Bachmann PRR K4s with Grafted BLI M1b tender

[Lemosteam]

Some time ago @draskouasshat traded design time for some BLI M1b remnants from one of his kitbashes.  The tender was fully intact, so the idea occurred to me to graft the tender onto the Bachmann locomotive.  I had to fashion a new drawbar and I replaced the BlI electronics with the original Bachmann sound decoder and an 8x11 Soberton speaker from the original.










 I had to remove all of the trainphone equipment, remove the doghouse, patch all of the tender deck holes an repaint the deck and the Bachmann cab roof in Red oxide. 

I used black sand to redo the coal load, with a little coal spillage on the deck and up by the tender col pit doors. Tamiya black weathering powder was used to grime up the tender deck and cab roof.  99 percent alcohol was used to build up some water stains around the cistern doors.









The Bachmann boiler received a Keystone Details sand dome, and I mixed a brand new bottle of testors flat black, filled to the top with testors gloss green for a DGLE home brew that matches the BLI paint perfectly. These are the results.













And a short video of the test run.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I was never a huge fan of those huge a$$ PRR tenders. But you know what? I might be convinced to come around!

There were only a few K4s that got these, right?

[Lemosteam]

According to Bruce Smith, Yes only a few had this six axle tender (class 210P75). This class is also riveted and the eight axle tenders were welded according to Charles Crawford.

I actually love the proportions of this combination, even though it was a failure in practice.

[Mike Madonna]

Nice work John!

[jdcolombo]

Oooh!  Aaaaah!

Excellent!

John C.

[Dave V]

That's dead sexy...   

[Lemosteam]

Oooh!  Aaaaah!

Excellent!

John C.

I may have forgotten, @jdcolombo , does that speaker look like a 9x16 to you? I just realized that I did not use my own Keystone Details enclosure.  I think it might be!

[Lemosteam]

Thank you Mike and Dave!

[glakedylan]

John
looking really good
it truly adds character to the K4
very nice work!


sincerely
Gary

[eja]

Beautiful ..... but,

... it belongs behind a M1a not a K4 !

YMMV.....

ed

[Lemosteam]

@eja

Nope- these K4 locomotives had coast to coast tenders:

From Charles Crawford: "5385 sure did! note- data source lists a class 210F75 tender on K4s locos 5341, 5365, 5385, 5432, 5442, and 5453.

PRR K4s #5385 (a Gary Mittner Google image in case you cannot see it google "PRR 5385 image"):

[muktown128]

John,

Wow!  That looks great!  Nice job on putting that together.   

[Cajonpassfan]

Yes, very nice loco and a unique prototype!
Never could figure out why BLI would place the speaker on the back end of the long tender, as far from the stack as possible.
Otto

[eja]

@eja

Nope- these K4 locomotives had coast to coast tenders:

Didn't mean to imply that there weren't some on K4's ... just stating that in my opinion, they belong on the M1a.

[jdcolombo]

I may have forgotten, @jdcolombo , does that speaker look like a 9x16 to you? I just realized that I did not use my own Keystone Details enclosure.  I think it might be!

I think it's an 11x15.  A 9x16 is noticeably more rectangular.  It's definitely bigger than an 8x12.

John C.