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.