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Steam engine full
gallery and Heavyweight passenger cars full gallery (once moderated)
As promised, here’s the information on
my ten wheeler steam
locomotive. The prototype of the locomotive was built 100 years ago for the
Northern Pacific (click
here for more info). It was retired in the mid 50’s to a park in eastern
Minnesota, and restored in the late 70’s and early 80’s by the Minnesota
Transportation Museum (MTM). As a volunteer I spent a chunk of time working on
the locomotive in various capacities (much as I love steam, I now understand
first hand why railroads were eager to move to diesel). It was a common
workhorse during its career and survived to the end of steam only because it was
relatively lightweight and the branch-line bridges couldn’t hold heavier
engines. Still though, I think the prototype has good lines.
The model incorporates many good ideas from many builders, but more on that in a
second. The locomotive is mostly 8 wide, with the cylinders actually going out
to 9 wide. The tender is 7 wide, to make the transition to 6 wide cars almost
unnoticeable. The engine runs very well, even on uneven track. At least thus
far, it has no problem running through switches leading or trailing (though I
almost always run it through the straight portion).
As I mentioned earlier, the key to this engine running so well is the fact that
I split the pilot truck, as per Tony
Sava’s build of Ben Fleskes’s design. So the first axle of the pilot pivots,
while the second pilot axle and all of the drivers are fixed to the boiler. The
first two sets of drivers are blind, so it is effectively a two axle engine. You
can see details of the underside and pilot in the gallery. The original version
used a plate with pin (part 2476) to hold the pilot on, that would occasionally
fall off, but the engine runs fine without the first set of wheels. Anticipating
this problem, I made a mount so that I could pull off the pivoted wheels and
mount the pilot to the frame. I have since modified the engine, using a technic
plate and pin, I’ll see how well this works at the next show.
It is worth noting, that I built and tested the running gear (several times
over) before going any further on the locomotive. Then, once I had it working
well, I made temporary structures to find the limits when on curves so that I
could space the cab relative to the tender. Only then did I continue on to the
design of the full locomotive.
Moving up top, the cab borrows a great idea from
Ross Neil to extend the curved
slopes to an eight wide cab. While the top of the boiler borrows from
Tim Gould’s boiler. While I had
used a similar trick to build the orange nose on my
Milwaukee F-7’s, it had
not occurred to me to flip it up for a boiler. Still, my snot is different, and
I cheaped out for the underside, using normal 45 degree slopes flipped upside
down (which also allowed for the white edges on the running boards). Taking
advantage of the outward facing studs for the top slope of the boiler, I used
1x2x1 panels to top off the running boards. The top of the boiler has all of the
significant equipment, notice the detail on the bell (the yoke is a little out
of proportion, but... it’s all Lego).
The cab is where I did the most detailing. I wanted to be able to fit an
engineer and a fireman in the cab. The roof lifts off to see the details in
side, while in a few of the photos I removed some of the walls for ease of
photographing it. I squeezed A LOT in. It has a moving throttle, sight glass,
steam gauge, fireman’s injector valve, two brake handles on the engineer’s side,
several red valve handles, and a shelf above the firebox door to keep the oil
warm (sadly, the Lego oil can does not fit over a single stud, sigh). While I
had a few designs for a Johnson bar, they just wouldn’t fit. Ah well. I showed
it to my wife and she said something like, “why are you putting so much detail
in there? No one will ever see it.” Guess she doesn’t know the AFOL universe
(but still, she’s a good woman). Underneath the cab, you can see the staybolts
exposed on the bottom of the firebox, where the jacketing stops. I wanted to use
plates pointing outward, but chose headlight bricks so they wouldn’t interfere
with the drivers.
Like a proper Tyco locomotive, the motors are actually in the tender. Up top, as
you can see in the gallery, I built the coalbunker with a removable coal board
(the front piece that holds the coal in) and removable coal. So if I ever wanted
to make it a static park display on a layout, it is a quick change. At NMRA a
few people commented on the wedge plates used to build up the coal pile (evident
in shot 57, while some of the other shots predate the finished coal pile). In
back, open the hatch to the water tank and you’ll find water (trans clear plates
on blue bricks).
To complement this engine, I rebuilt my heavyweight triple combine (also based
on a prototype at MTM) to actually have three axle trucks (as per my
LDD heavyweights). I
then built two more cars- a coach and an observation- to round out the train.
These two cars are fairly close to the LDD design and are not based on any
specific cars. I think the
NP pine-tree
paint scheme looks good in Lego (as a bonus it lets you conserve on dark green
too) and I’m sure at some point the actual locomotive pulled a similar string of
passenger cars.
Comments, questions, etc. are welcome.
Benn
Steam engine full
gallery and Heavyweight passenger cars full gallery (once moderated)
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: YA Steam locomotive
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| That is an excellent steam engine Benn, and thanks for the history lesson. Volunteering with a railroad museum can be a wonderful thing. Be sure to show your MOC to all your museum friends. -HRH (17 years ago, 11-Aug-07, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
| | | Re: YA Steam locomotive
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| (...) [...] (...) Benn, Well done. The cab details are very much appreciated. I also really like the detailing that you've added to the tender. I often neglect my tenders. The push rods, how are those connected? When did LEGO start making those 1/2 (...) (17 years ago, 12-Aug-07, to lugnet.trains)
| | | Re: YA Steam locomotive
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| (...) Great MOC Ben. As others have said the cab is one of the stand out features. Your interior looks awesome and is one of the areas I need to concentrate on more for my own steamers. Your design for the cow catcher on the pilot also looks good. I (...) (17 years ago, 14-Aug-07, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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