New Power for the Stockton & Copperopolis (?)

Great Northern 363 ABC crosses the Stanislaus River bridge during a test run following decoder programming.

The Stockton & Copperopolis is modernizing its motive power fleet with the acquisition of a used Great Northern ABA set? Is the S&C updating to the early 1950s? No, not really. A friend of mine who models the GN was over today and we were working on the programming of a new decoder in his locomotive. After the programming, we took the engine for a spin around the railroad to test it out. John Breau, the locomotive's owner, has a great GN-based railroad upon which I am privileged to operate now and then. The locomotive just looked so good, the company photographer had to record the event.

Another New Locomotive for the S&C

 

The new locomotive San Andreas sits on the Duck Creek Trestle shortly after arrival.

The past couple of months have been somewhat hectic around the house with little time to work on railroad projects. I have, however, (finally) completed a new locomotive. It is a brass import of unknown manufacture and represents the early class of moguls purchased by the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Manufactured by Baldwin between 1870 and 1873, the V&T received six identical engines each named for a county or city in the Comstock area. This engine specifically is a model of the first of the run of moguls, the Virginia. 

     I maintained the look of the prototype including the paint colors but lettered it for the Stockton & Copperopolis as its Number 20, the San Andreas. San Andreas is a small town in the Mother Lode country of California and its citizens would naturally take the S&C for their travels. I installed a Tsunami2-Steam 2 decoder and it makes the engine perform very nicely. What it will be doing I have not yet decided but it will undoubtedly be pulling freight of some sort.

     There may be some who question the shiny newness of my locos. In fact, in my period, when specific engineers were assigned to specific locos, they took a great deal of care of them. This not only applied to passenger engines but freight as well. The following clip from a period newspaper shows what I am talking about.

May 22, 1873 - Gold Hill News

A Handsome Locomotive. - The locomotive Esmeralda, attached to a heavy freight train en route for Virginia, to-day halted for a breathing spell at the railroad depot, Gold Hill. With her brasses well burnished and her head lights decorated with wild flowers, she looked as handsome as could be. We don't wonder that Engineer Johnny Elkins is proud of her.

The Esmeralda was one of the sister engines to my engine and was assigned to pull freight trains. My engines, however, don't have the wild flowers. Maybe there's room for more detail?

New Motors and a New Buggy

 

One of my 2-6-0s with the new Minebea motor fitted. The shaft size was even the same as the old Sagami (lower right) so everything pretty much slipped into place. The 15mm square x 18mm long Minebea is at the center. It has a 2.0mm shaft (one-sided only).

The past couple of weeks or so have been a little frustrating for me. To start with, one of my locomotives lost most of its oomph. It could still pull cars but not at the same speed it had previously. After some thinking about the problem, I decided that the old Soundtraxx DSD 090 decoder which had been installed in 1998 had finally reached its lifespan and needed to be changed. It was duly replaced with a new Tsunami2 Steam-2 decoder which did absolutely nothing to cure the problem. More thought and some testing went on and I finally discovered that the motor was getting extraordinarily hot. I removed it and ran a test and it was drawing about .5 amps at 4 volts (normal is about .15 amps and 10 volts. Unfortunately, my stock of Sagami 16x20 motors was depleted. Fortunately, the Repower and Regear group have been talking about some Minebea motors which measured out to be about the same size with similar characteristics. Best of all, they were only about $3.50 each. I ordered a couple and installed it with great results. I haven't run it very much yet (no one to operate with) but I have high hopes.

     I no sooner had gotten that engine done when another similar engine exhibited the same symptoms. I changed both motor and decoder and now have two locos back in service and will probably order a few more of these. 

   

The new buggy sits on a road in Farmington. Both the horse and driver are figures made by Berkshire Valley. The horse seems to be carrying more heavy-duty harness than would be needed for a small buggy, though.

 Being somewhat tired of locomotive work, I noticed that Berkshire Valley Models (Berkshirevalleymodels.com) had a new kit for an HO scale buggy. Since the Jordan buggy has pretty much gone away, I thought I would check this one out. The kit is all laser cut and is easy to assemble. It took me less than two hours to get it all assembled and painted. While I was at it, I purchased one of Berkshire Valley's harnessed horses along with a driver. I was pleased with the results and recommend the kit to any who need a horse-drawn buggy.

