2 Cylinders

So I've modified the crank shaft and engine to be more typical of a Shay locomotive of such small size. It's actually been a bit frustrating and it still needs much work. I drilled a new hole so I can mount the engine casting and modified crack shaft assembly closer to the center of the locomotive. Theoretically the engine should operate just fine on strait track and broad curves, but that wouldn't be much of a mining railroad would it? My goal was to get the locomotive to negociate a 9" radius curve... but I may have to make it 10" radius instead. A left hand turn would be the worst, in that the telescoping parts of the universals simply drop out and would certainly cause problems when operating on a steep and twisting track through the often rugged Arizona desert. Sadly I only have one photo this time.

It's not pretty by any means as you can see. Everything is just mocked up or temporarily "press fit" into place just so I can get an idea of where things are going. I bored out part of the engine casting so that the "rods" to the crank shaft have some clearance and will hopefully look like pistons moving up and down in their guides.

As a side note, I've been trying to use the supplied tender shells of the kit to make the tender tank. However I'm not too happy how it's coming out and from the looks of it wouldn't look much like what I have in my concept drawing, as shown below.

I have no clue how I could model the tender flare, so I was able to find an old AHM "J.W. Bowker" tender shell which should do just fine for a replacement. In the mean time I may start working on some of my Porter projects mentioned in previous posts.