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I didn’t start this looking for a cause...
After playing around with my two steam locomotives on the few TexLUG displays
I’ve attended, I decided I needed a steam locomotive that was a bit more layout
friendly. My American 4-4-0 (6-wide) doesn’t take up a lot of room, but it
isn’t very stable at high speeds, and my Polar Express (8-wide) eats up
realestate in and around curves like nobody’s business. So I turned to the idea
of building a 7-wide Pacific type, which is as pretty much inbetween all around
as you can get.
In looking for a design, I stumbled upon the Texas State Railroad, an amazing
state park that I never knew existed. They own 5 and operate 4 steam
locomotives on regular (daily in the summer) excursion-seeing trips between
Palestine and Rusk Texas, where one steam locomotive departs each city moving
towards each other, and passing each other half-way through. It is the only
place in the USA where you can still see two steam locomotives pass each other.
Unfortunately, they’re under a budget crisis, and may soon be closed down and
turned into static displays. They were set to close down on December 31st of
2006, but were given a reprieve till August 2007.
Please take the time to visit their website and sign their petition. It’s a
token gesture, sure, but who knows, it might just convince enough people in the
right places to restore the park’s proper funding.
http://www.texasstaterailroad.com/
But on to business.
I have decided for fun, and as a show of support, to build several, and possibly
all of the 5 steam locomotives they own, displaying them at public shows and try
to raise awareness. I may not help any, but I was already going to build a
steam locomotive, and I’d be talking about it at shows anyway.
Among its’ 5 steam locomotives, the TSRR owns one Pacific type, the #500. I’ve
nearly finished the locomotive, but there are still some pieces I need to order.
However, I’m in a bit of a budget crisis myself, so I don’t know when I’ll be
able to finish, possibly not until after the fate of the TSRR has been decided.
Because of that, I decided to post what I’ve built thus far, and maybe get a few
more signatures on the petition.
So here she is, the TSRR #500:
Post-Mod Gallery
Here’s a comparison of an earlier pic of my loco and the real engine on my
flickr gallery:
Of course credit where it’s due: my #500 uses the awesome BBB wheels, as well
as a wheel configuration suggested to me by Ben Fleskes himself. Because
Pacific types, and any other 4 wheeled pony truck locos, have a hard time
negotiating their pony truck around their own pistons, I’ve split the pony truck
in half. The rear wheels of the pony truck are fixed to the locomotive, while
the front wheels move independantly. Since there is only one pair of flanged
drivers, the locomotive rotates using the fixed pony truck wheels. It’s a great
design.
As I said, she’s not finished. I want to swap out the cab roof with curved
slopes, and I want to put some train-roof slopes on the front of the boiler to
sink those jumper plates. Plus there are a lot of color issues that need to be
fixed.
Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope you like what
you see.
--Anthony
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Message has 6 Replies:
 | | Re: TSRR #500 and the Texas State Railroad Project
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| (...) snip! (...) Dear Anthony, I had the chance to follow your building process via e-mail discussions in the background since a while. And I have to say congratulations on the result as now published as a late beta state design! I have still a few (...) (17 years ago, 5-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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