Marty's O Scale Narrow Gauge

The BLI C-16 arrived today. Gave it a test run. I remembered there was an article about fitting a working front coupler. A little time with Google found it:

https://on30annual.com/ditching-the-dummy/

 

So, that upgrade to the BLI C-16 turned out to be a real doddle.

 

Discovered a proper image of my chosen prototype. A little more research reveals that the Queensland Railways C-15 Class were basically the same as the Denver and Rio Grande Class 60 (late D&RGW C-16) both being a catalogue design from Baldwin, the 10-24-E. In fact, the New Zealand Railways had a handful of them as their T Class.

Precision Scale Co #40254 looks to be about the right stack I need for this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/234583909253

And a set of fluted C-16 Domes from San Juan Car Co. https://sanjuancarco.com/c-16-fluted-dome-set/

Or quite possibly some sort of adaptive re-use of the fluted domes that came with my Bachmann 4-6-0



I have also learned that the late Harold Minkwitz did a number of articles on the BLI C-16, which included stuffing the gubbins from the large BLI tender, into a Bachmann Mogul tender to represent the class as they would have appeared much earlier.

 

Next thing to do is to replace the massive tender with a more suitable one. Turns out that a spare Bachmann Mogul tender fits the bill perfectly. I was given an On30 Train Set which had been converted to On42. Unfortunately, the conversion was not a long-term success, but I had plenty of spare bogies/trucks in stock and was able to revert them back to On30. The loco was a write-off, but I did get a nice set of coaches and a spare tender! Whilst these are not the correct trucks/bogies for my chosen prototype, they are original Bachmann tender bogies that fit nicely. At this stage the speakers are not in the tender, nor are there any tender pick-ups, but the loco does operate in this condition.

Quite a lot of the guts of the tender had to be hacked out to make enough room for the rather bulky DCC sound equipment. To transplant the speakers I will most likely have to cut out part of the top of the tender tank and make a heaped coal load to cover the two capacitors and the large socketed chip which will protrude upwards. Fortunately for me, it seems that loco crew liked to pile coal loads high. Just need to add some suitable tool boxes.

 

We had limited ability to produce locomotives locally in Australia in the 19th Century. We relied heavily on imports from Britain, and during the 1870s to 1890s we experimented with American equipment. We quickly adopted American style end-platform carriages and soon were making our own local versions. If you look at locomotive designs in the 1890s-1920s you can see a clear American influence, though we still tended to use British suppliers and we even looked to Continental Europe for ideas.

 

I acquired a couple of Bachmann side-door cabooses. Just waiting on final delivery. They passed customs on Friday and apparently my parcel was recalled by customs today.

Also managed to find a Bachman EZ-Command DCC Controller BNIB for very cheap - only slightly more than the cost of a new Analogue DC controller. I will eventually purchase a better DCC system, but this is handy as I can use it with my Bachmann EZ-Track. I never really planned on using this type of track, but I got most of it either as an unexpected freebie or included with other purchases. I bought a few points and a few pieces of straight track.

 

I think I have figured out how to fit a working kadee coupler to the pilot on a Bachmann Mogul which has a stock non-working coupler. Perhaps something useful if you can't get the replacement Bachmann pilots with working couplers?

It involves separating the pilot from the deck, removing the cosmetic coupler and using a tiny screw to secure a long shank kadee into the pilot before gluing it back to the deck. In this particular case the coupler is a little high so a long overset shank coupler is probably ideal.

A slightly better arrangement may be achieved using a Kadee #451 long draft box inserted into the cab and screwed to the under-side of the pilot deck.

 

Amazing... I spent months looking around for these at a good price, and three turned up all within mere days of each other.

Also, it is clear that I need to make up a photo plank.

 

Sent off a big shopping list of bits and pieces to two American suppliers of detailing parts today. One minor annoyance was that the replacement tender trucks/bogies that I want are out of stock, so I will have to live with stock bogies for a while yet. I did a short write-up for 7th Heaven and the planned part 2 was going to be the tender work, but I think I shall have to shift focus to the locomotive body detailing as I seem to have everything I need for that. Just have to wait a couple of weeks for those bits to arrive.

In the mean time I have done some shopping for my O scale Standard Gauge collection. The big purchase was a the Peco Start Set Track Pack. I also have some O gauge wagons that need to be fixed/finished or worked on and some spare parts have been purchased to do that. The plan for a while now has been to take some of my tipper wagons and do some sort of diorama layout where they load up the standard gauge wagons.

 

These little buggers are all over my place now. I must own about 20 of them. I keep finding them in job lots on German eBay. The one in grey represents their "final form" when they have been modified. I plan on painting the whole lot of them some time when work settles down again. Have to make the $$$ when I can so I can spend the $$$ on the trains!

 

On my On30 gear I replaced the EZ-mate couplers with metal Kadee 140-series (whisker) couplers. Simply because I found a lot of them started to deform from the weight of larger loads. I did have quite a few EZ-mates in good condition left over, so they went onto my British OO gauge wagons which did not have NEM pockets.

I like Kadee or knuckle couplers primarily because you can lift a single wagon out of a train without derailing the whole train!

 

A couple of boxes of bits and pieces have arrived. I have most of what I will need to complete an SAR X Class Conversion and the QR C15 conversion projects.

In other news, I acquired a Climax. The Bachmann On30 is a 28-ton type. There is an example of the slightly smaller 25-ton variety at Puffing Billy Railway, which ran on the Tyers Tramway, run by the Forestry Commission of Victoria. I think it will make a nice companion with my VR Na Class. My thoughts at the moment are to do a few minor cosmetic changes such as a spark-arrestor stack and enlarge the bunker - which will have the added benefit of allowing me some extra room for a DCC sound installation.

 

In between a couple of Porters there is a Diesel with a German accent which has magically appeared.