Pennsy J1 Project

[brokemoto]

Were not the PRR 2-10-4s copies of the C&O?  From what I understand PRR needed something big and fast; quick, fast and in a hurry to meet wartime demands.  After some brief research it decided on the C&O and built them; or caused them to be built.

[reinhardtjh]

Were not the PRR 2-10-4s copies of the C&O?  From what I understand PRR needed something big and fast; quick, fast and in a hurry to meet wartime demands.  After some brief research it decided on the C&O and built them; or caused them to be built.

Basically, yes. The PRR needed power and due to the war they were not allowed to design new so they looked at existing designs.  Among others, they tried out the C&O T-1 and found it met expectations and had the Juniata shops build 125 of them between 1942 and 1944.

[pjm20]

Yep, also the other locomotive considered was the N&W A class.

[chessie system fan]

Thanks for the info Max!  Glad I can move forward on that.

I've done some work on the boiler today.  I'm no master craftsman, so I prefer to take the easy route when possible, even if it takes longer in the end due to mulling designs over in my mind.  I'm not very good as soldering and I couldn't find any styrene rod large enough, so I've decided to take a hybrid approach to the boiler. 

I first made quickie castings of a LL berk boiler to use it as a base.  The biggest reason behind that is the snap fit.  I then cut brass tubing for the sections.





Here's a test fit after a little bit of hacking the shell and milling a slot in the brass tubing.  You can see I trimmed back the inner brass tube too.  Also it should slide back a little bit further but that lone pin on the mechanism needs to be milled away first.



The smoke box will be a separate piece that slides into the boiler.