Weekend Update 7/26/20

[nstars]

Yeah, mine has them. They don't have a super tight fit, so I'll need to affix them in some way when I reassemble the engine.

-Brian.

Ours also do have the elephant ears.

Marc

[nstars]

Hi Marc,
Your re-worked Niagara looks like it is running quite smoothly, and it's great seeing someone else running one of these.  I got one off ebay a while back, and while I haven't run it for long periods of time, it was actually in pretty good shape mechanically.  But I am curious, what kind of work did you need to do to it?  I'm also wondering if there were any particular improvements that you made that I should consider?  As for sound, maybe you know this already, but SoundTraxx has the correct air horn, the Wabco E2, in the Tsunami2, which I think is a must for one of these since it was something that made them unique.

The one thing I have done with mine recently is re-letter it, as Pecos River really did a poor lettering job on these.  The lettering on the tender is too high, it was missing the road number and water/coal capacity numbers on the back of the tender, and the font used for the road number on the cab was incorrect.  I'm mostly done with it, but there are a few things I want to take care of before putting it all back together, like blackening the running gear and the wheels, adding another layer or two of clear coat, etc.  But here's where it stands right now...

-Brian.

Brian,

We have 2 complete Niagara (and even some parts of a third one) and both of them are not great. The mechanisms are poor and even the soldering is not great. We have for example three tenders. Two of them show loose joints. Fortunately one of them is relatively easy to fix, so we’ll end up with 2 good loco’s. But these brass steamers are among the worst brass engines we have.

The engines will get complete new subframes. The tenders will also get new frames with 14 wheel pick up. Like with every other brass steamers we have, the drawbars will be replaced and last but not least, provisions for sound will be added. Your remark about the Tsunami 2 is very useful. We like this decoder for steamers, but we still have to check if it will fit. It’s also good to hear about the re-lettering. I may be doing that also. Just a question, which decals did you use and how did you remove the old lettering?

Marc

[Brian M]

Brian,

We have 2 complete Niagara (and even some parts of a third one) and both of them are not great. The mechanisms are poor and even the soldering is not great. We have for example three tenders. Two of them show loose joints. Fortunately one of them is relatively easy to fix, so we’ll end up with 2 good loco’s. But these brass steamers are among the worst brass engines we have.

The engines will get complete new subframes. The tenders will also get new frames with 14 wheel pick up. Like with every other brass steamers we have, the drawbars will be replaced and last but not least, provisions for sound will be added. Your remark about the Tsunami 2 is very useful. We like this decoder for steamers, but we still have to check if it will fit. It’s also good to hear about the re-lettering. I may be doing that also. Just a question, which decals did you use and how did you remove the old lettering?

Marc

Marc,
I would certainly be interested in seeing or more details on your approach to giving the tenders new frames with the 14 wheel pick up.  This is something that I've been pondering lately, so certainly seeing how you took care of it would be useful.  The Tsunami2 (TSU-1100) will fit in this tender with no problem, there's plenty of space behind the coal bunker for the decoder, and probably also a smaller speaker with an enclosure.  But a better option might be to put the speaker (and a bigger enclosure) in the coal bunker and covering it with a coal load.  It would mean drilling a hole or two in the floor of the bunker for the wires to pass through, but oh well.

To get the old lettering off, I used Testors ELO (Easy Lift Off), letting it pool and sit on the lettering for a few minutes, and then removing it with a soft rag.  I ended up taking some of the paint off, too, but the engine needed to get repainted anyway, so I wasn't too worried about it.  And I used the Micro Scale NYC Steam decals, set number 60-78.

-Brian.

[PRSL66]

Looks great!