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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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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
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I didn’t start this looking for a cause... • snip!
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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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 spots found, which may be checked for possible improvements.
Other have already solved by yourself.
I wish you all the best, that your own financial bottleneck situation may end
soon and without becoming a real crisis for your whole social life.
Good luck to you and the Texas State Railroad!
See more pictures of my models at www.brickshelf.com
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Hey Ben,
In lugnet.trains, Reinhard “Ben” Beneke wrote:
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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!
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Thanks! You know, after I posted I realized I had forgotten to thank you for
all the advice, so I apologize for that. You really helped me with building
7-wide!
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I have still a few spots found, which may be checked for possible
improvements. Other have already solved by yourself.
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Well, I guess the best way for me to handle this is by the numbers...
1. Check!
2. Using the 1x3x1 curved slopes is my current plan, it’ll even add a little
head-room in the cab.
3. I will look into it. It shouldn’t be too terribly hard to change. My
original design for the tender had an extra layer of plates on top to make it a
little taller, and I liked the look of it, but it was at risk of causing a
performance issue. Changing the base, at least in part, to green would allow
for that.
4. It’s an awful small area, but I’ll see what I can’t do.
5. That, or a light grey minifig signal paddle.
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3900 I think this would be easier to
install, though the handle would show a bit.
6. Some parts of the gangway are rather structural, I’m afraid, given the
assymetrical nature of the boiler and it being 7-wide. Plus the forward gangway
under the boiler’s “nose” is just a 1x6 plate hinge floating in the air. I’d
have to either leave it alone, tile it making it 2 plates thick, or redesign the
nose entirely.
7. It’d look good from the front, but I think it may take away from the side
view of the cab. Perhaps if I mounted it on a half stud offset, and somehow
used tiles to cover the one side...
8. Check! I’m no expert, but I’ll take a wild stab and say the rear device is
some sort of emergency pressure release and the forward device is the whistle.
9. There is some sort of boiler tube/thing here in the prototype, so I’ll look
into it. I may just copy the tube of 2x2 black bricks above it and mount it
somehow just above the wheels.
10. Like so many things in this build, there just isn’t alot of things made in
green. Many of the parts I need to order only came in 1 or 3 sets, most of them
from many years ago. Unfortunately 3x3 radar dishes have never come in green,
even with printing.
11. I’ll try it, though I’m not sure if I’ll like it disconnected at the top
like that. My original plan was to use a round half-click hinge coming off the
boiler, but I decided the click hinge in the boilder itself was going to detract
so much from the overall round look of the boiler (since it isn’t round to begin
with), so I dropped the idea.
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I wish you all the best, that your own financial bottleneck situation may end
soon and without becoming a real crisis for your whole social life.
Good luck to you and the Texas State Railroad!
See more pictures of my models at www.brickshelf.com
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Thanks! I pray it’ll all work out for the best.
--Anthony
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
<snip>
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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.
|
Hey, Tony-
This is a smart looking engine. What I like best about it is that you’ve nailed
the proportions very well-- this is the most important design consideration when
building a prototype IMO. One thing I saw that you might want to consider
altering, although to the naked eye it looks perfectly fine: the cabin of the
proto isn’t flush with the bottom of the tender as yours is; it sits
pronouncedly higher. It might be too involved to rework, but maybe when you are
tinkering around with all of Ben’s suggestions, it might be worth a looksee:-)
I look forward to progress pics!
JOHN
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In lugnet.trains, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
<snip>
| |
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.
|
Hey, Tony-
This is a smart looking engine. What I like best about it is that you’ve
nailed the proportions very well-- this is the most important design
consideration when building a prototype IMO. One thing I saw that you might
want to consider altering, although to the naked eye it looks perfectly fine:
the cabin of the proto isn’t flush with the bottom of the tender as yours is;
it sits pronouncedly higher. It might be too involved to rework, but maybe
when you are tinkering around with all of Ben’s suggestions, it might be
worth a looksee:-)
I look forward to progress pics!
JOHN
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Thanks, I’m glad you like it! I did a lot of planning and surfing the web for
pictures. This is the most un-photographed locomotives the TSRR has, but I was
FINALLY able to get a profile shot of it so I could do some serious layout
planning. I took some liberties, I’m afraid, in lengths here or there to make
designing and track operation easier.
As for the cab vs tender, if I take Ben’s suggestion of changing the tender’s
base color to green, it’ll drop the overall look of it down a plate. The tender
is actually one plate lower than the cab, but yeah, it’s not the same as the
original. I’m afraid that’s a result of me using LEGO’s train wheels versus
BBB’s, LEGO’s wheels have that taller-than-necessary housing. I could also
raise the cab’s floor up a plate, but I’m a little concerned about fitting an
engineer and fireman in there. I suppose I could always just have the two
sitting.
I’ll be sure to post finished pics when I’m finally able to afford to get that
far. I’m really looking forward to being able to put on the TSRR logo (I hope
they don’t mind) and locomotive numbers. In the meantime, I do have four other
locos to consider...
Thanks for the reply!
--Anthony
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
| |
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.
|
Nice work. Looks like the suggestion worked well. The idea of combining one
axle of a leading truck into the same truck with the driving wheels has a lot of
potential for creating big steam engines. Of course, it is only possible with
blind drivers. The technique gives a lot of flexibilty that simply wouldn’t
exist otherwise.
Credit goes to you for putting your model out there for people to critique and
comment on, before it is done. But then again, that’s the great thing with
LEGO, I find that very few creations are ever done, they just keep getting
better and better with each rebuild. That is one of the things that make LEGO
railroading so much better then typical ‘Model’ railroading (like HO gage).
