TheRailwire
General Discussion => N and Z Scales => Topic started by: jjb62556 on November 24, 2018, 07:47:55 AM
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Has anyone tried making a BB-A1A C Liner like used by the Canadian National in N scale?
Sure like to have a A/B set. Jim
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I think C-Liners suffer from the fact that Atlas-Rivarossi produced them in what seems like the tens of thousands in the early days of N scale. Mostly foobie paint schemes (one of those locos with more ATSF foobies than all of the correct paint schemes put together- a few folks may have used them as stand ins for Erie Builts).
The Canadian version of the prototype was certainly a stately locomotive when painted in the green/black/gold CN passenger scheme. Maybe Prarie Shadows? Or perhaps you could talk someone into producing it as the "60th anniversary of N scale locomotive." Would be appropriate, I think it is the first N scale loco I ever saw operate (sometime in the late 60s). I never owned one, but have some frames and other parts that came in a box of spare parts I picked up for a couple bucks somewhere.
'
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The Atlas-Rivarossi C liner is a terrible runner, and that's not really fixable. You can use a dummy C liner paired with something else, if I've seen writeups where someone has modified a PA drive (including modifying the front truck) to repower a C liner.
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The Atlas-Rivarossi C liner is a terrible runner...
Provided it runs at all. The brushes on those Rivarossi can motors liked to glue themselves to the armature. I have a pair acquired new - in 1967 - in pieces rattling somewhere around in a junk box, although the last effort to find the bits was mostly unsuccessful. As a teen I tried to repaint mine into CN zebra-stripe, with embarrassingly-bad results.
All were produced in road names that never had them: UP, ATSF, PRR and, SP, in Daylight colors, no less. I think they were trying to capture the Erie-Built look to offer something different than the F or FA other companies were selling. Atlas did not produce a B.
Here's Mark's page on 'em: http://www.spookshow.net/loco/fmc.html
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What is funny is that RR never offered these in ANY road that ACTUALLY had them. CN, CP, NYC, LIRR and NYNH&H were the only ones that actually had the five axles. I do have one somewhere that I actually did paint black and apply lightning stripes. NYC's were grey with the stripes. but I did it more to practice putting on the stripes than anything else. At one point, mine actually ran. The last time that I tried it, I could feel the motor's trying to turn, but it did not appear to have sufficient OOMPH to move the thing. I recall taking out the thing (not difficult) and p utting wires to it. It turned. When I replaced it, still it would not move the locomotive.
Spookshow actually gives the thing a "C". He is more kind than I am; I would give it a RED "F".
Someone did modify a C-C PA chassis and trucks to fit the RR shell. I have read several inquiries about chopping up an LL Erie and C-Liner to make the chassis, but I have yet to see anyone's succeeding at it. Some even have tried simply inserting a LL four axle truck onto the Erie chassis, or a LL six axle Erie truck onto the C liner chassis, but it would not work.
When you consider what is out there, now, you might get away with having the front truck, only powered and an idler aft truck. If you wanted them to pull six cars plus an express or two, it would be necessary to run them in pairs. The pulling power will suffer greatly with only one truck powered.
Only CN & CP had Bs. The US roads that ran them had only As. CN had twenty three As; CP, six. Thus, you could run them A-A even for a Canadian road. CN had only three Bs. CP had four Bs, so I would guess that, as a rule, it ran the As with Bs.
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I have a pair of undec B-B Life-Like units that eventually I will attempt to add A1A trucks to. First thing would be to check if the PA or DL109 truck fits and if the gear reduction is compatible. The second option is to fit the Life-Like shell to a Rapido FL-9 mechanism, if possible. But I’m not exploring anytime soon as this project is way down on the list.
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Only CN & CP had Bs. CN had twenty three As; CP, six. CN had only three Bs. CP had four Bs, so I would guess that, as a rule, it ran the As with Bs.
Are you still referring to the B-A1A units, or instead the B-B version?
https://www.thedieselshop.us/FM_CLiners.HTML (https://www.thedieselshop.us/FM_CLiners.HTML)
https://www.american-rails.com/c-liners.html (https://www.american-rails.com/c-liners.html)
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Are you still referring to the B-A1A units, or instead the B-B version?
https://www.thedieselshop.us/FM_CLiners.HTML (https://www.thedieselshop.us/FM_CLiners.HTML)
https://www.american-rails.com/c-liners.html (https://www.american-rails.com/c-liners.html)
Your sources confirmed mine about the 5-axle B units, that only six CPB16-5 models were built, all for CN.
