Recently, Broadway Limited Imports released an N scale Chessie Steam Special locomotive with tender. It is absolutely beautiful, and it runs very smoothly. Even the sound is great, which is something I’ve been pretty picky about when it comes to DCC sound decoders and factory speakers. I should be 100% happy with it, right?
(Image from Broadway Limited Imports)
Well, I am.. but outside the fact that I’m missing the rest of the passenger consist to go with it, it’s also missing another key feature: the auxiliary tender.
(Image from ThemeTrains.com)
The phrase “Chessie Steam Special” appeared on the front of the locomotive, right above the plow, and also on the auxiliary tender. Now, in N scale, it’s a bit difficult to ready a tiny sign on the front of a locomotive, especially going around a layout from 3-6 feet away. It makes sense to me you’d absolutely want to have the auxiliary tender there to help convey the importance of this train, but for some reason, Broadway Limited didn’t include it.
So.. I guess that means it’s on me to supply my own. I started looking at photos, and thanks to ThemeTrains.com, it didn’t take me long to find some.
(Image from ThemeTrains.com)
I knew from that site it was a was a tender from a New York Central 4-8-2 Mohawk. This photo, along with a few others, gave me the general idea of the shape of the tender, and that got me searching. Thankfully, it didn’t take long. Up on eBay, I stumbled across a tender that from an overall appearance standpoint looked quite similar.
(Image from the seller on eBay)
Now, I generally don’t like to pay as much as I did for an old piece of Bachmann equipment with rusty wheels and no couplers, but this was for a special project, so I splurged a little. Besides, who knows how long until I’d find another one!
Looking at it up close, I think this particular tender is a little shorter than the one in the picture, but the overall shape is pretty much spot on. The model doesn’t have any rivet detail which is pretty visible in the prototype photo, but that’s something I might be able to add in. Hold on, though, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Step one, let’s get this thing pulled apart.
Alright, let’s stash away the screws and rusty wheels until they’re needed again. Hopefully I’ll be able to just stick those in a scrap pile and use something new, but that’s a problem for another day.
I shouldn’t need the broken drawbar; I’ll likely just be doing truck-mounted couplers, assuming I can find the right style. This doesn’t need power or sound or anything, so nothing fancy required. Taking a quick look, the Micro-Trains 003 02 112 (1173) Buckeye Trucks with couplers might actually be close enough in appearance that I won’t care.
Let’s pull up another one of those great ThemeTrains.com photos and look at the rear.
(Image from ThemeTrains.com)
As you can see, there’s a few differences in this model.
Alright, so here’s the short list of modifications I need to make:
- Relocate ladder to the rear right side
- Use a ladder with rungs rather than one that is just poles
- Remove the molded-on steps
- Fill in what I assume is the back-up light
- Drill two holes in the center for the correct back-up light
- Add a brake wheel on the rear lower-left
One other important feature is the top. On the Chessie Steam Special, the roof of the auxiliary tender was enclosed as it wasn’t holding coal, it was holding water. That means I need to try and file down the coal and then fashion a curved steel roof, like the prototype. This shouldn’t be too difficult to do with a small piece of styrene, especially if I heat it up and then wrap it over something round.
Next will be paint. Probably the most difficult part will be matching the yellow and the blue that Broadway Limited used on their locomotive. Hopefully with some careful mixing and matching, I can come up with a Tamiya combination that’s close enough to get thru my airbrush and call it a day. The red stripe I might be able to cheat with; it looks like the folks over at Circus City Decals made a set of N scale stripe decals for the passenger cars, and it’s possible I could repurpose one of those for this endeavor (assuming that is a close enough match for the red stripe that Broadway Limited applied).
The lettering and the logo will be the next big challenge, and I’m not yet sure how to tackle that. There is a low-quality version of the text and logo floating around which I found and might be able to use, but I’m not sure how well it’ll come out (and I need to find someone capable/experienced with printing their own decals). Worst case scenario, I could just ring up Circus City and see if they’re willing to expand their collection to include the tender’s decals, right? =)
Okay, I think that’s enough with the planning. Next post, in theory, will include the stripping of the old Norfolk and Western paint, maybe some cosmetic modifications with styrene, and test-fitting some new trucks. The challenging part is to try and accomplish all of this before I get sidetracked and end up leaving this on the workbench for another year or three.