Yeah the Atlas shay is pretty much the biggest 2-truck shay ever made.
Upon studying the photos of the insides on Mark (Spookshow's) review site, it does appear that shortening this beast is not impossible, since that whole piston assembly is an independent part just screwed to the frame with everything driven by the geared wheels, and not connected to the motor in any way. So my cutting a section out of the frame and splicing it back together, cutting some off the U-Joint shafts on the Shay drive on the side, and re-mounting the cylinder assembly a little further back, the whole thing should work. The motor will have to be swapped out for a shorter one, since they used a very large one that takes up all available space (not a bad design, by any means!) But Mashima makes plenty of smaller ones.
This is really starting to intrigue me. If I could only find an actual drawing of the smaller Shay I showed the photo of, I think I'd jump into this.
Does anyone know of a cache of Lima locomotive drawings? I know I want Lima builder's number 3206, built in 1923.
