Abandoned steamer, suggestions?

This is what the scene is looking like so far thanks to your suggestions.

Hey, neat idea! Didn’t somebody do a rusted out Alco shell a while back?

The front of a steamer was mostly a door which could be opened for maintenance on the boiler inside. You should be able to see the hinges on one side and a latch on the other. If it’s not actually removeable (sometimes done on models for headlight access) then you could cut off the front carefully, and maybe hang it back on by one hinge.

The next question - what would the inside look like if the front door were opened?

How about a ladder on the side?

This is how the scene looks now. It’s still not finished.

Nice! Kinda sad, but neat all the same.

[:)]Well, it was either this or toss it in the trash. The motor burned out years ago and I wasn’t about to spend good money on a new motor for a standard line Bachmann steamer.[:-^]

i think it looks good so far, but i think it would be neat if you had a crew of volenteers repainting it ,restoring it cosmetically.

That’s what the ladder is all about. Someone has already gotten started. He’s got his work cut out for him.[:)]

Most steamers I’ve seen have the smokebox door removed. Use a Dremel or drill, and cut it off. Then, make a piece of styrene that has small holes in it, so simulate the piece of metal that holds the flues in place.

It looks really good!

Phil

I LOVE the idea - it makes for a very interesting setting / diorama. I think I’ll steal your idea and use it on my own layout when I get home from some extended business travel I’m doing at the moment. As for suggestions, I guess the only thing I might suggest is to have a bunch of rusty old parts laying around, and if you’re feeling really ambitious, actually disassemble the thing and model some of the boiler innards. Either way, it looks cool to me.

Cheers.

Answer to Q about inside of the smokebox…

Think of looking into a 40gallon drum laid flat…

At the back there is a steel wall full of holes surrounded by flanged-over pip ends… if the boiler tubes/flues are still in place. If they’ve been taken out for replacement like I suggested you will just have a sheet full of holes.

Hanging from the top like a stalactite is the blast pipe (IIRC title correctly) which is the bottom end of the chimney. This is conical with the wide end to the bottom.

Under the blast pipe there is a thing sticking up like a stalagmite, almost into the blast pipe. The bottom of this is usually parralel and then it goes to a conical point. Somewhere about the bottom there is a steam feed pipe into the bottom of this because this thing is the “blower”… when the Engineer wants to get extra draft (air flow) throw the fire in the firebox at the other end of the boiler (via the tubes) he turns on the blower causing pressured steam to blast up the chimney. this drags air with it… the air has to come through the boiler tubes (unless the smokebox door is leaking… in which case the loco is in trouble) therefore more air is dragged over/through the fire feeding it more oxygen and heating it up quicker. this is similar to a blacksmith pumping air into a furnace with bellows… just it draws the air through rather than pushing it through.

Usually on each side around the bottom of the box will be the outlets from the cylinders’ exhaust ports. Steam that has been used to drive the pistons is exhausted by the valve action and rotation of the wheels/reverse stroke of the pistons up the exhaust pipes, into the smokebox and then up the chimney. When running this medium to low pressure steam and the air flow across the chimney top is usually enough to keep sufficient air moving (being drawn) through the boiler tubes to keep the fire as hot as the Engineer wants it. (This means that the Blo

Jeff, this is a really cool idea. I had a scrap yard on my last layout. In fact, I was just looking at the West Virginia Railroad Museum’s site a few days ago which shows how they rescued two old Consolidations from some Pennsylvania woods.

http://www.wvrailmuseum.com/wvn280-02.html

After reading this thread I broke out my old copy of “The Twilight of Steam Locomotives” by Ron Ziel, and there are some good examples in that. There’s a good photo of an old 10-wheeler with it’s stack missing, and some rusty oil drums beside it. He also details the entire grisly scrapping process of a CB&Q 4-8-4, and includes some photos of one of the Big Boys being cut apart. [:(]

He also has some photos of some steamers that were parked and used as stationary boilers. The Great Northern hooked six Mikados together to generate the steam they needed to melt frozen ore. Maybe you could use a dead engine to heat your enginehouse in the winter.

It would be interesting to try modeling a scrapped steam loco with the boiler jacket removed and the stay bolts exposed, though I guess you’d have to scratchbuild a boiler for it to look right.

Jeffrey… Don’t hate me for this…

I think that the domes that you have removed were the sand domes… this would mean that they may not leave a hole in the loco top…

Strictly speaking this isn’t the boiler top but the top of the (insulating) cladding.

If the loco had external sandpipes the sandboxes probably sat on the outside of the cladding and so there would be no hole but a ring of bolts sticking up for the dome to be clamped down on.

If the loco had the sand pipes insde the cladding then there would be a hole in the cladding down toward the body of the boiler inside the cladding. Depending on the age of the loco the boiler itself might be either welded (with or without a weld seam in sight in the hole) or rivetted (probably with some rivets showing).

Hope this helps and doesn’t drive you too mad [:-,]

Mad? no. All suggestions and advice have their merit.[:)] The only hole I’ll have to close up is the rear one. That’s where the motor was. If you could look into the front hole you’d see the weight immeidiatly below it looking to all the world loke the top of the boiler. This weight is why I didn’t take the front off the boiler. I couldn’t remove the weight because it also acts as the frame. I think for a static display it’s doing a very good job. As for junk around the loco, there is. It’s in the bushes. Look at the earlier pics before the bushes were added and you’ll see it. It’s still there.[:)]

Jeff, I have to say…

I love the lighting in your photyographs. Either you have a very well-lit train room or you’ve got a few photography tricks up your sleeve.

Nothing shows off your modelwork in photos more than good lighting. I’ve seen lots of examples of great work turned bad by poor lighting in the photos people post. Yours are not among them. Good job!

Thanks Dave. You know those ‘Sunshine’ fluorescent lights I keep recommending to people? There you are. They really make the colors pop and can make any scene look fantastic.

That turned out great Jeffrey.

Thanks Dave. A lot of work went into it, and it isn’t finished yet.

I got a suggestion over in the layouts forum that the brush should be cleared out some. So after a bit of work some of the brush has been cleared out. It should look better now.

You can make a nearby stack of rusted rail from old, obsolete brass track.

Great scene so far.

That’s a good idea. I don’t have any brass track but I do have a bunch of old steel track that would work just as well.