A Trainmaster is a person in charge of the movement of trains in a division or subdivision of a railroad. A Train Master is a diesel locomotive, designated H24-66, built by the Fairbanks-Morse company. Two Words. Train Master.
This story began decades ago, long before The Shifter. Facing the big Five-Oh soon I decided to revisit some old projects. This quickly rose to the top of the list. Look for more posts about this pair of locomotives in the next few months.
After gluing the cab floor and boiler backhead into one unit and adding styrene strips to the cab walls to hold it in place against the frame, I decided to do a fit check of the whole thing at this point. So, I reassembled the loco and took it for a quick spin. As I suspected, the longer Aristocraft boiler and cab closes the gap between engine and tender by approximately 1/8". Even with the closer spacing the engine will still successfully navigate my 15" to 16" radius curves. YES!! That means I don't have to make a new drawbar. I also decided I'm going to add a plug to the headlight wires so I can mount the light up through the boiler into the headlight housing and not have to fiddle with jamming it up in there each time I reassemble the engine.
Okay, enough blabbing. On with the video:
Like, Subscribe and all that jazz, because when this thing is done I'll be making a follow-up video for sure. I'm just tickled with how this project is coming along. After the struggles of the 2-6-0 project, this one is a breeze. On to the detailing.
Here's the backhead and cab floor just set in place, not glued to each other, to test the fit. The boiler and backhead will be glued to the floor. This unit will remain loose, unattached to either the frame or the cab. When the cab and boiler are set down over the frame it will effectively sandwich this in place and hold it there. Then, if sometime down the road I decide to add more detail, I can remove it to make that work easier. Currently I'm deciding if I want to add a plug inline with the headlight wires to make it easier to assemble and disassemble the engine. The best part is no part.
Oh my poor Shifter. This little 0-4-0 has been put off for over 12 years now through moves and shifting locales and all sorts of reasons. I had claimed in my end-of-year goals that this time would be different and for sure I'd finish it by Christmas, but alas, it may not be so. One thing I've learned about how I approach my hobby during lockdown is to follow the muse and pursue the passion even at the cost of delaying a project yet again. Momentum is precious when the anchor of settled inertia takes so much effort to weigh. Best to change tack and sail with the wind.
No, I'm not building a ship - lest the nautical references mislead you. I'm swapping a boiler and cab to create a unique locomotive. John Allen, of Gorre & Daphetid fame, was fond of heavily modifying locomotives to make them different from everyone else's. I have always felt the same way. The 2-6-0 I modified last year got a shortened tender and a high headlight; for fitting on a short turntable and to give the engine a 'family' appearance, respectively. This time I'm applying a boiler and cab from an AristoCraft/New One 2-8-0 to the smooth running mechanism of an Athearn (nee MDC/Roundhouse) 2-8-0.
The donor boiler is slightly longer than the original but offers a few features that make the conversion worth it for me. Not visible in this image are the open cab doors on the front of the cab - a thing often seen in real life but rarely on the model, something I've always wanted to include on a model engine. Like the 2-6-0, (and the Shifter) this engine has an auxiliary dome just in front of the cab and a side-mounted whistle (family likeness, again). I also like the brass detailing already built-in and will be featuring that in the finished model.
I'll be borrowing the backhead detail from the original boiler using Oyumaru thermoplastic and superfine Miliput to make a copy. The great thing about this thermoplastic material is that the mold can be remade if it doesn't turn out well on the first try. I was fortunate and got it right first time. Here you can see two castings in Miliput. I'll use the top one but it will need a little more Miliput to fill a couple imperfections. It smooths easily with water. The little side tabs will be cut away before it is installed.
I'll have to make a boiler segment for inside the cab along with a rudimentary floor and of course a place for a skinny engineer to sit. The fireman may end up living on the deck behind the cab. We'll see. Brass for the bits to attach the new boiler to the old frame (or is that the other way around?) has already been cut and shaped, and I have all the detail parts I'll want to use.
More on this project as I hit new milestones.
