Large Scale Central

Little River Rail Road in Doc Tom's back yard

General Discussion
#381

Shawn said:
Line is getting their. It was hot up in the Kittatinny Mtns as wel although not 100. Hit 94 which is hot for these parts. Then some nasty storms came through and cooled things off to more fall like temps.

It is sure slow go…about 3 feet a month of new track, trestles and rock, lots of rock. The workers were all up raring to go this AM after their PM refreshment of choice.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC04715-1.jpg)

The heat continues here and more nighttime refreshments will be on order. Doc Tom

#382

Still lookin good, Doc. Thanks for sharing.

#383
Tom Grabenstein said:
It is sure slow go....about 3 feet a month ... and more nighttime refreshments will be on order. - Doc Tom
Those goshdarn nighttime refreshments .... they WILL slow things down, won't they? ;-)
#384

A BIG HAULER becomes a little Pacific for the Little River Rail Road. Little River locomotive #110 is a beautiful Baldwin product and the smallest Pacific standard gauge ever built by Baldwin. It was small with a blind center driving wheel (like our model lokies) and a very short driving wheelbase (about the length of a Neon automobile) to handle the very tight curves of the Little River Rail Road snaking through the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/LRRR110.gif)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/110onTurntable300.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/LRRR1102.gif)

The wheel base of the Bachmann Big Hauler 4-6-0 is just about dead on for a model of this little pacific.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/chattanooga.jpg)

It does lack the trailing truck that would make it a 4-6-2. Well, I got many ideas on how to attach a trailing truck from fellow modelers here on the Internet. I purchased an older “version 4” Big Hauler from eBay for $41 that ran failrly well and started the project. What worked for the trailing truck was to use a wheel set and bracket cut out of an older lead truck from a very old Bachmann Big Hauler donated by my friend Bill Nelson.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05908.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05909.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05912.jpg)

I used the trusty Dremel to cut out a slot in the chassis to place the trailing truck.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05911.jpg)

The wheelset slipped in perfectly and using a large washer held by the screw to the tender “hook” it floats and pivots allowing it to handle the undulating curves of the Little River RR high in the Smoky Mountains

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05910.jpg)

Tom

#385

nice loco Doc, great addition to the LRRR

#386

Looks good Tom. I always enjoy the old pictures you provide with your layout and trains. Good stuff.

#387

Thanks Dave and Shawn. I too like digging out the old photos for this project. I think the history behind the rail roads is a big part of the fun. It also helps to explain to guests what is going on on the rock pile out back. Particularly it is fun to pull out prototype pictures to show all the mechanized wonders that ran in the wilds of Tennessee.

Tom

#388

Doc, I missed this one.But, with it you’ve definatly captured the home grown backwoods feeling.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC04715-1.jpg)

I’ve got to ask if the crew have special "Sunday get yer pitcher taken’ " duds, or are they so poor these are the only clothes they have? :wink: Maybe a relief fund is in order.

#389

Dave Marconi said:
Doc, I missed this one.But, with it you’ve definatly captured the home grown backwoods feeling.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC04715-1.jpg)

I’ve got to ask if the crew have special "Sunday get yer pitcher taken’ " duds, or are they so poor these are the only clothes they have? :wink: Maybe a relief fund is in order.

Thanks Dave, Appalachian loggers were quite poor and in many ways still are. Seems they owed quite a bit to the company store for their boots and clothes purchased with “company script”. So they didn’t dress well. I staged the above picture to show the LRRR crew going back to work on a Monday after a weekend of drinking special libations…could account for why they are half dressed. Tom

#390

More progress on Little River #110…“a stretched Big Hauler” It has been so hot recently that most of my RR modelling as been in the shed with the AC blowing “Maximum.”

