Details About Steam Locomotive Upgrades

More than a week ago, I decided to put together some photos and a video that more closely show the vast upgrades I accomplished on my large scale steam locomotive.  Since I was so busy getting ready for a barbeque with the grandchidren, I completely forgot about all these photos as well as the video until I was showing Sheila a photo of something our grandson, Lukey, noticed about one of my gondolas that I had never noticed.  He noticed that it is a model of a gondola meant specifically to carry gold from mines.  I had no idea but it makes sense since these old ten-wheelers were among the first locomotives sent out to the wild west.  

Since I never really finished showing better photos of these upgrades, I guess I'll try to get this blog entry completed before heading to bed tonight.

_______________________________________________________

First, let me preface this with a quick update on my health since things weren't so great today.  

Quite simply, today was a rather lousy health day.  I felt halfway decent first thing this morning but I had difficulty breathing the past two nights while in bed.  My breathing wasn't terrible but I should have paid more attention to this breathing problem because it was a clear "first symptom" of a cascade of symptoms because things significantly worsened today.  My body and health was becoming unstable but I wasn't paying close enough attention to what my body was telling me.

We had a memorial service to attend around lunchtime today so we showered after a bite to eat, packed some iced tea and my medications and then headed out to the car.  The car was probably in the triple digits so the moment I sat in the car, my breathing problems significantly worsened.  My health consistently crashes in warm environments and a car with temperatures in the triple digits is well beyond a "warm environment".  I used one of my inhalers but my health continued to deteriorate over the next few minutes.  We were only five minutes from home when I decided that perhaps Sheila should turn the car around so she could drop me off back home.  I know from experience that my health would only get worse if I continued with our plans.  I needed a cool place, some extra medications and I needed to take it easy.  

As my breathing worsened, I was also feeling a bit lightheaded and nauseated.  When we combine this with the breathing issues, these were some clear signs of impending anaphylaxis so Sheila turned the car back toward the house to drop me off at home.  If we continued on to the memorial service, we'd both end up having to leave shortly after arriving there.  There was no sense in both of us missing the memorial so I had Sheila drop me off back at home so at least she could attend the memorial.

I took some extra medications and stayed out of the sun for the rest of the day.  I'm still feeling a bit nauseated as well as "just not right" but I'm feeling better than I did in the sweltering car.  I took some emergency medications tonight so I'll probably sleep for much of the day tomorrow.  These medications make me extra drowsy but that is better than life threatening anaphylaxis.  

________________________________________________________

So, back to my large scale steam locomotive...  

I have to say that I'm really liking the work I did on this locomotive!  That lead photo, above, is quite nice!

The photo to the right was captured after I disassembled the locomotive, stripped it of wires, lightly sanded it and then cleaned it.  It was ready for primer once it dried.  It is looking quite different now!

Below is a shot of the rear of the tender.  I'm pretty pleased with the weathering I did.  I like that I was successful in making this plastic model looking like it is an old, heavy, steel steam locomotive.  The rust and weathered black really makes you think the model is metal.  

This tender is where I stuffed a new large speaker, the electronics, and a battery.  I also added an operating back-up light on the rear of this tender which was a great addition.  

I added a bunch of tools to the locomotive and tender.  Here, below, you can see some of these tools sitting around the water hatch on the tender.  These tools were unpainted, cast tools when they arrived in my mailbox.  I painted them and even reshaped the broom.  

The bottom of the bristles on the broom were perfectly squared so the broom looked unnatural.  It didn't even look like a brand new broom would look...  I simply looked unnatural.  I didn't care for that so I went at the broom with a jeweler's file to make the ends of the bristles uneven and worn a bit.  Then I painted it to make the bristles look used.  

I'm pretty happy with the paint job I applied to each of these tools and little details like this make this giant model locomotive even more realistic.

Below is a closer look at the weathering on the front end of the locomotive...  

Some of the weathering was done by dry brushing acrylic craft paints but most of it was done with powders...  mostly charcoal, gray, and red oxide....  the gold bands around the boiler were hand-painted and were a last minute decision.  My plan didn't include painting these bands gold.  They were just supposed to be green like the rest of the boiler, however, I think I made the right decision in painting them gold.

The bell is a new detail I added.  This was also a cast metal part and arrived in four parts.  I painted each part and then assembled it.  After I installed it on the locomotive, I added a pull rope...

Below is a new whistle...  also a cast part and repainted by me.  I still need to add a pull cord to it...  I'll need to use thread since the cord I have is too thick to thread through the eye on the whistle.

Below is another front view of the finished locomotive.  I really like that wood front bumper.  I never was a fan of those old, tall cow-catchers that was standard on these early steam locomotives.  This is a narrow gauge steam locomotive and narrow gauge railroads often used big wood timbers on their locomotives and rolling stock.  I definitely prefer this look!

I added more detail parts to the locomotive.  Here is a close up showing some pretty good weathering and some additional detail parts.  I like the rust....  I like the red knob (made from an HO scale brake wheel) and hand-painted by me...  the wrench is another cast part that was hand-painted and then glued to the locomotive.  These seemingly little details add a lot of character to this old steam locomotive.

The cab was one of the very first things I upgraded and it is one of the things that I really like the most.  This cab is now highly detailed compared to before my upgrades.  It is highly detailed, hand-painted, and weathered very nicely!  

I added that plank ceiling...  I added a cab light on the ceiling...  I shortened the boiler inside the cab to make a little more room for the engineer (the boiler extended all the way back to the open end of the cab's edge before so there wasn't even room to add an engineer)...  I added knobs and levers (the knobs are HO scale brake wheels and levers are small carved pieces of wood that I made myself)...  I added gauges...  I added steel diamond plate flooring...  I added trim on the windows...  and I added the engineer after hand-painting him and even weathering his clothes a bit.

I'm really happy with the cab...

Below is a side view of the upgraded, repainted and weathered locomotive...

Below we have a nice view of the fireman.  I glued him to the tender with a shovel in his hand.  I also hand-painted him and the coal soot on his clothes...

I still have a few little details to attend to but I'm extremely happy with this result.  The biggest difference in this newly upgraded locomotive is the electronic control and especially the sound.  The sound is now incredibly realistic and it sounds great!  I'm sure all the neighbors can hear this locomotive now whenever we run it!  The differences between before and after the upgrades can clearly be seen and heard in the video below...