Union Copper Gets a Shay

The Keystone in its shiny paint a few days after delivery. Let's hope the mining company continues to maintain this finish. Note the construction number of the engine on the sand box.

A long, steep grade leads from the main line down to the Union Copper Company mine in Copperopolis. For some time now, normal locomotives have struggled hauling loaded ore cars up the grade and lowering supply cars down. Now, the mining company has purchased a Shay locomotive fresh from the factory. It will now take over all duties on the mining company spur. Ore destined for the smelter in Stockton will be hauled by the new engine and then Stockton & Copperopolis locomotives will take over and carry the cars down the main line. 

In reality, the new Shay named Keystone for the nearby ravine of that name started out as the pieces to a Model Die Casting Shay kit purchased around 20 years ago. I finally decided to get the thing built. Using a Walker back-dating kit, I installed a new straight boiler with accompanying domes. Northwest Short Line gears were used to upgrade the ones which came with the kit. A Sagami motor completed the drive train. Assembling the Shay mechanism was not particularly difficult but care had to be taken so that the parts will all rotate smoothly. A Soundtraxx Tsunami2 decoder was installed along with a sugar cube speaker.

The painting and lettering scheme was based on builder's photos of various Shays of the 1800's. The number on the sand box is not the engine number but Lima's construction number. Looking at the prototype photos and checking the builder's lists seemed to confirm this supposition. Striping was also based on the prototype photos as was the lettering styles. It was an interesting project and, if you can locate an MDC kit, all the gears and the backdating kit are still available. You'll have to come up with your own motor as the Sagamis are no longer produced.

Switch Engine for the S&I

A combination of 3D printed boiler/cab on a HOn30 mechanism produced this nice little switch engine for the yard at Holden. The track sliders can be seen between the drivers. They will eventually be painted. to hide them.

Although my narrow gauge feeder, the Stockton & Ione is not yet ready for operation, I ran across a blog post about a fellow who used an HOn30 Japanese mechanism and a 3D printed body to build a light Porter 0-4-0T. I purchased the chassis and the body parts and built up one of these little locos. I weighted the boiler and tank with tungsten putty and installed a Soundtraxx mobile decoder (I wanted sound but there is just no place I could find to put a speaker).
   

The Ione can easily pull two cars plus a little more. 

There were a few problems to overcome, however. The first was that the wheels were gauged for HOn30. I first thought about replacing the 2mm axles with longer shafts but found that I could simply pull out the wheels on the existing axles to HOn3 gauge. The second major problem is electrical pickup. The chassis comes with wipers on all four wheels which is just not enough. I added some track sliders between the drivers and that helped quite a bit but the engine still stalls every now and then. The more I run the engine, the better it runs so it might just need some more running.
     Overall, the performance is very good. The engine can pull 2 cars with ease and a third one on level track, just about what the prototype would be expected to do. It does run very well with the mobile decoder and some momentum built in.

The Storey is Finally Complete

The Storey sits on the Copperopolis turntable ready for her next assignment. The engine was the Virginia and Truckee Railroad's No. 3.

The second engine of my two-locomotive project is now out of the shop and ready for service. The Storey, another Virginia and Truckee locomotive, was constructed very similar to the Ormsby. It uses the Porter Mogul frame plus the boiler and cab. The motor and gearbox were replaced along with the drivers (now 48"), cylinders, stack and domes. The driver spacing was altered and, thus, new siderods had to be made as well. I thought that the original mogul tender was too small so I used a larger one which was originally from a PFM Reno locomotive.
   

The new motor was mounted on two pieces of brass box beam to raise it to a height suitable to connect to the gearbox. A torque arm was connected between the gearbox and the motor to prevent alignment problems. The two cylindrical items on top of the gearbox are tungsten weights. The cylinders are from a Model Engineering Works Tahoe.

The gearbox used was a Northwest Short Line 36:1 box with no idler gear. This was connected with the new motor with NWSL U-joints. A torque arm was installed to keep things aligned. Tungsten weights were used in the boiler, cab and on top of the gearbox to get enough weight in the locomotive.
    A Tsunami TSU-750 along with a sugar cube speaker were mounted in the tender.

