You have probably seen Kevin’s build photos of his C-19, East Broad Top #7, and you’ve heard about the Bachmann C-19. Here’s a variation - a live steam C-19 backdated to 1910; representing the same loco as Kevin’s model. This is a modelling and painting story, not a steaming exercise, so it is in this topic. The loco isn’t finished yet, but there are limits to how far I want to go in hacking a brass and stainless steel live steamer! It needs a wooden 3-panel cab, amongst other details. The prototype was a C-19 that the D&RGW didn’t want to take delivery of, so the EBT picked it up - presumably for a song.
I originally bought a C-16 when Accucraft produced them as one of their first models. With a splash of paint and some decals it stood in for #7 for many years. Then Accucraft released their C-19, and eventually they put them on sale so I bought one. RGS #340 had a high-sided tender, unlike the EBT locos which were never far from a water source. Here’s the Accucraft pic:
So the first thing to do was swap tenders.
That worked, but who wanted a C-16 with a C-19 tender? Ah - through the wonders of the internet, I found Tom in Texas who wanted to make some RGS engine that needed a C-16 with a high-sided tender. He already had a C-16 with a small tender, so we swapped tenders. I then sold the C-16 with the new small tender, keeping my old one as (a) it was full of r/c gear and (b) it had custom EBTRRCCo decals. The C-19 got a new stack, the old number was removed, and it ran like that for a couple of years. Here we are at Jim’s steam-up:
Tom also had a couple of old-style domes (and Cliff at Accucraft had an old-style C-16 dome already sanded to C-19 contours. Was he playing with an EBT #7 model too, I wondered?) I put them in a box and thought about taking the boiler apart to fit the domes - which unfortunately are bolted from inside the boiler wrapper. Late last year I had EBT #12 running fine so I could afford to sideline my other loco and the great tear-down began. Again, with advice from my internet friends, I managed to remove the boiler without breaking anything. Here’s the frame and boiler wrapper without any domes:
And with the new domes and the boiler re-installed, ready for the paint shop.
Before painting, I decided to run it a few times to make sure all was well. I installed servos for the r/c and hooked them up to the tender, swapping its receiver for a 2.4Ghz spectrum-compatible one.
This last few weeks I have had time to give it a thorough wash-down with degreaser and to paint it flat black, with a small amount of weathering. I also found I had another complete set of “Aughwick” decals so it got the full treatment (I have a set of “Augwick” decals too, but that’s another story!) I sprayed the decals with Krylon UV protected matte clear, which seems to work. And here’s the current state of my East Broad Top #7:
