Large Scale Central

Annie Conversion -- DCC and Oil

I’ve been working on a BM annie conversion to DCC, and it has required a cosmetic conversion to “oil” (from coal). It’s been a struggle thus far, but I’m finally getting a handle on the project.

The long T-day weekend gave me time to get back into this, starting with the wiring. I won’t bore y’all with all the mistakes… it took 3 installs of the DCC board before I got it all to fit. And for every wire tie that lasted, I’m sure I cut 5. Stuff like that. But in the end, all worked out well, and here’s the results, starting with the tender.

Since I’d like to do some detailing on this loco down the road, and will need to get everything apart, I connectorized the components on the tender and loco bodies, using cheap JST connectors such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013WTV270

Here’s the loco, showing the final resting place of the board, which is held down by a velcro-like product.

The smokebox area turned out to be a nice place to wire-nut and coil up the bulk of the wires.

After putting it all back together, I realized I’d forgotten something, and took the boiler back off. I did that 4 times. After that last reassembly, when the back headlight didn’t work, I thought I’d scream. But fortunately, I’d just forgotten to plug the tender into the loco. Phew!

About that main connector, and how it gets connected…

I’m not super thrilled to get on my hands and knees every time I have to plug those little tender connectors into the backhead area; and with this loco, there were going to be 3 connectors. Because of one of them being way over-stressed (see discussion above), I decided to do something completely different.

I needed wires for rail power (new tender pickups), rear headlight, and speaker. After looking at various options, I got an 8-pin mini-din extension cord, with #28 awg wire. I used all of the wires: pairs for rear truck, front truck, light and speaker. The connectors are pre-made with the cable, so all I needed to do was cut the cord and strip it.

The connectors are housed in the tender, and my plan for that involved the “conversion” of the tender to oil, as I brought up on another thread / forum. This here is a real hack job though, completely unlike the beautiful work shown there. For this, I needed a removable cover, and soon; and I’ll have to leave any further detailing for another day.

The first step was to unscrew the “coal” and cut away the spillage that Bachmann molded into the body.

Next was fashioning an acrylic L-shaped cover, that has a notch for the rear headlight post and another (not shown) for the cable to go through (at the deck).

I glued on some styrene angles, and drilled for & installed a brass grab rail to help me lift the thing away.

The prototype had a similar doghouse on top which was, I suppose, to cover the oil fill port.

I had a tender toolbox in the junk bin. Too small, but close enough.

Here’s how it looks with the cable made up.

And with the tank top on.

Looking at the backhead, there’s now no exposed connectors. I cut a bit of rubber sheet to go around the cable, and placed it inside the frame. There’s also a new small notch just above the cable, to enlarge the existing hole (where the switches were) for passing thru the loco’s connector.

Here’s the schematic:

Well, that’s about it. The Econami board runs & sounds great, and I’m really happy with how this turned out. At a later date, as mentioned earlier, I’d like to do more detailing. For now, I’ll just do decals.

BTW, here’s the ol’ gal as she sits in Carson City. Lots of detailing opportunity for my model down the road, but I’m really pleased with how similar the BM model already looks.

Thanks for looking, and happy post-turkey-days,

===>Cliffy

Very nice and clean conversion

Great work

Rick

Nice work Cliff!

Looking sharp there Cliff. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

The wiring is way too neat and wire ties and connectors for Christ’s sake ! The rat nest society is going to be on your case for sure !(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-yell.gif) Seriously, nice job !

Gary Buchanan, FOG said:

The wiring is way too neat and wire ties and connectors for Christ’s sake ! The rat nest society is going to be on your case for sure !(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-yell.gif) Seriously, nice job !

Not to mention us “Bowl of Spaghetti” guys…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Oh, but the rat’s nest its a bear to troubleshoot when something goes wrong.

Thanks a lot guys! And I’m glad you think it’s “neat” wiring, y’all made my day!

[edit] Thanks to Stan Cedarleaf, the decals are on the way (in less than 2 days, wow, what a guy!). Here’s a mockup of his proofs. The actual decals will be white on clear.

Cliff Jennings said:

The prototype had a similar doghouse on top which was, I suppose, to cover the oil fill port.

Hmm, wonder what I’m missing because in paging through Mallory Hope Ferrell’s book Virginia & Truckee The Bonanza Road at photos of 25 I’m not seeing that. Looks to me to be one of those standard forward edge toolboxes as on this loco, see enlarged photo, http://www.shorpy.com/node/6880 and is also seen on 26 and 27. On page 210, 26’s fireman’s side one is turned perpendicular to tender side, and parallel to oil tank front. And on page 187 so is the engineer’s side one.

Aw man, if only the October 4, 1935 derailed and wrecked tender photo of 25 on 176 showed top of tender! Great view of bottom minus the forward truck.

As best as can be determined from photos it appears to have a slightly raised manhole type cover similar to water hatch and about 1/4 way back from leading edge of oil tank, which extended all the way back to water hatch on rear deck and was a different shape from 26 and 27s, which were different shapes from each other.