With the Storey and Ormsby sitting side by side, it is easy to see the size difference between the two locomotives. The Storey was more the size of the later Baldwin engines bought by the V&T.

Ormsby Now in Service

The Virginia & Truckee's Ormsby sits on the Oakdale turntable. On lease from the V&T, the locomotive will add some power to the S&C's fleet. The number "2" on the headlight lens is for night running so the engine can be identified by an approaching engine. The long rod reaching from the cab to the front of the boiler operates the cylinder cocks.

The Ormsby finally rolled out of the shops today and is in service on the railroad. The past couple of weeks have been spent in installing the decoder, tuning it and finishing the small details. I decided to try the relatively new Soundtraxx Econami steam decoder and am very satisfied with it. It has considerably more options in bells and whistles (literally) and a much better single-tone whistle than the Tsunamis. You can also set the cylinders cocks open at the start of a run and time when they will be closed. Synchronization for engine chuffs is much, much better as well. I'm happy with it and the price is right.
 

A torque arm was added and screwed to the 28:1 gearbox. It attaches to the motor with silicon caulking. 

 The motor for the engine is a 12mm diameter Sagami which just barely fits within the boiler. I used a NWSL 28:1 gearbox and connected it directly to the motor. Lettering for the engine was developed using Adobe Illustrator and then printed on decal paper. The distinctive Union Iron Works builder's plate is a decal applied to an etched brass backing plate. Engineer and fireman figures completed the engine while a wire rope and hook completed the tender gear on the rear.
 

To get enough clearance with the small driving wheels, the bottom cover of the gearbox had to be removed. Electrical wipers are installed on the left-side drivers to get more pickup.

  One problem occurred when I tried to run the engine; it bumped along the track. A close examination showed that the gearbox cover on the bottom was hitting the ballast and the rails at turnouts due to the small driver diameter. The bottom of the gearbox was cut away and the problem was solved.
     Ormsby only has 40" drivers and is about 15% smaller than the other engines. That's the way the prototype was and why these engines sadly did not last into the 20th century.

The Ormsby alongside the Calaveras. It is easy to see that difference in size between the locomotives.

Most of the moguls I use on the S&C are V&T prototypes and have 48" drivers. This engine is quite a bit smaller than the larger ones  but I liked the looks of it and the fact that it was built in California unlike the remainder of the engines which were built in the East.
    One of the unexpected pleasures of this little engine is its pulling power. I tried it out with a few cars and kept adding more until I got to 15 and it was still pulling well on level ground. I can't complain. Part of this happy result was undoubtedly due to the tungsten weights I used instead of lead. Woodland Scenics makes a line of these weights designed for Pinewood Derby cars. They were just the right size (3/8" diameter) to fit in the boiler and under the cab roof.

Out of the Paint Shop

The upper locomotive is of the Virginia & Truckee Storey while the bottom is that of the Ormsby.

My slow-moving locomotive project is finally out of the paint shop. Following the color of the prototype (or what we think we know about the prototype), I painted the engine with a dark green chassis with the tender a two-tone brown/green. This seems to be what the few pictures of the original engine suggests. The domes and cylinders were masked and painted to give the two-tone paint job as well as the polished brass of the steam domes.

Comparing the Storey's tender (bottom) to that of the Ormsby, you can see the difference between the size of the engines. Note that the Ormsby tender has the tapered collar.

   The tender of the Ormsby had a tapered collar while the model I was using (Porter Mogul) did not. It turned out to be relatively easy to unsolder the wire bead around the top of the collar, cut the taper and then resolder the bead.

The relative size of the engines can easily be seen by the frames. The cylinders for the top frame (Storey) are from a MEW Tahoe while the bottom set are from the original Porter. 

    The frames were the easiest (all one color). I used the Porter mogul frame for the Storey and built up the frame of the Ormsby from brass strips. You can see on the Storey where the rear driver position was filled in by a piece of 3mm material and a new driver slot cut to match the prototype. I used a cylinder set from a Model Engineering Works Tahoe (no, I did not cannibalize one of these scarce models but used an extra set) for the larger engine and the original Porter Mogul cylinders for the smaller one.

The curved molding over the windows is a separate piece which was soldered on to the window etching. The "wood" molding under the roof was built up with  strips of styrene.

