BC Rail (ex-CPR) 2-8-0 3716 build

[craigolio1]

Hey all.

This build will follow my attempt to build and N scale model of one of my two unicorn locos, the first being Royal Hudson 2860.  Unicorn number two, which we'll follow here, is MLW built, ex-CPR 2-8-0 3716. 

The loco was first restored for use on the British Columbia Provincial Museum Train, and then served in excursion service on the BCR and as a stand-in for 2860 when it was un-available. 

Here she is in BCPM service.... arguably the most handsome version of the restoration.



As she aged in BCR service she took on a less attractive appearance.  At some point someone decided she should get a stainless boiler jacket like 2860.  It was not as attractive as it was on 2860... perhaps because much of the rest of her was left untouched.  If you look closely you can see how they patched out the "Provincial Museum" on the tender.  Nice.



In the late 80's, she was upgraded with a feedwater heater and a new, larger tender, that was freshly painted... improving her appearance quite a bit.



Finally, in the 90's she was restored to her present day appearance.  Once again, a very attractive loco.  She currently resides in Kamloops BC and is still in active service, I believe.





I've been working on this loco for a about 15 years in some shape or form.  It started when @BCR570 and I hatched a plan to build the British Columbia Provincial Museum Train. You've seen him chronicling that build here on TRW and he is doing much better at it than I am, haha.  All I've done so far is amass a box of models and parts.  When we embarked on this journey I started the model by modifying a Bachman Spectrum 2-8-0.  Years passed and progress was made, but eventually I was displeased with the quality of the build and shelved it.  My skills were not where they needed to be.

Fast-forward to a couple of years ago.  My skills have improved and  the availability of a 3d printed shell renewed my interest.  However, the printed shell would better match the later version of the loco as it had the later, larger tender.  I decided to switch to a newer version of the loco.  I still have plans to do the older, museum train version as well. 

Since I'm modelling 1988, I felt I had no choice but to model the ugly stainless jacket version.  Oh the things we sacrifice for prototype accuracy.  I think I may be the only person ever to have modelled her in this version.  Likely because she's sooooooo... well any way, here we go!

[craigolio1]

The 3d printed shell is an HO model scaled down so the prints are very thin, and very brittle.  I've broken several parts of it but have managed to persevere.  As it was an HO scale drawing, the boiler is two pieces that needed to be precisely mated together.  This is my second boiler.





The first step was fitting the boiler to the mechanism.  This required some filing away of metal on the Bachmann chassis.



Here she is posing with the boiler fitted to the mech... and paired with my earlier attemp at a kitbashed tender for the original version.




For DCC it's common to put a small decoder in the front of the boiler, but I wanted to do a sound install.  I chose to use an ESU Loksound decoder which would need to be mounted in the tender, and used the latest version with the Next18 connector for ease of removal.



This meant I needed six wires from the loco to the tender.... two for the motor, two for pickup, and two for a head light.  Two of these for track pick up were provided by the stock drawbar, so I needed a solution for the other four.  I wanted to void an umbilical cord between the loco and tender, and I wanted it to be something I could unplug. I also needed a way to mount the cab to the boiler.  Again, I wanted this to be removable.

I started with a solution to mount the cab.  I began by adding styrene to the boiler and then on top of that I added a second piece of styrene threaded to accept a MT coupler screw which would ultimately be used to secure the cab to the boiler.



From there is added styrene to the back which extended downward, with a piece to capture the back underside of the motor.  This is what keeps the boiler attached to the mechanism. Here you can see how I had to file the shoulder off the motor.



The pieces of styrene that had previously been threaded to accept the screw are glued to the cab walls and now the cab can be secured to the boiler, after it's installed on the mechanism.



I wanted to try to disguise the four wires from the cab to the tender as water / air hoses.  They needed to be attached to the cab with plugs.  I found some very small header plugs.  I think they are a 1.2mm pitch.





I cut/filed them so I could mount a pair on each side of the cab.



Motor and lighting wires were then run from the mech to the header pins



In excursion service, this loco always has doors open and the cab is very see through, so I took care to run the wires up and along the cab roof to make them the least visible that I could.  In this photo I've soldered magnate wires to the stock LED board.  That was later removed in favour of an 0402 LED installed inside the light housing.  I'd also like to light the classification lights white but haven't figured out how to do that yet.  I tried making a mould of the ones on the smoke box and casting a fibre optic into them which would be lit from inside the boiler but the point of light shoots out the end even with filing the sides.  @CNR5529 suggested a 3D printed clear light pipe.  I'm also experimenting with 0201 LEDs.  For now, no class lights.





It's now that I realized that with the larger cab, the stock draw bar was not long enough.  So I extended the stock draw bar and made new wires for it from phosphor bronze wire.  The pics below still have the old wire installed.





For connection to the tender I used ESU ultra flexible decoder wire soldered to just the pins from the header.



These are run into the front of the tender, leaving enough slack to create a loop that hangs down a little.



When connected to the loco, the pins are concealed by the back of the cab and the wires look pretty realistic.  I did some tests on a unitrack S curve and the loco/tender seem to track well.  I really hope it works because i really like the look.  In the last two photos you can see some fancy 3D printed trucks.  Those masterpieces were done by @CNR5529.  They are correct for this tender and he designed them to use the pickups from the Bachmann tender trucks.







Moving into the tender, I soldered the wires to the header plug for the decoder.  I also installed wires to pick up track power, a rear lilght, a speaker, and some capacitors. The tender got 3/4oz of weight and seems to roll/track well so far.



The speaker (not visible here cause I haven't got one yet) and capacitors are on their own header plugs so that the decoder can be removed if needed, and so that the capacitors can be unplugged for programming.  The caps are wired in parallel for a total of 440uF, and are glued to the floor.



The decoder fits over top at the front, with room for the speaker over top at the rear.

[craigolio1]

Earlier in the journey I sought a solution for weight.  The stock loco has a beefy steel weight in the cab, and smaller one over the front of the mech in a recess.  I will use the stock weight in the front, but I want to have a see through cab so I looked for another solution.  One benefit to the printed boiler being so thin is there is space between the boiler walls and the mechanism.  A trip to Amazon revealed "lead" tape.  I quoted lead cause it's a lighter lead allow I think.  it's used for Tennis racquets.





I put multiple layers in the boiler, on the smoke box front, inside the cab over the fire box, and on the walls of the cab.  I plan to add a lot more to the roof inside the cab.  I'll see what's needed while I'm test running it.  It will be more important that it pulls.  The train I want to pull is 14 cars!

[craigolio1]

Moving to the exterior, it was time to experiment with paint. I've used Alclad II Chrome metalizer products to simulate stainless on passenger cars in the past and knew that these would be the best choice for the stainless finish.  However some experimentation was required. 

If you look closely, the loco has two different finishes.  The boiler jacket is not so shiny, more like fridge door, where as the bands around the boiler and the cylinders are a polished stainless.



 I wanted to replicate this.  Alclad calls for a base coat of gloss black for their chrome.  I made a card with gloss, satin, and flat black.  I then shot a stripe with two coats and a stripe with three coats of chrome.  It's hard to see in the photo below but there is a noticeable difference in the sheen. 



I settled on three coats of chrome over a base of gloss black for the polished stainless and satin black for the matte.  I proceeded to mask and paint the boiler and cylinders appropriately, starting with a base coat of satin black, followed by gloss black just on the band and cylinders.



 


From here I moved onto piping and boiler details.  Once the chrome is on the slightest touch of finger oil or whatever mars the finish.  So I opted to do all of the handling and then shoot the chrome after I could wash it.  I would then have to mask and shoot / hand paint the remaining layers of black detail.

On the front of the loco, the are two angled rods that go from the running boards to the pilot which have a platform on them, and two pipes that go from the bottom of the smoke box to the cylinders.




I made the angled rods and platform from brass and soldered them.  The pipes I made from styrene rod.  I heated it with a soldering iron to bend it, and then installed a brass pin that fits a hole drilled on the inside of the cylinders.








These parts need to be removable in order for the boiler to be removable.




I wanted to use copper wire as it's so easy to bend and I could solder it to itself and some brass parts from Miniatures by Eric.  I was able to pull some from Cat5e and Cat6 cable which is pretty thin.  However its twisted pair.  I flattened it by rolling it on a hard surface under a metal plate.  The really thin wires are brass or phosphor bronze.  Other parts are carved or assembled from styrene.  I don't know what most of this stuff is.  i just used photos as a guide.  To attach the wires to the boiler I sewed them in to holes with 32awg magnate wire.

[craigolio1]

Finally, after a wash, it was time to shoot the chrome!  I love this stuff.  Unfortunately this is a TERRIBLE photo taken under the direct light of my magnifying lamp.  At some point I'll have a good pic in natural light.



Moving back to the tender, I did the corner ladder grabs.  Instead of bending them all individually, I threaded brass wire into the holes and inserted a rod.  I pulled the wires tight and bent the legs inside the tender. 





The back of the tender got a handrail using standoffs removed from the original Bachmann shell, and an N-Possible coupler.  Man that looks good!



That's all for now.

Tomorrow night I plan to do all of the tender handrails. 

Anyone have any ideas for a ladder on the back of the tender?  Something etched would be ideal.

Craig

[CNR5529]

Such a beautiful locomotive, and you go pick the ugly version of her to do... 

As usual though, your execution is flawless! She will be an eye catcher!

[BCR 570]

Hi Craig:

Nice work; my build is coming up after the tank cars and official car.  I am still waiting for my tender.

3716 operates on the Kettle Valley Steam Railway in West Summerland, BC.  My last visit with her was in June of this year:




She got a new set of tyres this past winter:




Kamloops will be host to an operating steam locomotive again next year when CNR 2141 is slated to run from there to Armstrong.


Tim

[craigolio1]

Awesome pics Tim.  Thanks for sharing.  I'm glad to see she's in good hands.  2141 is a neat loco.  I have a bit of personal connection to it, albeit distant.  It used to run to the mill in Youbou.  My Grandfather was the personnel manager there after the war, and my dad and his brothers all worked there including loading trains.

I made more great progress today.

I started by building a speaker enclosure.  The speaker I have is Knowles/Fox 9x16. It is to be mounted above the caps at the tender.  I want everything in here to be modular in case I need to tunnel into this thing since I've never actually run it, and it could need some tweaking.

To start I cut a square of stryene the width of the tender.  I cut a hole in the baffle and the speak pops in with a friction fit.  It's sealed in with epoxy.  I then built a frame out of .125 x .040 styrene strip, which is then same height as the header I'm using for a plug.



The speaker was soldered to the plug and a lid was attached.  I made the lid larger so I could use it as an attachment at the back of the tender and also to leave room for reverse light wiring.



The corner is cut off of the lip so that once installed, the wires for the tender light can pass under and up past the back of the enclosure.



And here it is installed





Next i moved onto handrails and a ladder.

The ladder I found in a BLMA transition era freight car ladder set, and the stand offs for the handrails were from the BLMA lift ring fret, and some left over lift rings from an M&R Sides etched passenger car set.  I'm almost out of those and am thinking it might be wise to have about 1000 of them etched, haha... but seriously.





I made the handrails on the tender deck and oil tank top from .010" phosphor bronze.  They use the larger M7R lift rings as standoffs.  The handrails on the oil tank sides are .008" phosphor bronze and use the smaller BLMA lift rings as stand offs.













And finally the back got a ladder



Here it is so far with all but the front details in place



I believe I'm ready to move on to the rest of the paint.

Craig

[Dwight in Toronto]

So, so very good … looking forward to each and every installment!

[Angus Shops]

That’s some really high quality workmanship!

I have a Bachman 2-8-0 that I purchased when they first came out (in fact it’s a dc version) with the idea that do something similar, but I never did anything beyond that.

The big question I have is who makes the conversion kit and are they available for purchase? I’d jump on this project right away if I could get my hands on one…

Geoff

[craigolio1]

That’s some really high quality workmanship!

I have a Bachman 2-8-0 that I purchased when they first came out (in fact it’s a dc version) with the idea that do something similar, but I never did anything beyond that.

The big question I have is who makes the conversion kit and are they available for purchase? I’d jump on this project right away if I could get my hands on one…

Geoff

Unfortunately a conversion kit isn’t really available. I’ll email you and we can spit ball some ideas.

Craig.

[BCR 570]

The big question I have is who makes the conversion kit and are they available for purchase? I’d jump on this project right away if I could get my hands on one…

Geoff

Hi Geoff:

A conversion kit for a CPR Class N2a Consolidation is available from Mike Anderson; I can put you in touch with him.


Tim

[Angus Shops]

Hi Tim,

Yes please and thank you. I had no idea Mr. Anderson was working on this project.

I guess I’m in the market for a DCC/sound version of the 2-8-0. Upgrading my dc version is well out of my skillset…

Geoff

[peteski]

WOW! While not even completed, this thread clearly needs a nomination for a Best Of thread!
It gets one from me.

[craigolio1]

WOW! While not even completed, this thread clearly needs a nomination for a Best Of thread!
It gets one from me.

Thank you Pete. That’s very kind.

I made a bit more progress.

This loco was known to double head with ex-CPR Royal Hudson 2860….  The other unicorn….  And so I wanted a working front coupler. Previously I had planned to wedge a Z scale coupler in, either a Micro-Trains 903 or a Bowser
, but with the advent of the N-possible coupler, it became the obvious choice. Alas even with its small form factor, the boxed version would not fit in the coupler pocket on the pilot, so some modifications would be needed.


 The pilot on 3716 is not a good match for the pilot on the Bachmann model.







However the pilot on the Model Power Pacific is.  Many years ago I bought a Model Power Pacific which will be the basis for my model of 2860, and since it wouldn’t be needed for 2860 I repurposed it for 3716.
I wanted to use the beam on the Bachmann model so I carved off the unwanted part of the pilot.



I then harvested the tube pilot part of the MP Pacific.



I had previously glued the two parts together, and went ahead attempting to file the pocket with it in place. This resulted in the MP part of the pilot popping off. Thankfully the plastic is the type which is strong and a bit flexible so both pieces survived.  This turned out to be the better way anyway.

I ended up cutting off the bottom of the pocket, and filing the sides wide enough that the N-Possible pocket could fit between them. I also filed the lip off of the top of the N-Possible box, and drilled/tapped for an MT Z scale coupler box screw.








 The final modification was to cut back the front of the N possible lid so that the MP tube pilot piece could be positioned high enough up on the beam. Ultimately the top of the tube pilot will support the end of the coupler so the function should be the same.



I won’t assemble it now. Once the coupler is in and the MP tube pilot is glued on, the coupler won’t be removable, so I’ll assemble it all in final assembly.

During that time I’ll have to glue the pocket/screw to the pilot with epoxy. The material that the screw is grabbing is so thin that maybe 1 or 1.5 threads are grabbing, and I’ve assembled/disassembled it enough times now that it doesn’t hold tight at all. Using a longer screw won’t help as there’s no material for it to grab.
In the photo below you can see that the screw is the perfect length to meet the top of the pilot deck.



If this set up fails and I have to do it again, this time I think I’ll use a longer coupler and set the box maybe 1 or 2mm farther back. It would require less filing.

Craig