curious, click the small image below for the best color example of the scheme that I'm aware of. Also note the herald on the engineer's side, the goat is facing to the right. The closest lego color to the original green would probably be dark green. Still, I like sand green as the prototype is currently and I didn't want this to look like a Emerald Night MOD. Still, it has gotten me wondering why the prototype is the wrong color. GN preserved this engine and then BN, so it is not like some misguided town repainted it in the faded color after years of neglect.

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Exquisite detailing, incredible working valve gear, barely a stud to be seen, and no doubt it's almost as powerful as the prototype. Brilliant!

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Looks really big and powerful. Nice colour scheme as well, just like the original. The tender looks so much like it as well and I really like the way that you have caught the curve of it.

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Hmmm I think the Large drivers are too small compared to the real thing. Maybe you could change the large drivers to the XL BBB drivers instead to better match the real thing?

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Absolutely fantastic! And look at that tender! :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub:

I loved your idea of how to replicate the stairs up front. Honestly, one of the great train MOCs I've seen around here!

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Beautiful loco you have their Zephyr1934.

You are correct about the color of the loco the paint charts I have for the glacier park scheme are much darker. The color is officially called boiler jacket green and is more like the darker LEGO green. There was some controversy over the color when these locos were repainted as to whether the color used was correct.

There is a Great Northern 4-6-2 pacific number 1355 that is being restored the running condition in Indiana by the Siouxland historical railway society that is closer to the original color.

Bill

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Thank you everyone for your kind words. This locomotive was many months in the making. I started designing it last fall and then right before I was ready to start building I had to put it on hold for 1-2 months. Oh that was agony.

Beautiful. The valve gear looks detailed and busy. Must look amazing while running.

Thank you, I think it looks good but it is 9v. With PF you can go slower and fully appreciate the valve gear in action. Getting all the mechanical parts working is quite a challenge, not something I would attempt on my first (or second) locomotive... unless of course you are a knuckle head like me (grin)

This is an impressive looking engine. I like the way the 9v engine has been incorporated into the leading wheels.

I hit that idea with my third or fourth steam locomotive design. I wanted the locomotive to be powered, but I also wanted it to handle uneven track. I wrote up more on the design process in Railbricks #5 (of course that was in the context of my earlier northerns and before I had the custom rods).

Hmmm I think the Large drivers are too small compared to the real thing. Maybe you could change the large drivers to the XL BBB drivers instead to better match the real thing?

Yes, I would agree, the XL wheels would be more appropriate for the prototype (I think the S2's had the largest driving wheels of all northerns). However, my design wouldn't work with the larger wheels. Since the boiler pivots on the pilot and trailing trucks, the drive wheels have to be able to swing out on the curves, and thus, slip under the boiler. Here are two shots of the J (same basic mechanical design) on a curve. Note how on the inside rails the drivers are under the boiler and on the outside rail they are beyond the running boards. On straight track the drivers are centered below the boiler. You've gotta love tight radius curves (grin).

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You can also see more shots in the railbricks article noted above.

There is a Great Northern 4-6-2 pacific number 1355 that is being restored the running condition in Indiana by the Siouxland historical railway society that is closer to the original color.

Ah, good catch. Here's a shot of it...

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That's a great looking locomotive, Zephyr! I'm always happy to see working valve gear being put on LEGO engines, and your rods really help make it all the more elegant to include. There's so many nice details to enjoy, do try to post more pictures soon!

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Wow, that's a very impressive engine there.

A lot of nice and interesting details there. Also the colour scheme works out brilliantly.

And that tender is a piece of art.

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WOW Zephyr I've completely missed this masterpiece! :wub:

Beautiful steam locomotive with complex construction and amazing black, green and red livery :thumbup:

The pistons in motion are a real treat for the eyes ...simply superb! :excited:

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Thank you everyone for the continued kind words.

i love the piston detailing, how does it all run?

The valve gear runs great, haven't had a problem yet.

The floating set of drivers are a little more testy. It runs good forward, but often derails when going backwards through curves. The simpler predecessor does a lot better going backwards. To make room for the inside of the eccentric connection, I had to move my stabilizer point 4 or 5 studs further back and I think that is the source of my new found problems. With so many degrees of freedom, I haven't had time to solve it yet.

Wow, that's a very impressive engine there.

A lot of nice and interesting details there. Also the colour scheme works out brilliantly.

And that tender is a piece of art.

Thank you, though most of the credit for the looks probably goes to the Baldwin. After building the Hiawatha locomotive several years back, I realized that so much of the beauty comes from the prototype.

Runtime video please!

I'll try, but in the mean time, here's a quick snippet of the Milwaukee northern with the same running gear.

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The floating set of drivers are a little more testy. It runs good forward, but often derails when going backwards through curves. The simpler predecessor does a lot better going backwards. To make room for the inside of the eccentric connection, I had to move my stabilizer point 4 or 5 studs further back and I think that is the source of my new found problems. With so many degrees of freedom, I haven't had time to solve it yet.

Okay, I've come up with a quick fix for a lingering problem. As I mentioned last month, the wheels had a tendency to jump the track when going backwards. I finally remembered my clockwork article from Railbricks 7. The 9v track joints are not even, as a train approaches a joint, the rail on the right is slightly inside the rail to the left. With normal wheel spacing and normal wheels it is almost never a problem. With large wheels or otherwise unusual wheels, it can be a problem because it provides an opportunity for a flange to catch, climb the rail, and cause a derailment. So the problem wasn't with my design per se, it was due to the fact that I wanted to use a wide wheelbase on the tight lego curves.

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That is exactly what was happening to my S2. So it struck me, why not use a guard rail keep the wheel in line if it ever tries to climb the rail. The idea is similar to the guard rails on a switch. I just used a simple stack of a 2x2 round plate and a 2x2 round tile. First I tried the "S" curve necessary to wind around a fixed obstacle. Note the black dot on the inside rail at a rail joint.

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Then a curve, note that the guard rails are on the inside of the curve on the junction between two rail segments. They are on the downstream end of each curve segment when the train is traveling counterclockwise since it is at only at the downstream end of the curve segment where the driver wheels will be pushed against the protrusion in the rail joint.

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Finally I did a switch

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I haven't looked too closely at PF track, I THINK lego may have fixed the alignment problem at the rail joints when they removed the metal, but you can easily check for yourself. It should be apparent to the eye or the touch.

So far so good, the new guard rails have allowed me to run counterclockwise without an incident. This trick might help others who are having problems getting their steam engines to run smoothly. The one downside I've hit is the fact that now my cars with a wide wheelbase knock against the guard rails on the curves. So I'll probably remove most of them on the mainline and go back to running clockwise, but it is good to know what the problem is and I will keep the guard rails on the switch to facilitate entering and exiting the siding.

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