Cheers,
Ben Fleskes
Big Ben Bricks LLC
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In lugnet.trains, Ben Fleskes wrote:
| |
In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
| |
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.
|
Nice work. Looks like the suggestion worked well. The idea of combining one
axle of a leading truck into the same truck with the driving wheels has a lot
of potential for creating big steam engines. Of course, it is only possible
with blind drivers. The technique gives a lot of flexibilty that simply
wouldn’t exist otherwise.
|
Thanks! There are a few quirks with the design, but they’re not hard to
overcome. With my locomotive, the center of rotation is forward of the center
of gravity, so without the rear blind drivers and the load-bearing rear truck,
the locomotive would tip backwards. Aside from that I haven’t found any flaws,
the design runs points and curves great.
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Credit goes to you for putting your model out there for people to critique
and comment on, before it is done. But then again, that’s the great thing
with LEGO, I find that very few creations are ever done, they just keep
getting better and better with each rebuild. That is one of the things that
make LEGO railroading so much better then typical ‘Model’ railroading (like
HO gage).
Cheers,
Ben Fleskes
Big Ben Bricks LLC
|
Well, I don’t consider myself as experienced or talented a train builder as I do
myself a castle builder, so I’m always ready to listen to advice. I’ve not been
building trains for a full year yet.
I still have the reminents of my HO train stuff, and I agree, LEGO railroading
is so much better. A standard rail hobbyist builds a building or railcar for
his layout and he’s stuck with it. If he doesn’t like something, he’s forced to
break/cut/glue/paint it to where he likes it. Us LEGO fans just have to pop in
a new piece and we’re done. If a standard rail hobbyist doesn’t like his
building altogether, he’s got to throw it away. For us, we just turn it into
something else.
Now if I can just get my trains on one of those ‘world’s largest LEGO train
layouts’ for five minutes...
Thanks for the reply and all your help!
--Anthony
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
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Now if I can just get my trains on one of those ‘world’s largest LEGO train
layouts’ for five minutes...
--Anthony
|
*cough* Detroit NMRA show *cough*
JohnG, GMLTC
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In lugnet.trains, John Gerlach wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
| |
Now if I can just get my trains on one of those ‘world’s largest LEGO train
layouts’ for five minutes...
--Anthony
|
*cough* Detroit NMRA show *cough*
JohnG, GMLTC
|
I want to go to an NMRA show, but it’s a bit too far away from Houston. Since I
don’t fly, and I’m poor, if I get to go to any major LEGO event, it’s limited to
one a year, and currently, IF I go anywhere, this year 18 hours to Chicago is my
shortest drive time. Someday, though, someday.
Besides, the NMRA guys wouldn’t want me around anyway, I don’t have buildings,
just trains, and they have plenty of those. ;)
--Anthony
P.S. Of course I know a few guys who participate to whom I could mail a train
or two, providing someone had a video camera...
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
| |
In looking for a design, I stumbled upon the Texas State Railroad, an > 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.
|
I had a lok at the site and followed some links and wrote to the Governor. I
wrote how as a tourist I and my family would be more likely to come visit the
State if the Railroad (and the parks system in general) was fully funded.
Don’t know if it will help at all but it seemed worth my five minutes to compose
the note.
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In lugnet.trains, Ted Godwin wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
| |
In looking for a design, I stumbled upon the Texas State Railroad, an >
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.
|
I had a lok at the site and followed some links and wrote to the Governor. I
wrote how as a tourist I and my family would be more likely to come visit the
State if the Railroad (and the parks system in general) was fully funded.
Don’t know if it will help at all but it seemed worth my five minutes to
compose the note.
|
Thanks so much! I know I’ll be making the trip up north to visit the park when
they resume normal operation in the late spring, though I have to admit it’ll be
half for the enjoyment of the trains, and half for MOC research.
Let’s hope the level-minded in Austin win out.
--Anthony
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Anthony,
I enjoyed seeing your model of the steam engine, thanks for sharing. Remember
all of our creations are a work in progress. And that’s the great thing about
LEGO building. You and your post may have done more for the TSRR than you
realize. I never knew such a program existed there. My next trip back to Texas,
I hope they are still operating. I am forwarding this information on to a few
others as well and I am hoping that others on LUGNET will do the same. Keep up
the good work.
Clifton
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In lugnet.trains, Clifton D. Chambers wrote:
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Anthony,
I enjoyed seeing your model of the steam engine, thanks for sharing. Remember
all of our creations are a work in progress. And that’s the great thing
about LEGO building. You and your post may have done more for the TSRR than
you realize. I never knew such a program existed there. My next trip back to
Texas, I hope they are still operating. I am forwarding this information on
to a few others as well and I am hoping that others on LUGNET will do the
same. Keep up the good work.
Clifton
|
Thanks, I’m glad you liked it! I sure hope I’m able to help them out with what
little I can do. Both the towns of Palestine and Rusk, not just the employees
of the park, depend on the tourism. Thanks for spreading the word!
--Anthony
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
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I didn’t start this looking for a cause...
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/
|
Well I have an update, if anyone is interested. It looks as if the TSRR has
been saved, but not in the most favorable way. Instead of giving it the money
it needs, the Texas Government decided to give operational control to a
specifically created board made up of people from Rusk and Palestine, Texas.
This board will be in charge of deciding what private group will run the TSRR,
and they’ve chosen the group that runs the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge in
Colorado and the Smokey Mountain Railroad in North Carolina.
I’m happy in that these locomotives are saved and will not be turned into a
static display (steam engines need to be run regularly or they break down), but
I am saddened to know that they will be forced to turn a profit and thus be
turned into a super tourist- trap. On top of that the TSRR is no longer under
the operational control of Texas Parks and Wildlife, which I think means they
will no longer be considered an official Texas State Park.
--Tony
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