Hi all,
I was off work last week, and I decided to add another locomotive to the Bradford Valley Lumber Company. This would be number 9, out of the 7 that can fit around my turntable. (Yes, I’ll be expanding the turntable area). Given that I had a shoebox full of failed locomotive conversions (most of which were HO to On30), I figured that I may be able to use the remnants of these projects to build a working locomotive. So I set myself a challenge, to build an On30 locomotive in one week using only parts I had on hand.
My first step was to select the mechanism for the loco. I had three steam engines in the ‘graveyard’ (as I call that shoebox), all of which were former HO models. One was a Roundhouse ‘old-time’ 2-8-0, one a Bachmann saddle tank 0-6-0 and the last a Mantua 2-6-6-2T. I couldn’t get the first two to work satisfactorily following the conversion. However, the converted Mantua locomotive had been BVLC No. 7 for a little while.
When I made this model from the 2-6-6-2T, I used the original frame from the HO scale engine. However, this frame was damaged during that conversion. Later on, when I went to clean the model’s wheels, the damaged part of the frame gave way and I was unable to repair it. It’s been in the graveyard since then.
As this was a known working mechanism, I decided to use it as the basis for my new no. 9. In order to keep things simple, just the rear set of drivers from the original Mantua engine would be used. This was where the motor was mounted. However, this presented a problem. On the original Mantua mechanism, each set of driving wheels picked up one rail.
My initial plan was to make the new loco a tank engine, as I didn’t have any spare tender engine cabs on hand.