    The cab of the Ormsby appeared to be a bit more ornate than the Storey. I made parts for a new cab by etching them in thin brass and then soldered the parts together. It was a tedious process with a high scrap ratio.

The screening on the stack top was made of fine brass screen
with small brass strips forming the cover.

   The Storey's  smokestack was just a Cal-Scale ballooon stack but the stack of the Ormsby was a bit more trouble since no one makes a model of the old bonnet stacks. I took some measurements from the photos I had and then turned the stack on a lathe. Archer rivets were added for detail.
    The next step is the assembly and the installation of the decoder.

   

A Large-Scale Locomotive Model

The Lyon's boiler now sits atop the chassis outside its shed in Iowa.

This week, I was in Mason City, Iowa and decided to visit the nearby town of Clear Lake where Stan Gentry is building a full-sized working replica of Virginia & Truckee RR No.1, the Lyon. Stan started this project about 20 years ago and is about 80% complete. He is using the same drawings that I have for my HO scale Ormsby, the Lyon's sister engine.

The complete tender tank waiting to be mated to the underframe.

Stan located the remnants of a Union Iron Works tender which had been built for the Bodie & Benton railroad in California. He has used that to recreate the building style for the  Lyon's  tender. Remaining to be done is the cab, domes, valves, water pumps and the myriad of small details you don't realize you need until you start doing this kind of project.  

   

Tender trucks and chassis awaiting the tank.

     The locomotives in the nineteenth century are relatively small but you don't realize how tiny they until you stand beside them. I've visited the California State Railroad Museum where they have one of the V&T's larger 2-6-0s and it's monstsrous along of the Lyon.
     Stan is a real nice guy and I wish him all the luck in completing this project. It will sure be neat to watch it running some day. You can read more about his project on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/V-T-Lyon-269396092936/) or at vtlyon.com.

Newly-made smokebox front duplicating the original.

The new stack. You can judge the size by the
figure behind it.

More on Locomotives

A rendering of the Ormsby's sister engine, the Lyon. Both were built in 1869 by the Union Iron Works in San Francisco.

 February was a busy month. Every two years, the model railroaders in Kansas City who have operating layouts invite others to share in their operations. This year, over 30 operating railroads hosted about 135 attendees from the east coast to the west coast and a lot in between. Over a Friday to Sunday weekend, each guest got to operate on four layouts in the area. The S&C hosted two of these sessions and 20 visitors. It was a lot of fun and the railroad performed well but there was a lot of work getting ready for the event. This left little time for new projects. I did, however, make a start on another new engine.

The temporarily assembled engine.

Both the chassis and the boiler/cab are scratchbuilt from brass and nickel silver. The drivers are 40" in diameter. Drivers and cylinders are left over from the Porter mogul engine.

    This new locomotive will be a model of the Virginia & Truckee's No. 2, the Ormsby. It was built in 1869 in the same order as the Storey (http://sandcrr.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-locomotive.html) but it was a little smaller. While I am modifying a Porter mogul for the Storey, the Ormsby is scratchbuilt. To date, I have completed the frame and siderods and formed the cab and boiler. All of the construction is based on the builder's erection drawing found at the California State Railroad Museum.
   

These plates mount between the fenders of the engine.

 To make the cab, headlight bracket and builder's plate, I tried etching brass with varying results. The headlight bracket and builder's plate turned out all right but the thicker material I wanted for the cab would not produce the results I wanted without a lot of fiddling. I need to try some better techniques for thicker etchings.
     Some of the parts on the engine such as the drivers, cylinders and tender are left over from the Storey project while the pilot is from a PFM Reno.

   

Headlight brackets still need to be bent to shape.

Obviously, more work is needed to finish the engine and it goes slowly but both engines should be ready for paint before too awfully long (I hope).

A New Locomotive

The stripped down Porter Mogul with new cylinders, motor/gearbox and drivers. 

Now that the Christmas season is behind us, I can finally get back to some serious modeling. Santa was good to me this year giving me some needed tools for the shop and some interesting reading material.

    Before Christmas, I had decided to start building the town of Milton but had to wait until some of the windows and styrene were ordered. While I was waiting, I started some research on early Virginia & Truckee RR locomotives. Without going into great detail (you can get detail at www.virginiaandtruckee.com), the first three engines came from Union Iron Works, a small foundry and machine shop in San Francisco. I also discovered that engine 3 had been featured in a centerfold in an 1871 issue of Engineering magazine published in London. A trip to the nearby Linda Hall library led to finding that issue and getting a copy of the article which included a full-scale drawing with dimension. With that in hand and three photos of the engine, I decided to try to convert an engine to Number 3, the Storey.