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Provided it runs at all. The brushes on those Rivarossi can motors liked to glue themselves to the armature.
You mean the brushes glued themselves to the commutator? Brushes do not contact the armature. Or did you mean that the flexible vinyl magnet inside those Rivarossi "can' motors melted into the armature? :)
I picked up one of those models few years ago (strictly as a curiosity) and I was amused by the electric pickup "buttons" rubbing the rails (similar to the electric pickup shoes used on large scale models). I suppose that if someone wanted to make it into a decent running model there are enough modern mechanical components (chassis with a motor and trucks) to make that happen. Basically you would kitbash the chassis and just put the C-Liner shell on it
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OK, OK... commutator. :P
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Maybe Atlas will put something together down the road using the Walthers Tooling.
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Maybe Atlas will put something together down the road using the Walthers Tooling.
Where will the shell come from? Rivarossi tooling is IIRC long lost.
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Where will the shell come from? Rivarossi tooling is IIRC long lost.
Presumably from the Life-Like/Walthers tooling that Atlas recently acquired.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44905.0 (https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44905.0)
http://www.spookshow.net/loco/llfmc.html (http://www.spookshow.net/loco/llfmc.html)
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Presumably from the Life-Like/Walthers tooling that Atlas recently acquired.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44905.0 (https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44905.0)
http://www.spookshow.net/loco/llfmc.html (http://www.spookshow.net/loco/llfmc.html)
Oh yeah, so all it needs is a 3-axle rear truck?
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Oh yeah, so all it needs is a 3-axle rear truck?
Mostly - the fuel tank skirts also need to be trimmed at the rear to clear the truck.
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The Atlas/Rivarossi C-Liner shell is not a bad starting point. We just need a mechanical genius to figure out a modern chassis. For my LIRR A1A C-Liners, I modified the windshield shape and attached the pilot to the body.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/6/1350-250718122443-68631938.jpeg)
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/6/1350-240718030108-68481682.jpeg)
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The Atlas/Rivarossi C-Liner shell is not a bad starting point. We just need a mechanical genius to figure out a modern chassis. For my LIRR A1A C-Liners, I modified the windshield shape and attached the pilot to the body.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/6/1350-250718122443-68631938.jpeg)
Couldn't you use Atlas/Kato (or even Atlas China) RS-11 or RS-3 chassis and replace the rear truck with RSD 3-axle truck of the same vintage?
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If the FM wheelbase is the same, it should work. I know the early Atlas/Kato RS and RSD locos used the same chassis, so the trucks are certainly interchangeable.
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Couldn't you use Atlas/Kato (or even Atlas China) RS-11 or RS-3 chassis and replace the rear truck with RSD 3-axle truck of the same vintage?
If memory serves me right (cue original Iron Chef music), the original RS-* had a different gear ratio from the RSD-*. I have both around here somewhere, so I should probably check.
[edit]
I looked at this, and the obvious problem struck me immediately - the C-Liner has an A-1-A rear truck with symmetrical axle spacing. The RSD-* has a C truck with asymetrical axle spacing, and a shorter overall wheelbase. So even if it works mechanically (I didn't check) it wouldn't look right.
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Are you still referring to the B-A1A units, or instead the B-B version?
I refer to five axle B units. Only the Canada roads had the five axle B units. The three US roads that ran the five axles had A units, only.
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I refer to five axle B units. Only the Canada roads had the five axle B units.
In that case you might want to review the roster info you posted earlier.
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I refer to five axle B units. Only the Canada roads had the five axle B units. The three US roads that ran the five axles had A units, only.
Only Canadian National had the B-A1A As and Bs in Canada to the best of my knowledge. Canadian Pacific only ever rostered the B-B As and Bs.
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For whatever it is worth, the wheelbase of the front powered truck on the Atlas/Rivarossi C-Liner appears to be closer to the 7'4" of a Tomytec TM-01/02/03/04 chassis (albeit with undersized 35" wheels) than the 9'4" of the prototype
http://www.trainweb.org/tomix/chassis_dim.htm (http://www.trainweb.org/tomix/chassis_dim.htm)
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The PA trucks do not match the C-Liner trucks. Any conversions people do will tend to be "let's see if this works" jobs not easily duplicated. The problem with just switching a two axle truck with a three axle truck is the 3 axle gear tower is taller than the 2 to give room for the extra set of transmission gears for the third axle.