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05644.jpg)

In the shed I have been advancing the Little River #110 locomotive project and hope to come close to this:

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/110oldpicture.jpg)

I have gone from this.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/chattanooga.jpg)

To this.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05913.jpg)

A stretched version of the venerable Big Hauler. I moved the air tanks aft and cut a new groove near the end of the boiler to hang the cab about 4 inches back.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05914.jpg)

I think it is approaching the lines of the prototype. I am using junk parts from another scrapped Big Hauler and so far I am out $41 for this interesting project.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05915.jpg)

Next up will be constructing the “aft frame” to fill in under the cab. Here is a short enjoyable video of LRRR #110 in action one hundred years after her birth up in Michigan. Hope to get up there some day and hitch a ride. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2htOl-ZMe8&feature=related Tom

#391

It IS an interesting project, Tom, and thanks for posting these latest pix. The Big Hauler looks like an excellent place to start on this - in some ways she looks so close to the end result - that generator location, for one example - , then I suppose as you get into the job you probably find complications that a casual watcher like myself wouldn’t notice right off - the tapered boiler, I see. Anyway, it’s a good conversion, and it’ll be great to have a loco like nobody else’s, one that ‘belongs’ so well on the Little River RR.

Whether they be fictional history/photos or reports of your actual builds, etc., I enjoy all your posts!

#392

I have three 4-6-0s and they may have a future! I’m warming up my saw!

Looking good.

Now if we could get new power for her!

#393

My Little River locomotive number 110 is getting closer to looking like the prototype.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/110oldpicture.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05920.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05927.jpg)

Boss Crumb congratulates the hard-working shop crew on creating a roomy cab for this locomotive.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05921.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05928.jpg)

Seems to be plenty of room for the engineer, firemen and any local passengers.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/0415Loco110Town810.jpg)

#394

The modern video of Little River 110 in Michigan, easily shows the clear glass pane in the front window frame. So Doc, I don’t see how you can be wrong with either way you do it. The portrait or the clear glass, both will be correct, just different eras.

Your model is looking real good.

Stan Cedarleaf can do a good job on decals for you.

scedarleaf @aol.com

#395

Nice work Doc. I’m really enjoying this conversion

#396

Ric Golding said:
The modern video of Little River 110 in Michigan, easily shows the clear glass pane in the front window frame. So Doc, I don’t see how you can be wrong with either way you do it. The portrait or the clear glass, both will be correct, just different eras. Your model is looking real good. Stan Cedarleaf can do a good job on decals for you. scedarleaf @aol.com

Thanks Ric and Dave for the encouragement. I will be contacting Mr Cedarleaf soon for prep work on the decals for this build. He did a great job on the decals for my Shay.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05658.jpg)

Tom

#397

Doc I say see if he can make a portrait decal for the windows, even though it will look great either way.

#398
Dave Marconi said:
Doc I say see if he can make a portrait decal for the windows, even though it will look great either way.
In conversations I've had with Stan concerning some specialized decals, I believe if you give him a piece of art work to work with, he can do some pretty good stuff.
#399

Tom I am always amazed at how versatile a bash platform the Big Hauler can be.

#400

My rendition of Little River RR locomotive #110 continues. I have just completed the paint and weathering on its tender. So I thought it was time for a few more pictures. Here are the original photos of the Bachmann Big Hauler I bought on eBay for $41. Note the funky cab roofline.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/OriginalSouthern.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/OriginalSouthern2.jpg)

The model was apparently stored a little too close to a heat source. I later found the heat also affected the trucks to the tender and their frames were quite warped. Fortunately spare parts were available in the scrap box for a rebuild. Here is my interpretation of the Baldwin Pacific in the yard at Townsend Tennessee about 1926.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/110oldpicture-1.jpg)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05934.jpg)

I chose this era to reflect 15 years of use on a logging line. Management initially had used this locomotive to haul passengers to the resorts and Wonderland Hotel in Elkmont Tennessee, high in the Smoky Mountains.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/LRRR1103-1.gif)

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05937.jpg)

In later years the hard working locomotive was also used to bring log trains down to the mill as the line went further and further into the mountains.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/DSC05939.jpg)

As the trees played out the holdings of the Little River Lumber Company were sold to the Federal Government to become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930’s. Little River RR #110 subsequently went to the Smoky Mountain RR and then was abandoned for decades before being rescued and restored for the present day Little River RR tourist line in Coldwater Michigan. Here it is lovingly restored and cleaned in our most modern of times.

(http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg412/DrGrab/Overheadshotof110.jpg)

Thanks for looking. Tom