MOC: Union Pacific Challenger

[sioka]

Well its finally complete after sitting on the shelf for the past few months. The main aim for me with this was to get a functional model and at the same time capture the most distinctive looks of the loco, the somewhat shorter pony truck (compared to the pony truck on the Big boy) was the cause of many rebuilds but in the end came together o.k. At some point in the future I will look in to getting some decals or stickers to complete the loco to its fullest possible potential.

(How do you do a line return on this type format? It seems to be impossible to make paragraphs etc. The enter key does not function the same as other internet forums and it makes the whole process a pain in the a$$)

Edited April 2, 2014 by sioka

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Wonderful work sioka! It's very detailed

[Hey Joe]

Hey! Wow, what a gorgeous engine. That would look right at home in Cheyenne with the real one. Thanks for sharing.

Joe

[Mutant Orc]

I'm in a train mood currently but sadly I lack the wheels (and probably the skill) , your's is brilliant.

[Hrw-Amen]

Really nice looking engine.

[eurotrash]

That is a beast of an engine! Excellent detailing and proportions and really well executed. For a second I though the front facing image (Image 3#) was a picture of the real engine for comparison purposes.

Tip of the hat!

[emm]

amazing.

[Impact1]

That is a fantastic build. First rate.

[zephyr1934]

A beautiful build, does she run well too?

[sioka]

Thanks guys glad you like it, I'm sorry that I haven't replied to this thread sooner but I am not well (I suffer from A.S and also have a degenerative disc for added fun). There was a long delay to get this completed from my initial W.I.P shots because the pony truck had me stumped for a while. I wanted to try to get a good balance of detail and functionality to the build but trying to get the squat appearance to the cow catcher and front steps took a fair amount of head scratching, in the end some sneaky snot work took care of it. I did a total rebuild on the tender to reduce the brick count and some of the weight and also to make it look more like one of the original coal burning Challengers as opposed to the oil? fuelled restored version that is currently running.

A beautiful build, does she run well too?

Thanks mate, she runs quite well but has the occasional tantrum like most steamers tend too (normally when the battery is getting low). I had some trouble getting the drive to run well in the initial build because of the placement of the turntables on top of the driver bogies, originally the power was only going to one pair of the flanged drivers per bogie and this was causing problems with the drive rods binding. In the third rebuild I managed to solve the space issue for mounting the pony truck to the front driver bogie so that now the power comes in to the driver bogie and is split so that both pairs of flanged drivers are geared together. This has made her much more reliable, I also use a small amount of Pronature high performance grease on the gearing and inner areas of the technic axles to further reduce friction (this is a grease used in RC car gearboxes so is perfectly suited to Lego).

[Lakop]

Simply stunning. I do enjoy looking at the creations in the other forums.

H