Soeobo Pacific Model Railroad

The  Burlington rostered 10 USRA design 0-8-0 locomotives in the F-1 class. They are one of the few classes of CB&Q steamers that can be accurately modeled from a mass-produced plastic model. On the whole, the CB&Q preferred 0-6-0s for most switching duties and had comparatively few 0-8-0s. The F-1 switchers were mainly used in the large classification yards such as Cicero, IL or Beardstown in Southern Illinois coal country. Several years ago, I purchased a Walthers Proto USRA 0-8-0 that was factory painted as CB&Q 542. The engine is very well detailed and is a quiet runner. It came with a QSI sound decoder that was a little….meh.    It ran fine and sounded okay. I used it on my home layout but never gave it any upgrades or improvements. Eventually the tinny chuff and generic whistle began to get on my nerves. With the first section of my new layout under construction, I was inspired to spiff up the 542 and do some switching on what will eventually become an i...

The EMD F2 was a transition model and introduced the general architecture that carried on through the remainder of F-unit production all the way to the F9 of the mid 1950’s. Offered only for 5 months at the end of 1946, the F2 sported a revised carbody and improvements to the arrangement of internal components compared to the FT. Belt-driven radiator fans and traction motor blowers were replaced with electrically driven ones. The F2 used the same D8 main generator as the FT, which limited power output to the same 1,350hp. Development of a new generator coincided with the beginning of F3 production in December 1946. The Burlington’s 10 F2As were delivered in July 1946. They were ordered specifically to pair with FTA/B sets to make 3-unit 4050hp locomotives for use on trains where 4-unit sets were overpowered. Since the Burlington considered each set a single locomotive, road numbers were shared across the sets with letter suffixes to distinguish each unit (e.g. 150-A, -B, & -C)....

Like many railroads, the CB&Q’s first road freight diesel was the EMD FT. They received 16 4-unit FT locomotives in 1943-44. The A-B-B-A sets were semi-permanently coupled and were considered single 5,400hp locomotives. In the immediate postwar years, 5 of the FT sets were broken up and paired with 10 F2 cab units built in 1946 to create 4050hp 3-unit F2A - FTB - FTA locomotives. The Burlington operated a large fleet of F units during the years I model, so I couldn’t resist having one of these uniquely Q sets on my layout. While models of the later F unit versions are plentiful, FT’s have only been made in plastic by Bachmann, Intermountain, and Stewart. (As of this writing, Rapido has also announced FTs.) The Bachmann FT is inaccurate as it uses the same chassis as a later-model F-unit and is too long as a result. The Intermountain offering would have been my first choice from a detail perspective, but they are out of production and very hard to find on the secondary market. Stewa...

Pictures show that The J’s centercabs wore a variety of schemes over the years. The as-built scheme was a solid orange body over black frame and trucks. Sometime in the mid-late 50’s they got the attractive green over orange paint. Towards the end of their service lives, the units reverted back to a solid orange carbody with silver trucks. I’m a big fan of the green and orange scheme, but I decided to remain true to my modeling era and use the as-built colors. I planned to use acrylic paints for the final colors and wasn’t sure how well they would adhere to the 3D printed material. So I first sprayed the shell with gray primer from a rattle can. I used light passes until I had completely opaque coverage. I didn’t try too hard to match the exact shade of EJ&E orange. I was not able to find color photos of the as-built scheme, and I figured fading and weathering would produce color variations anyway. I used a bottle of Polyscale GN orange that I had squirreled away for some forgotten...

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...