Soeobo Pacific Model Railroad

The 3D printed centercab shell was designed to fit over a Stewart Alco C-628 or C-630 chassis. I found a second-hand C-628 that ran smoothly out of the box. The engine rides on Alco Trimount trucks, which needed to be swapped out for the Commonwealth trucks used under the Baldwin centercabs. Like the Commonwealth trucks, the Alco trucks have an offset axle spacing. However, the direction of the offset (short spacing towards the coupler side) is reversed compared to the centercab trucks (long spacing towards the coupler side). Following instructions on the James Model Railways website, I purchased his set of replacement gear towers and gears from Shapeways that included the correct axle offset. I also purchased the correct Commonwealth side frames directly from Bowser. The side frame kit also came with improved electrical pickups to draw power from all three axles in the truck instead of just two, as on the older Stewart model. Unfortunately, the 3D printed gear towers were simply too b...

Baldwin’s centercab transfer diesels were a childhood favorite of mine. I loved their impressive size and unusual carbody design. I was also fortunate enough to live close to the Illinois Railway Museum, location of the only preserved example, MN&S 21. Though the CB&Q did not own any of these big Baldwins, the Chicago area was home to EJ&E’s fleet of 27 units (over half of the total centercabs Baldwin produced). This gave me a plausible reason to include one on my roster. The prototype photos in this post come from a Baldwin promotional booklet found here . The EJ&E received one prototype unit in 1946, which output 2000hp from twin 608NA (normally aspirated) 8-cylinder engines. In 1948, the EJ&E went back to Baldwin for 25 production units. These were also rated at 2,000hp, but used twin 606SC (supercharged) 6-cylinder engines. The railroad also purchased one of Baldwin’s demonstrator units to round out its fleet of 27. My model represents one of the 25 production u...