Ken Kidder's Porter Mogul was roughly the same dimensions
 as the Storey but several features had to be redone or replaced.

   A few dimension checks showed me that the Ken Kidder Porter Mogul was very close to the right size for the Storey. I had one the moguls on my shelf so I checked what would have to be done to convert it. The boiler was the right size but the domes were not. A couple of Precision Scale domes solved that problem. A Cal-Scale 1860s smokestack and bell solved those problems. The cab looked pretty good but had a curved roof rather than one with a ridge. I decided to live with feature rather than rebuild the entire cab.
    The frame was a bit more work. The drivers were the wrong size (40") and had the wrong spacing. I had the correct size drivers (48") and could easily move the driver slot so it would be closer to the prototype spacing. Replacing the old open-frame motor with a Northwest Short Line gearbox and Sagami motor was next. The Ken Kidder cylinder set was also replaced with a spare MEW set I had along with the crossheads and main rod. Some careful machine work produced a pair of new siderods. While I was at it, I fabricated new fenders for the rear drivers and added a crosshead water pump. I have a spare PFM Reno tender that I will use.

The prototype Storey as seen on the V&T. 

     There's still a lot of work to be done to finish the locomotive but it seems to be going along well. When done, it won't be able to pull a great deal but neither could the prototype. There will be more to come later as construction continues.

Another New Locomotive Arrives

The S&C's new American at the head of Train No. 6 ready to depart from Oakdale. The passenger cars are brass imports by Beaver Creek.

The local passenger trains are on the S&C are made up of brass imported cars which are very heavy. Although my smaller 4-4-0s can pull four of these cars, it's about all they can do. I wanted to come up with a slightly heavier, more modern engine which can pull a little more. My choice was the Bachmann Spectrum Richmond 4-4-0. As manufactured, it represents a loco of about 1910 where I wanted one a little older.

The tender is from the Bachmann Baldwin 4-4-0 which looks better for the time period of the railroad.

 I began my conversion by removing the stack, domes and generator. The domes were replaced with Precision Scale domes which are more of a Baldwin style. The stack was replaced with a capped stack just because I like capped stacks. All of my locos use oil headlamps so this was replaced and, of course, the dynamo was no longer needed. I swapped the original tender out with the tender from the Spectrum Baldwin 4-4-0 and removed the DCC decoder with which it was equipped. This was replaced with a Tsunami TSU-750 and a sugar cube speaker. The engine was then painted and lettered to suit the railroad's management receiving the name San Joaquin in the process. San Joaquin is the California county in which most of the railroad runs.
 

The engineer, appropriately attired with a derby hat and 20-past-8 mustache appears competent enough with a husky fireman keeping up the steam. The engine crew is from Musket Miniatures.

Overall, the conversion was not too bad. The loco comes apart easily and is readily modified as long as one is willing to do a bit of filing and drilling here and there.

Another New Locomotive

The Calaveras on its first day of work. The number on the headlight lens is so that opposing engineers can tell which engine they are meeting if it is dark.

As I mentioned in my last post, there was another engine in the works named Calaveras. This is for the county of that name in which Milton and Copperopolis are located. For Engine No. 23, I decided to build a loco which had been order in the 1870s but had been updated in the 1890s. To do this, I used another of the Model Engineering Works V&T moguls and replaced the smokestack with a capped stack. The engine already had the extended smokebox (which followed the prototype which went through this conversion) so this was easy. After it was remotored, I painted the loco a Brunswick Green which I hope is similar to the color used by Baldwin in that period. The lettering is based on Southern Pacific lettering styles of the late 1880s-90s using a multi-colored three-dimensional approach. I still have to add some jewels to the classification lamps but that will be done shortly.

Almost all of the S&C freight locomotives carry a wire rope cable for use in emergencies. 

New Locomotive on the S&C

The newly wiped down Stanislaus waits patiently at Oakdale for the day's work to begin.

