Como, my Mason Bogie

My first two scratchbuilt loco's

Hi,

That is a nice little bogie, does the the front (driving wheels ) part pivot? If so it will go round some quite sharp curves; the amount of stock it will pull round those curves will be decided by the couplers and weight of the stock I think.

I knew nothing about loco building; and as a result of a web search for Mason Bogies, there was an entry that 'myLargescale.com' was ghoing to builsd some; therefore I joined them; it took some time to get started on it however, the first loco I built was a Cooke Mogul from the drawings in the Dec 1998 issue of Model Railroader. I used the chassis from a Bachmann Annie 4 6 0, and went from there. David Fletcher (half way round the world from me!) was a great help, and I did the most of the design work on the decals, and Stan Cedarleaf did the printing. The fancy work on the sides of the domes was done on a quarter of the design, which was then flipped and replicated and flipped again the all joined together.

It is all plastic and uses the original (heavy) weight that came with the Annie: the whole thing took quite a time needless to say, but it was enjoyable and it is quite a large loco.

Here is a photo of that loco which appeared in Russ Rienbergs books with Davids version which was later in the (full size) loco's life.




Eventually my Mason Bogie was completed and here is a photo of it in front of my depot, with a DSP 'Head end' car behind it - virtually all in the photo is scratchbuilt.
This is one of the few with a scratchbuilt with a chassis from Barries Big Trains, which was specially made, and all the rest of the work by me with decals designed by David Fletcher and printed by Stan Cedarleaf.





http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/...1&d=1284460135

Why the mogul shows at once BUT not the Mason I don't know, no doubt I will eventually work out why; meanwhile please accept may apologies, I put it down to being the very 'new' boy, who has not yet learned his way around the site operation.

Yours Peter.

 

Peter-excellent locomotives. I remember the large scale Mason Bogie building series. You have 2 great engines to pull trains through Alpine. I don't know how much your Mason Bogie will pull, but the South Park usually just ran a coach and boxcar on the grades, they didn't like more cars than that.
I note that you also like the Colorado Central, another great old line that was "absorbed" by the C&S. The CC interchanged with one of my favorites, the 2 footer Gilpin Tramway in Blackhawk. There used to be many places to see remains of the GT, but the large casinos have covered all that history.
How about more photos?
Woodie

 

Hi Woody,

Glad you like them - the CCRR seems to have done a lot of interchanging with the DSP; for the CCRR Doug Bronson has a long baggage car kit, and on his website are new (not yet released) kits for (in Fn3 scale) two different coaches and the short baggage, of which there is a very short portion photo in the Sundance CCRR book - it has some very fancy lining!

The grades on the DSP were steep - 3.9% and such, so I am not suprised that they only had short trains! Mind you there are some photos of Baldwins 2 8 0's with a bit more - but not much more - and there is always the 2 8 0 with 3 boxcars, 1 reefer, and a waycar for a train (above Breckenridge) - I could do that! I like the Baldwins but cannot afford a couple - I have a chassis that I think will be made into a DSP one as I fancy the lake color for it - so it will be #22 of the D&RG, when I build it.

A second point - you say the Mason you painted in 'lake' - I think that is one of those words that has a different meaning in the USA to here in the UK.

By 'lake' in paint terms here it means a dark and almost clear (like ink) pigment that relies for its principal color on the undercoat. So for a deep color a deep undercoat is used. The darkest lake I know of is the color of L&NWR coaches lower panels, then the Royal train which is a dark claret color, and finally though there are others the Midland Railway which had crimson lake -that color was quite dark, and under certain lights close to black or could appear to be a slightly dark red - which is what most photos show!

Think in US terms of the color of the Accucraft D&RG RR 'Poncha' mogul - that is in print very like our royal train claret I think.

How would you descibe (American) lake as a color please?

A new boxcar is being built at the moment which will be # DSP&PRR 525 when finished.

Using the Bachmann indy mogul for the chassis I have a model of CCRR #7 and DSP&PRR#7 (or what it might have been like).

Yours Peter.

 

Peter-since nobody still alive has seen "Lake Red"...it may be a subjective thing. As far as I can tell, the color is a dark reddish brown. I don't know where on the "net", but some fellow has profiles of Bogies in different colors...green, blue, red, etc. and I found that Tamiya "NATO BROWN" is a close match, Humbrol has a color which is close also, but I don't remember the name. It's like "Russian Iron", there must be 60 different ideas for this, it was actually called "planished iron"-the iron boiler lagging sheets were hammered out and oiled down while hammering. Different types of iron would cause different colors, so there is another area for "discussion".
Woodie

 

Hi Woodie,

Thanks for the name for 'Lake' - most helpful.

The Humbrol colors you mention are the Metalcote range - my Mason Bogie uses their 'gunmertal' for the boiler. The Cooke mogul is the 'polished steel' color.

Its a weird paint - very thin: dries in 20 minutes and then when it is polished, it it changes color. I then varnish it to keep it looking good. The brushes have to be cleaned in cellulose thinners and not the normal solvent as well.

Thats my paint for the boiler jackets.

Yours Peter.

 

Peter,

Thanks for posting photos of some of your power. Your models have some of the finest finishes of all models.

I'd originally started to build a Cooke mogul just like yours (and following your approach), but I decided that my little boys 2' R curves were a touch tight. So, I dropped the middle driver and used the drivers/motor to start building a D&RG 2-4-0 (I saw that Fletch built a sister 2-6-0 around the same time I started her).

I've got 2-3 details left to build for a 23' Colorado Central flat car (On3/On30); she'll be my first resin freight car kit. I have the sills and decking cut for the same car in 1:20.3...but I'm holding off until I get the locomotive done. I really love the 1882-1885 CC/DSP&P photos with cars from both roads and DSP&P power on the CC.

It is wonderful to have another DSP&P/CC scratch builder on the forum!

Michael