Canadian Pacific 2-8-0 Kitbash

[sailormatlac]

Matt...That's one GREAT looking loco...Your patience and attention to detail are of Biblical proportions. Terrific work....

I did a kit build a few months back that nearly drove me up the wall at times....
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Look forward to seeing your work on the tender, and any future projects you may tackle....

Thank you for your interest! I stumbeld upon your project while searching the forum few weeks ago. I was impressed at how you managed to make all that brass pipings. Honestly, I admire people that start working on metal kits. Long ago, I tried my hand on a MDC 2-6-2 (tried to make it as a 2-6-0) and it turned out to be a total fiasco!

You may be right, Matt. I've only seen pictures of the other one. These engines were turn of the century and built for speed with the bigger drivers. CPR didn't have any small drivered 4-6-0's that I know of. Your 2-8-0 is a perfect fit for the Kootenays. CPR eventually used them to replace the 4-6-0's. Better tractive power for the grades and the mine runs. I could quite probably go with a 2-8-0 instead of the 52" 4-6-0, you're quite right. The 2-8-0's for the heavy lifting, the 4-6-0's for passenger and railfan runs.

Do you have to make a lot of changes to the tender on yours?

You're right. I'm remember a lot of old pictures from early 1920's showing coupled 2-8-0 pulling trains in the the Rockies. What I sight it was!

The locomotive kitbashing was mostly cosmetic. The tender will need a lot of reworking to change length, proportions and general aspect. I will also replace the trucks (hope to get them before Christmas) which means electrical wiring will have to be redone... I'll also check out if I cannot had a working headlight. I've seen a picture showing a N2c tender in the late 1950's having a locomotive pilot to run on mainline backward. That would be something very interesting to model.

A kind canadian gentleman sent me recently data for the tender which will be useful. I still need, at this point, to decide which tender type I choose. The typical tender for N2c had strange short wings near the coal bunker. Personally, I prefer the type with large wings... and healight. Anyway, at this point, I have to draw scale drawings of it before any chirurgical operation. Habitually, I use AutoCAD to draw the model and the prototype, then I compare how I can fit everything together.

Tender with long wings...


The CF tender with short wings...


The main difference between both locomotive is the headlight type and position. My kitbash is based on the CF prototype... I'd like to confirm a CF engine pulled a large wing tender at some point in history... but this may be quite hard to proove... Anyway, I've seen N2b engines with the same headlight position as N2c... which means I could do as I wish I think.

Matt