After a month of working on it, the Stanislaus, No. 29, has joined the locomotive roster on the Stockton & Copperopolis. I had been waiting for a couple of new brass imports to come in but it finally became evident that they weren't going to show up.This prompted me to come up with two more engines from other sources. The Stanislaus is the first of the two. Both are based on Model Engineering Works imports of the Virginia and Truckee's number 20, the Tahoe.
   When the model was originally imported, it was based on the Tahoe as it now exists in Pennsylvania's railroad museum at Strasburg. It has an extended smokebox resulting from a conversion to coal as its fuel but is fitted with a balloon stack. I decided to cut off the excess smokebox to convert it back to its original appearance. While doing this, I also decided to give it a Radley-Hunter smokestack. Both the traditional balloon stack and the Radley-Hunter were suitable for wood-burners. A 16x20 can motor was substituted as well.
 

A wood load for the tender hides the Tsunami decoder.

Due to the configuration of the tender, the best place for the Tsunami TSU-750 decoder was in the fuel bunker. This was covered with wood to help disguise the decoder. A sugar cube speaker was used in the tender.
   The painting and lettering was based on the original Baldwin paint scheme for the Tahoe. Readers of my other posts may notice that the name Stanislaus appears frequently. This is one of the counties through which the S&C operates and where Oakdale is located. The next engine should go together a bit more quickly. It will represent a similar mogul which has been converted to burn coal and repainted in a paint scheme more typical of the late 1880s. It will be named Calaveras for another of the counties in which the railroad runs.

New Locomotive

The C.A. Coscia stands at the Oakdale depot awaiting an assignment. The striping is based on the prototype C.P.Huntington at the California Railroad Museum.

I've been wanting to get this little engine running for some time now. One reason is that I just happen to like single-driver locomotives and another was to see if I could get sound into it. For those of you who might not recognize the engine, it is a model of the Southern Pacific's No. 1 (formerly Central Pacific No. 3), the C. P. Huntington which still exists in the California Railroad Museum. The model was imported in brass by Key in the 1980s.
 

The woodpile in the tank area almost entirely hides the speaker glued to the underside of the roof. The decoder is located in the cab. The prototype Huntington once sported a rear headlight such as this one.

To get it running, I had to modify the rear end beam. The original was just a brass casting with a simulated link-and-pin drawhead. I drilled that out and substituted a Kadee 711 coupler. A number plate was added to the smokebox cover as well as a light for backing moves. The rest of the engine was left stock.
 

The Zimo 8x11 mm speaker with sound chamber puts out a great amount of
sound despite its tiny size.

A Loksound Select Mini decoder was used for the sound along with a Zimo 8x11 mm "sugar cube" speaker. The decoder barely fit into the cab with the speaker glued under the roof.
   These little engines won't run reliably unless extra electrical pickups are added. A wiper made from .010" phosphor bronze was attached to run on the insulated driver and track sliders were attached to both the left and right side pickups. I would like to have added more but the size of the engine made that difficult.
  All in all, the loco runs pretty well and can pull two or three freight cars. Since that's all the prototype could do, I am happy. My intention is to use this engine to pull the pay car once I get one built. More about that operation later.
 

About one passenger car is the limit for this locomotive but this is all that would be required to pull the pay car.

The worst part about the single-driver models is that any little defect in the trackwork can affect the engine. Most engines have at least one other pair of drivers to push them over rough trackage but the singles do not. The drivers spin and nothing happens, sort of like getting one of your rear car wheels in a mud puddle. It spins fast but the car goes nowhere. The good side of this is that you now have an engine to inspect the track so you can repair it.
   The engine that pulled the pay car was kept in excellent condition as it represented the fiscal solvency of the railroad and upper management. I've tried to get that feeling into this one. It's named the C. A. Coscia after a good friend and supporter of the S&C.

Some Progress Made on Stockton & Ione

The new Stockton & Ione locomotive is now in the yard at Holden.

Although the narrow gauge Stockton & Ione Railroad is not a major part of the S&C project, I would like to make some progress on that part of the layout. Last month, when my wife and I were in Durango, Colorado, I visited Soundtraxx where they showed me their new quasi-1890s locomotive. It's based on their C-19 locos but somewhat backdated with a diamond stack, era-correct smokebox cover and Russian iron boiler jacket. It's not truly correct but they have been testing the waters for older equipment and have found the market receptive. It's really a nice smooth-running engine with a lot of possibilities so I bought one for the S&I.
   My plans for the loco are to shorten the smokebox, remove the dynamo, relocate the air pump and tender air cylinder. I may possibly add an older cab and more rivet detail on the stack. The S&I only had two locos in its short life and neither were 2-8-0s but neither did it get all the way to Ione.

