Work on the loco and tender is done. There is a lot of small cosmetic work and painting, etc., yet to do, but the loco and tender are complete and run splendidly.
- I lengthened the tender 1 1/10 inch and converted it to a "centripede" by adding a third 3-wheel truck. I added a center pickup to one truck (LC+ tenders had none)
- I added a tether between loco and tender so they share electrical pickup (LC+ locos have only two center pickups) and also added a wire so the loco benefits from the outer rail pickup of the tender's wheels).
I am very pleased with this loco. It is a particularly handosme locomotive - ev erything I did to make it was bashed almost entirely on esthetics, so it should be, and much bigger than an LC+, roughly the size of the scale Southern Crescent, bigger in all dimensions than the scale Atlantic, etc., slotting it at the size an Adriatic (2-6-4 should be, and absolutely scale looking, with a bit of gravitas and mass to it, and alot of eye candy in the form of pipes, values, tanks, etc., and a cab modeled exactly after the wartime ATSF cabs (their Northern 3751, etc) - what I think is the handsomest steamer cab.
And it smokes like a fiend through the the re-located smokestack and the S pipe I built from smoke unit to stake (leaking here a bit since it is not yet glued and sealed on).
Here is a short video of it pulling a dozen scale reefers and caboose.
