In 2009 I was asked to build a locomotive for a fellow from Arizona. He provided me with a photo and asked what I could do. This is the photo. It was, I’d guess, a tendered main line loco that had been relegated to yard duty. They added two tanks on the boiler, water and oil, and created a truly ugly loco. Just what I like.
I decided that my favorite bash victim, the Bachmann “Indy” 2-6-0 would be just right for this project. I also decided that I’d build two of these things and keep one for my collection. I assumed from the picture that the back of the cab was open and started a search for pictures of locos that were altered as yard mules that had access from the back.
Frames for the tanks were fabricated.
After building two cabs that would be appropriate he sent a picture of our loco that showed that it had an opening on the engineers side and the cab back was partially enclosed. It was start over time for a new cab. The front and back walls were used and new sides were made of styrene.
Cutting to the chase, everything came together and this was the result. Somewhere along the way, interest in finishing the second loco waned and the parts went into a shoe box.
It was delivered and everybody was happy. Two years later there was a lapse in model building here and I decided to finish the second loco. As the prototype was a large standard gauge engine I found that the cab height was so low that I couldn’t fit any of my little engineers in it. So, when this version went together the cab grew 3/4 inch at the bottom and that turned the whole loco into a narrow gauger.
Ugly enough for ya? It’ll fit right in with the other uglies that line up on the display shelf of the Door Hollow Shortline.