Anyway, of the three 4-6-0 I like 25’s proportions the best with its taller drivers and higher mounted cab. But I’ll settle for the proportions of Bachmann’s 26 since there isn’t a realistic 25 I know of and it would be beyond my current disability income anyway. Bummer.

Hi Forrest, thanks for those tips. Yeah, Kevin Strong pointed out to me yesterday that it was just a toolbox… boy, I sure screwed up there! But thanks for all those references, I’m looking them up in Ferrell and agree with you. I should have done that before jumping to conclusions, haha!

Another issue with #25 is that the tender top changed quite a bit between that older photo I posted and what’s there today. Looking at the truck spacing, perhaps they swapped tenders entirely at some point. Or not. I haven’t seen much on the older version, just that older photo with the simpler top (which I liked, because I’m lazy). But, the Bachmann is closer to the existing tender, so maybe I should just stick with that, and add the extra bunkers or whatever at some point.

Thanks for your insights and the time you took to look all that up,

Cliff

Remember, 25 was delivered as a coal burner in 05 then converted to oil in 07.

Eh, don’t worry about it - there’s almost nothing on a model which can’t be changed, or changed back, with varying degrees of ease or trauma. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Well said, haha!

Right you are, and that’s why I wanted to get rid of the coal load on the Bachmann model and “convert” it to oil. Down the road, I hope to take more time and do it better justice. For now, I think I’ll just remove my “doghouse” and call it a day. :wink: If I had the patience I’d relocate it, and put the other box on the other side. But I’d need to carve away the too-short boxes already molded in, and it would be messy without major attention, which is about used up on this phase of the project…

So, I’ll add the following two words to your profound statement: “or time.” (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

V&T 25 is one of my favorite steamers. Also at top of list are Pennsy’s E6s 4-4-2 Atlantics, and the USRA 0-8-0. I’d love to have a sample of each V&T loco type in 1/24 scale, which would make Gauge 1 track scale out to about 42 inch gauge instead of standard gauge, but that’s okay by me.

A train of ore cars with double-headed V&T moguls would make one handsome model in my opinion.

I don’t know if the roof color was tan when V&T used red/wine/cherry on its passenger cars but I liked the look and applied modeler’s license. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Of course the real 26 delivered in 1907 would not have been decorated like Bachmann’s, but I like the look of the 1860s, 1870s so I left it and backdated the car colors from the 1910s-30s yellow.

(well, I didn’t entirely “leave it” - the turbogenerator was removed, cab roof hatch removed, extended smokebox removed, boiler jacket repainted, frame bits getting repainted from black to brown)

Loco and cars have been in-progress for several years and likely will remain so for several more.

Nicely done, Forrest!

BTW, if you ever get to the Nevada State RR Museum (in Carson City), they have a great model collection of many of the V&T’s locos,

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/local/gibson-collection-at-the-nevada-state-railroad-museum-enabled-by-donation/

Very clean install Cliff! I really like the wire connector for the tender. That should make life much easier. Your horror stories of together and back apart again struck a chord with me, and believe me when I say you are not alone there. It was the same thing when I did my sons LGB mogul.

Are you planing to strip off the Walschaerts valve gear to simulate the Stephenson of the prototype?

Thanks Randy, and I’m glad I’m not the only one, haha!

As always, you ask great questions. The first answer is that I’m putting off serious detailing for another day. The second answer is that I’ll admit I’ve not looked into how to do that (at all), and haven’t given it much thought. Comparing photos, it looks like it mostly gets stripped off as you say. Not sure about the Stephenson gear bits though… Have you done this conversion? Or seen a thread or article that goes over how one might do it?

[edit] OK Randy, ya got me thinking. Here’s the gear, showing the model on top and proto below.

The first problem I see is with the main valve stem, which on the model is outboard of the drive rod quite a bit. It looks like it needs to be more centered over the rod, and then connected near the center of the crosshead, maybe to a lever linked to cams within the frame? That’s where I get lost, I’m afraid.

Forrest Scott Wood said:

Remember, 25 was delivered as a coal burner in 05 then converted to oil in 07.

Eh, don’t worry about it - there’s almost nothing on a model which can’t be changed, or changed back, with varying degrees of ease or trauma. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

For me its usually trauma.

Thanks Cliff! Yes, would love to go there but with the mess my health is I don’t travel well any more.(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)

Yeah, I just consider my V&T as being in a rebooted universe. But I still haven’t figured out how to model lens flare.

And speaking of still haven’t, photo of 25’s works there reminds me of the want to model something at least having generally congruent shapes and shadows to the cylinder drain cocks. It will want to be sturdy and more or less derailment proof.

Nicely done.

I picked out my Annie from a display of them at a train show. I went for the one with all that cool walshert valve gear. Of course, since then she has plummeted twice and lost lots of those little red valve handles.