Google Earth+Ebay = new project?

[nachoman]

Many years back, I saw a logging layout in one of the magazines that featured mostly saddle tank locomotives - they weren't all "docksiders!" Ever since then, I have always liked the little 0-6-0 saddle tanks offered by bachmann and MDC. When I ran across the locomotive pictured above - it reminded me of the MDC 0-6-0t, and I remembered that MDC had once offered the 0-6-0t superstucture along with the HOn3 2-8-0 frame as part of their 3-in-1 kit series. So, off to ebay I went, and this is what I bought:

   

I don't have the dimensions of the prototype, other than it had 38" drivers and over 20k lbs. of tractive effort. That's quite a bit for a 6-coupled 3-foot gauge engine, so I am assuming it is rather large. The kit is a standard-gauge boiler that MDC marketed as HOn3, as they did with their other HOn3 locomotives. It is 9.5 scale feet-wide like my other MDC HOn3 engines, and that is a little wide for typical narrow gauge-engines, but I will have to live with it.

Some other issues:
-the kit is a 2-8-0 chassis, and I want a 2-6-2. That means, the frame has to be modified and either the first or last driver has to to be removed (likely the last).
-the boiler is about 4 scale feet two long through the tank section to fit on the frame properly as a 2-6-2. I notice the prototype has almost no space between the domes, and it looks like if I cut out that space on the model, it would be 4-feet shorter.
-the boiler will sit to high on the cylinders, meaning the cylinder saddle needs to be lowered.
-the kit is unpowered. I can buy a NWSL gearing kit that will fit it, and I may have a motor that will work. Electrical pickup may be tricky.

All-in-all, this should be a challenge and fun.