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Sabine River and Northern 408 (NC class diesel switcher) real world MOC
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
My LEGO model of Sabine River and Northern 408 is below the short handrail, just behind the access ladder. This MOC is based on a real loco, one of five NC class switchers built by Electro-Motive Corporation. (which later became EMD when it was bought by General Motors) Some of these five locomotives had General Electric electrical equipment, while others had Westinghouse, since EMC's own designs were not yet ready. Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say on the NC class (it doesn't even have it own page!), but it does give us the history of this specific loco which is the last of it's class (as far as I know): 'EMC S/N 651 (built May 1937): Youngstown and Northern Railroad 202, to Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad 408 in April 1946, to Marinette, Tomahawk & Western Railroad 408, then finally to the Sabine River and Northern Railroad as 408 before being preserved in the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri.' In addition, the engine's plaque at the museum says it cost $91,500 when new, and arrived at the museum in 1974. During the summer months, you can climb into the cab... although it is a very steep climb. The Lego model was heavily inspired by a SW1500 (which is a later cousin to the NC type) model I saw here. You can also read more about the Sabine River and Northern here on Wikipedia. I couldn't possibly get Sabine River and Northern to fit on the long hood, so just initials were placed instead. I also used a new printed 1x6 tile from set 60401 (Construction Steamroller) near the cab door. Thoughts? -
Hello all, I would like to share with you my most recent model. It is currently digital, but a physical build will be coming soon (with instructions). UP #844 is one of the most iconic locomotives that has ever graced the main line. Both powerful and elegant, she has captured the attention and imagination of railfans since her delivery to Union Pacific in December of 1944. #844 was the last steam locomotive delivered to UP and the only steam locomotive of any American Class 1 railroad that has never been retired. She has seen revenue and excursion service for over 78 years. During this time, she has had several modifications and upgrades. Some minor, such as a livery change and some major such as a Worthington SA feedwater heater added around 1955. For this build, I wanted to capture her essence and model her as she would have appeared in April of 1949. A careful eye will note several key features: by this time she was modified to be oil burning, a mars light had been installed, she was still using the Sellers exhaust steam injector and she wore the two-tone gray paint scheme in Harbor Mist Gray and Armour Yellow. This model is 8-wide, 1:48 scale and displays #844 as she would have been seen while pulling the Overland Limited, Los Angeles Limited or Portland Rose in April of 1949. #844 represents the absolute apex of duel-service steam and I want this model to represent nothing less. It is powered by two large power function motors with a 3:5 gear ratio so that she has both high tractive effort and can travel at high speed. Next step…building the instructions and ordering parts!
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4-8-4 Northern-type WFP steam locomotive (grayscale color scheme) with 1930's passenger train
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
This 7-wide steam loco began life as a 2-8-4 Berkshire type built by @Plastic_Goth and purchased from Rebrickable a seen here. This train features an 4-8-4 "Northern" -type steam engine that was purchased and modified a month ago from the link posted above. However, it still hasn't been bought parts-wise IRL. The coaches are just recolored and modified versions of my dark green / black Emerald Express cars, with the rear car having a rounded window instead of a open platform. I upped the wheel count by another leading axle, making it into a 4-8-4 Northern-type from the original 2-8-4 Berkshire. The pistons are entirely my own work, as is the 7-wide tender. I chose the Wabash Frisco and Pacific as the name of the owner of the engine, because the real world ride-on 12-inch gauge railway is re-opening soon (Yay!) and because I felt the shark-nose Baldwin diesel units (plus the passenger train as well) I made in a similar paint scheme could use some company. The coal tender will have the letters W-F-P on the side, standing for Wabash Frisco & Pacific, while the cab will feature the number 2980 on both sides. This is a scrambled homage to real world WFP 4-8-2 engine 928, which is so strong, it's pulled every piece of rolling stock the railroad owns -at one time- with ease! The inside of the cab features two gauges and the firebox door. This combination baggage and passenger car (known as a combine) relies heavily on techniques taken from Retlaw baggage car built by @TJJohn12, as seen here. The three identical coaches have inset doors I designed myself. The streamlined observation car of this train should feature two of these windows in white (which sadly aren't in LDD). -
Spirit of Legoredo streamlined train with 4-8-4 "Red Dragon" steam locomotive
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
The Spirit of Legoredo was my one of my first big trains, and was built in 2011 with a baggage car, three passenger coaches, and observation car. It looked good to me at first, in nearly all black with a red stripe at the base, but over the years was quietly forgotten about, as it was quite dull-looking to others and hard to take pictures of. Then I switched magnet types to the newer ones, and it became even harder show off as it didn't match the rest of my newer train fleet. That is, until I added a new locomotive to the head end and one more passenger car. (changing the colors up a bit from mainly black to mostly red doesn't hurt much either!) In reality, this 7-wide loco began life as a 2-8-4 Berkshire type built by @Plastic_Goth and purchased from Rebrickable a seen here. I upped the wheel count by another leading axle, (making it into a 4-8-4 Northern-type) and I then decided to imitate the famous South African Railways 'Red Devil' in color-scheme. The pistons are entirely my own work, as is the tender. More details can be seen here on the SAR Red Devil locomotive. The rear of the engine has a slightly changed coal bunker side walls compared to the 2-8-4 Berkshire MOD I posted earlier in the week. The baggage car. These cars were all inspired by The Santa Fe Super Chief cars (10022 and 10025) and the Emerald Night's coach. (10194) The four streamlined coaches of the train. Each car on this train is 28 studs long, which is longer than my usual 24 studs long standard. Observation car of the Spirit of Legoredo passenger train. The original way these cars were styled had them all black and with a red base stripe, but I have added dark bluish gray fluting and a lot more red to the mix to make them easier to take pictures of. Comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome! EDIT 4/23/21: Added a different steam loco to the fist post. -
This tube stock model is based on the 1996 stock that currently runs on the Jubilee and Northern lines. My goal was to keep them 6- wide, and worked to fit the proportions that came from that. As a result, the model uses small tram wheels, which introduces an obvious problem if i wish to motorize it. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do so i'm happy to hear them! The model roof isn't high enough to fit minifigures inside unfortunately, but removing their legs and clipping them to the inside can produce a nice effect. I'll possibly post some more photos in the near future, as well as a showcase video on my youtube channel.
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full gallery 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. full gallery