For my powered unit I took an Atlas/Kato SD-7, cut off one axle on one truck, ground and shaped that chassis end to fit the nose curve of the C-Liner shell, cut the pilot off the C-L swivel truck and glued it to the shell, and added a spacer to the rear wall to get the shell centered right.
I removed the outer frame of the SD9 3-axle truck, carefully cut the C-Liner frame off its truck and attached it to the SD truck. The SD axles line up almost exactly with the FM axle bearings.
The front truck is a messy "grind the off original frames and glue on the cut-off 2-axle FM frames" job but the engine runs very well. This also gives me all-wheel drive and pick-up. I also modified and detailed the original RR shell (which was based on the NYC version) to be the NH version (mostly different roof details).
Still need to add glass, flush windshield (how did you do it, doug?), headlight and lighted numberboards.
Then I had a friend put a decoder and light in it and it pulls my NH passenger trains with a dummy C-liner both painted in that (PITA-job-to-do) striping of the NH pre McGinnis.
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Still need to add glass, flush windshield (how did you do it, doug?), headlight and lighted numberboards.
I did some eye surgery on my C-Liners that was not very difficult, but made a big difference. The Altas/RR windshield opening is actually all wrong with no bottom lip, so I glued a thin styrene sheet onto the windshield area and sanded it flush. I then drilled 4 holes at each corner of the proper windshield profile and then enlarged the opening to the correct size and shape with a sharp #11 blade, and final smoothing with a file. After painting, including the aluminum edging, I used Microscale Kristal Klear for the actual windshield.
I am not sure what it is about C-Liners, but the Life-Like C-Liner also has windshield shape issues. That was an easier fix in that the openings only needed some enlarging and reshaping.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/8/1350-261118191003-82191523.jpeg)
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The compound curves and angles must make modeling the nose and windshield area impossible from engineering drawings.
What was the point of a B-A1A truck arrangement anyway? It couldn't be axle loading because the B truck would still overload that side of the engine if that were an issue. Unless the weight was really lopsided.
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... Unless the weight was really lopsided.
According to https://www.american-rails.com/c-liners.html , that was the issue. The boiler and location of the water tank for it could easily have messed with the loading.
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Yes, A1A truck was added to accommodate the additional weight of a steam generator.
FM's Consolidation Line or C-Liners was a totally modular locomotive line that could be configured for many uses - passenger and freight. It was a great concept, but the ultimate issue was the opposed-piston engine that was a maintenance nightmare. That and the strong competition from EMD.
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The Atlas/Rivarossi C-Liner shell is not a bad starting point. We just need a mechanical genius to figure out a modern chassis. For my LIRR A1A C-Liners, I modified the windshield shape and attached the pilot to the body.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/6/1350-250718122443-68631938.jpeg)
That looks quite decent, a job well done. I just wanted to offer some advice on the photoshop job - you have exhaust coming from the radiator fans, when it should only be coming out of the twin stacks ahead of them. Good work!
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That's the special "Alco Edition" C-Liner with extra smoke in the interior, exhausted by the radiator fans for that authentic Alco look.
:D
Doug
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That's the special "Alco Edition" C-Liner with extra smoke in the interior, exhausted by the radiator fans for that authentic Alco look.
When you consider how much smoke SP's FM power used to throw..............................................(although it never had any new FM cabs, just Trainmasters and yard goats)..........................
I had always assumed that those two stacks among the cooling fans were the steam generator escape and vent stacks.
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Luckily, its not flames.
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Luckily, its not flames.
Do not be so sure. I once saw a crew fire off an RSD-5 in Santa Clara yards. The thing sputtered, spewed all this thick black smoke, let out a loud pop, shot a huge bolt of flame from the exhaust stack, popped again, shot out some more flames, more thick black smoke, more flames then a steady cloud of thick black smoke.
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When you consider how much smoke SP's FM power used to throw..............................................(although it never had any new FM cabs, just Trainmasters and yard goats)..........................
I had always assumed that those two stacks among the cooling fans were the steam generator escape and vent stacks.
Actually, they are. The prime mover stacks are farther ahead, right behind the three rectangular panels on the roof.
Doug