Using this and another original Mason drawing should help recreate the S&I locomotive Amador.

 Speaking of S&I locos, I also managed to locate two original drawings for the S&I engine Amador. It was an 0-6-4T Mason bogie. This was a great find as I don't have any photos of this loco as the Amador and the boiler is a bit different than what I thought it would be.
 

Code 40 and 55 flex track is being amassed adjacent to the almost-abandoned S&I grade east of Holden. 

   The National Narrow Gauge Convention is going to be here in Kansas City in 2014 and the committee asked to have my railroad on the layout tours. I agreed and decided that I should get at least some operating narrow gauge on the layout so, as the Stockton Daily Independent said "Rails and ties are being stockpiled at the S&I junction switch east of Holden. It looks like the narrow gauge project may still have some life in it."

Some Details on Sound

Following my last posting (Finally, Some Sound), I had a few questions on how I mounted the electronics in the slope-back tender of the 0-6-0. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the tender insides but here is a diagram of what is mounted and where.

   To begin with, the motor and drive was replaced with a Sagami 16x30 can motor and a NWSL 150-6 gearbox (36:1). All of the electronics mount in the back half of the tender shell. I had previously filled the coal bunker with coal and had weights in the water part adjacent to the coal. I used a Micro-Tsunami (C-Class Steam) with a Soundtraxx 810112 oval speaker. The wires for both were oriented toward the middle of the tender beneath the mounting strap. The capacitor was also mounted beneath the mounting strap. I used an incandescent 1.5V bulb for the backup light and the resistor for that was stuff in one of the legs adjacent to the coal bunker. None of these pieces was fastened to the tender body but just laid in. Three 1/8” holes were drilled in the tender floor beneath the speaker to let the sound out. An additional hole was drilled in the floor for the wires to pass through to connectors located beneath the front truck body bolster. I kept the wires as short as possible so they could all be stuffed beneath the mounting strap when assembled. It was programmed this morning and it sounds great. 

Finally, Some Sound

The Number 19 at Orford Junction.

Like everyone, I work on a project for a while, get tired of it, quit, and, hopefully, get back to it some time later. A couple of years ago, I refitted almost all of my locomotives with Tsunami sound decoders. By the time I had finished most of them, I got tired of the project and left two locos silent and running with only non-sound decoders. Over the last couple of days, I finally decided to remedy that situation and install the sound decoders.

The speaker can barely be seen at the left rear corner of the tender. A Sagami 16x30 motor  was used.

Some of the tender frame had to be removed to allow the decoder to fit.

   The two engines in need were No. 19, a Pacific Fast Mail import of the V&T Reno. This engine is a 4-4-0 with the motor, decoder and speaker in the tender. There is precious little room for all these things, so little in fact, that I had to skew the motor slightly to allow the Tsunami to fit. Many people think that a motor in the tender will result in "tender wobble" as the loco runs. This is not the case. If a rubber tube coupling is used between the engine and motor, you can expect the wobble but not if Northwest Short Line U-joints are used. The drive shaft between the engine and tender is not real noticeable and there is more room in the engine for weight which means long trains. My 4-4-0s pull 10-12 normal-sized cars without a problem.
   The speaker I used was a Soundtraxx 3/8" speaker. It's not real big but it does put out the necessary sound and it's the only one that I can get to fit. It's located at the extreme rear of the tender behind the flywheel.

The motor is attached to the tender shell. Screws are covered by the wood load.

The Number 16 at Stockton. It is still lettered for the MSN but the tender will be repainted and relettered for the Stockton & Copperopolis.

   The other engine was No. 16, the Stockton switcher. It had a small Lenz decoder in it which gave good results but no sound. Another Tsunami went in here. There was enough room to add a big larger rectangular speaker I had. Everything was a tight fit due to the slope of the tender deck but it now works well and will please the Stockton yardmaster who was complaining about having an engine without sound.