Lionel Ten-Wheeler Tender Swap

For a while I have had a New York Central Ten-Wheeler, Lionel 6-11150, which I've found to be a great engine. It is an accurate model of a NYC class F12e. However, two things have always bothered me about it:

1. The tender text reads "New York Central Lines", when on this engine it should only read "New York Central"

2. This road number (827) was regularly assigned to the Putnam Division, which required small tenders due to weight restrictions, while the model used the class F12e's original larger tender.

Easy solution to both - switch tenders. I found Lionel's mogul tender is a close visual match to the one I wanted, and I was able to get a shell. Prototype photo can be found at the link below.

Slide - New York Central train on the Putnam Division heading south at the Yorktown Heights station | Westchester County Historical Society (pastperfectonline.com)

Here's a comparison between the original tender shell and new one.

All the electronics were stripped from the original tender and trucks removed. Then a new tender frame was fabricated out of a sheet of polycarbonate and reinforced with some styrene I-beams. I used the original frame as a template for the PCB mounting holes, and measured out locations for the truck bolsters and speaker.

A common problem on this batch of Ten-Wheelers is sparking on the drawbar between engine and tender, caused by poor grounding through the wheel bearings. A set of wipers were made out of phosphor bronze wire, and this eliminated the problem.

There was no room in the much smaller tender for the original speaker and enclosure. I got a few speakers off of Digi-Key to try out, and this is the one I ended up going with. Original speaker and enclosure on left, new speaker on right.

I designed and 3D printed a new enclosure. The new low-profile speaker and enclosure fit under the PCBs, between their mounting posts and the front truck bolster. The smaller speaker is of course quieter than the original, but with the enclosure and tender shell on it still gets to the volume I normally like running at. Unfortunately, there is much less bass, but this is a compromise I am willing to make.