One of the minor inconveniences of anchoring your pike in time is, well… time. MOST things have a limited service life, that’s why you don’t often see a woodburning 4-4-0 pulling double stack intermodals in the real world…
Sooner or later I simply had to address the fact that an 1880s 2-8-0, no matter how well loved, would be unlikely to still be in regular service after WWI, let alone into the summer of 1960. So the quest began for the ‘next’ class of freight power on the Allegheny Valley. Several avenues were explored; Inside frame, outside frame, 2-8-0, 2-8-2, 2-6-6-2, etc. I was actually leaning in another direction altogether when I ended up with a fixer-upper Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0, popularly called a “Connie”.
It had the predictable Bachmann ‘undocumented special features’ of this particular model - a stripped axle gear, a broken - then marginally repaired - tender truck frame, loose screws everywhere… But it was fairly inexpensive. Northwest Shortline has an improved gear, and the rest will be addressed as we go through it during the rebuild process anyway.
There was only one really major problem. The ‘Connie’ is this huge pig of a thing in 1:20.3 scale and my AV is +/- 1:24… But I knew from reading several forums that others had downscaled them before. It was just going to take a little meatball surgery…
First things first, though. Strip the shell off the running gear, inspect it, and tighten all those screws! Most were 1/4 to 1/2 turn loose. But two were almost ready to fall out. While I had it apart, I stripped the boiler as well. The piping is visually interesting, but bears about as much resemblance to what you’d find a real locomotive as a unicorn. In 3 words, it’s Wrong! Wrong! WRONG!!!
[IMG]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/co
