SUPERSTRUCTURE DETAILS

When I added the hardware to my model, I referred to a lot of photos in books and back issues of magazines. The resulting details reflect what I saw. Use prototype photos and those of my model as a guide for your own.

I drilled holes for rivets in the smokebox, inserted straight pins, and bonded the heads in place with CA. At the time I built the model, many brass castings available today were still only gleams in the eyes of detail part manufacturers so I made my own air pumps, air reservoirs, generator, injectors, power reverse, valves, and various other fittings from styrene sheet and tubing. I used brass rod or styrene tubing for the piping. