Been a little while since I did a build thread. I'll be doing a Pennsylvania Railroad class L1s 2-8-2 from a Kato Heavy Mikado in N scale and a long-OOP GHQ cast pewter conversion kit.
As it happens I managed to win a second GHQ conversion kit on eBay this weekend for considerably less than what I paid for the first one...
So, I have insurance if I screw this one up, or--hopefully--a second L1s at some point.
I'll be modeling PRR 1376 as seen in Reading in 1951:
I'm choosing to go with the "pre-facelift" version of the L1s (after the war, most PRR steam locomotives had their headlight and steam generator swapped...the L1s class also had the footboard on their smokeboxes raised) mainly because I prefer the look, but also because the kit's easier to build that way. Several castings have to be cut and modified to make the post-ware facelift version.
Lucky for me, research suggests that the Pennsy didn't do the facelift on all 574 class L1s at once...many examples are seen well into the 50s with the pre-war smokebox arrangement. However, those mostly did get the doghouse added to the tender and the wider-spaced "P E N N S Y L V A N I A" lettering on the tender as well. If I build a second one I will have to consider which version to do.
Planning DCC but not sound at first. Maybe later.
The Kato engine runs exactly as you'd expect...flawlessly. I actually do need detail parts from the Kato engine...for example, the bell.
The instructions start with modifying the rear truck to the PRR-style delta truck. Then moving on to building the distinctive pilot with the air reservoir.
When I did one of these 23 years ago, I put a dummy coupler up front for a while, which I later replaced with a Z-scale coupler. This time going straight for the Z scale coupler.
