Cast resin Santa Fe Full-skirted "Blue Goose"

[UP4-8-8-4]

Been awhile since I've been on, spending way too much wasted time on Fakebook !

But have also been working on quite a many new builds of Cast Resin steamers, GHQ, Shapeways and Out Of The Box engines.

This is the full skirted SF Blue Goose build in progress.
The de-skirted one I built was originally another full-skirted one.

Chassis is a Kato GS-4 heavily modified with last set of drivers removed, tender chassis also the GS-4 all wheel pickup.

Still need to make a draw bar, attach a MT coupler to the tender then can start the paint and decal work.

[Cajonpassfan]

Welcome back, about time!
Jason’s Goose (or should I say Mae West) shell castings are exquisite. I’d be interested in seeing pics of the cut down Kato mechanism that’s under the new build; heck, I’m anxious to see this one finished! Please keep us posted!
Thanks, Otto K.

[UP4-8-8-4]

Yeah, been away too long !

Hopefully Jason will be getting back into his trains again, but right now, racing motorcycles and building motors for them is the new thing.
Also the new Wife and Baby keep him pretty busy, (not to mention his other kids), and, from what I gather when I talked with him a couple weeks ago, believe there will be another Baby on the way !

Also mentioned his UP layout may be coming down for extra family room needed.  As I told him, he can always rebuild another layout once the kids grow up.

He has been selling off quite a lot of engines, fact, this Full-skirted Blue Goose was the one I was building and painting for him, but ended up buying it instead.
Jason is the one that built the chassis from the GS-4 for it, will post pictures of what he did, only the last set of drivers are geared, rest operate off the side rods.
Only problem I'm having with the chassis is the geared axle keeps wanting to drop down disengaging it from the main gear. Will need to remove the bottom cover and slightly extend the axle tabs to hold the axle blocks tighter.
He did have a decoder wired in, but since I run DC, I remover the decoder and used a mini micro plug between the engine and tender.

[UP4-8-8-4]

Here's the chassis pictures.

On the tender I had to CA glue the brass pickup strips on one end as they were sliding out of place as well as CA glue the half's together, now works well.
Also added the Tungsten Putty.

[randgust]

You got me all excited with this thread thinking that Jason was back at it - resin casting again.   Best castings I think I've ever seen.

Every time I see the 3460 I'm reminded that ATSF had planned - and never executed - to do a streamlined 4-8-4 the same way.   The additional weight of the cowls, etc. put it over maximum axle load.    I think it was right before WWII, possibly one of the 3780 class, or maybe a 2900.

When I was doing my Junker Jamco thread I found that YouTube video of a 3450 class 4-6-4 running at 93mph on what looked like the Chief, from inside the cab.  Same locomotive minus the shrouding.    Looked like one of those 'nope, we never did really find out how fast it could go' stories from the late steam era.   Same video also testified to the acceleration rate from a dead stop and watching the engineer 'hook 'er up'.   

Before N&W 611 got speed restricted after the Dismal Swamp derailment, I rode behind it and can testify to the ability of big steam to accelerate a heavy train from 45 to 70 in a fraction of the time a similar HP diesel consist would do it; your horsepower curves kept increasing with speed on steam where diesels began to progressively poop out the faster they ran.

Anyway, between you and Jason, beautiful execution of one of my favorite ATSF steamers; certainly a little more class than the Valley Flyer 1300's.

[Simon D.]

Lovely work!

Can you tell us how you made the extended stack please?  Such a distinctive feature of the later Northerns and others.

Best

Simon

[JMaurer1]

Same here, I thought that maybe Jason might be coming back. Best caster out there and wish I had more of them. He really needs to get his priorities straight (trains first, family, everything else). Miss having him around.

[Cajonpassfan]

When I was doing my Junker Jamco thread I found that YouTube video of a 3450 class 4-6-4 running at 93mph on what looked like the Chief, from inside the cab.  Same locomotive minus the shrouding. 

Nice work! Thanks for the additional pics...
Randy, I think maybe a typo snuck in your message, I’m sure you meant the 3460 class?
The 3450’s were the “little Hudsons” as I’m sure you know. Oh, and it was the 3765 Northern that was intended to be streamlined in a similar fashion. The idea was dismissed when she came in from Baldwin at close to half a million pounds without streamlining. Too bad, she would have been something to see😎
Otto K.

[randgust]

The locomotive in the video is the 3464; same class as the 3460 without the streamlining.   

The photo of the speedometer running at 93mph is at 9:54

That's the typo in the class Otto, thanks.

Jason had sent me one of the 4-8-4 castings that I later resold, but the stack extension was cast right on, and a beautiful job of it as well.

[Dirk Jan Blikkendaal]

Thanks Randy,

Nice video! Somehow missed this movie completely.......(till now).

Also very nice work on the resin Blue Goose's!!!!

I am investigating the 3D printing of this engine (fully skirted and de-skirted)...... more to follow in a month or so.
The tender with proper skirting is already available (see www.atsfnscalemodels.com).

Happy Santa Fe N Scale modeling to all!

Regards, Dirk Blikkendaal

[Cajonpassfan]

Yes, a very nice video, thanks for posting!
Otto

[robert3985]

Interesting post!  Too bad I don't need any AT&SF stuff, but I've always liked the look of their engines and cars!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[UP4-8-8-4]

Lovely work!

Can you tell us how you made the extended stack please?  Such a distinctive feature of the later Northerns and others.

Best

Simon

I used a section of hollow brass tubing for the stack, the rest was cut from thin sheet styrene using pictures from HO brass as well as actual pictures.

From pictures I've seen of the Full Skirted version, the extended stack must have been added after it was De-skirted.

[Simon D.]

Many thanks.

I think most of the 3460 Hudsons got the extended stacks post war along with many of the Northerns.

Inspirational work

Simon

[randgust]

When I worked in a hobby shop in the 70's I remember all AHM NYC J3's (AHM??) painted up in this scheme, and later, the N Con-Cor ones.   Never thought much of them.   For streamlined steam, it's hard to find anything else that deserves technical worship other than 611.   But I have to say that studying that video was a 'wow', not just on the crew, but acceleration, performance, clearly evident with a full train.

The more I learn, the more the 3460 class deserves recognition on its own, and that scheme keeps growing on me when it's got the proper details.   I'm still wondering about the chassis conversion though, it would be nice if one of the Japanese (Kato?  Microace?) hudsons would work, or even an old Con-Cor chassis, rather than having to convert over a 4-8-4.     Thoughts?  I know Jason loved the GS4 mech, but I still don't trust all side-rod drives.

Because the 'adapted' J3's had coal tenders, I never noticed until now that the tender skirting on the 'real' one was nothing more than decorative on top of the conventional oil tender, or it certainly looks that way.  That's a fascinating detail for the era.