A few years ago my narrow gauge interests turned from the D&RG to the DSP&P. This was accelerated with my purchase of an Accucraft Mason Bogie. Before that I had purchased a couple of Hartford kits for DSP&P equipment. Another engine that always impressed me was the Cooke Mogul. I did own an LGB Mogul that was modeled after the Cooke but sold it since it wasn’t a 1:20.3 scale model.
I started doing some research on the Mogul and found considerable help from David Fletcher and from Craine’s DSP&P website. I selected DSP&P engine number 71 to model.
I found several scale drawings of #71 which enabled me to construct my model pretty much to exact scale. Of course, I was confronted with the usual issue of finding or, heaven forbid, building a chassis. So, I turned to an old favorite, the Annie. The driver spacing wasn’t exact for the Cooke Mogul but it was close enough. So I purchased one of Bachmann’s updated chassis; however, it wasn’t the newest with all metal gears. I’ll have to live with it.
To get the Bachmann chassis to fit the Mogul design, I had to do some heavy cutting and trimming. Here’s what I started with,
And, here’s how it ended up. It was now a 2-6-0.
The next thing I did was to replace the pilot and boiler yolk. The wooden pilot is from a kit.
I then moved to the rear and chopped off a good portion of the chassis rear end including the original coupler pin.
I added some styrene details to mimic the rear frame and added support for the rear platform bracket. I also added some styrene to extend the frame. This was necessary since the Mogul had a slightly longer frame.
I was very lucky to find the right diameter PVC tubing for the boiler. When I added the boiler wrap, the diameter came out to be 50” at 1:20.3 scale which is the diameter of the actual Mogul boiler. Since I’m not a machinist and don’t have a lathe, I cheated and bought a brass sand and steam dome set from Accucraft. They are almost the correct ones but not exact. They look pretty good. In the following picture I show the engine with the Accucraft domes and a temporary Accucraft stack and headlamp. I thought of using this stack until I was corrected by David Fletcher. He said my model
required a Congdon stack and the Accucraft one was not correct. That eventually led to my involving my son. That story comes later.
The picture also shows the engine deck temporarily installed. I sorry I didn’t get any photos of that by itself. One of my many photographic regrets. Also shown is the pilot truck and cow catcher. The pilot truck is from a Bachmann C-19.
Here is a photo of the fabricated cylinders and yoke. The steam chests are from a Connie. As you see from the photo, I added two brass strips to reinforce the front of the chassis since I had removed so much of the original chassis. You can also see the temporary crosshead support bracket. This was styrene and I later replaced it with a fiberglass version for
extra strength.
I had to completely redesign the front section of the drive rods. Shortening them was necessary because the new cylinders were set back from the Annie position.
I was also able to salvage the piston rods from a Connie.
New cross heads were fabricated from styrene. The crosshead guide bar was also modified from a Connie.
Next I added some additional brake detail. The brake cylinder is from Trackside Details and the brake shoes are from the Annie. The clevis next to the cylinder is part of the reversing mechanism.
Here’s another view without the break shoes.
Continuing with the chassis/frame modifications, here’s where it stood so far.
To finish up with the chassis for now, here’s a photo of the pilot with the Ozark Miniatures Link & Pin coupler and tow bar installed. The tow bar was fabricated from a piece of thick solder. I also wrapped the bottom of the pilot with brass strip.
This photo shows the pilot attached to the pilot deck. The rock guards are made from heavy copper wire. It took quite a while to gets the bends just right. 0-80 and 00-90 bolts were used to attach the guards.
Enough for now. I’ll continue with work on the boiler.
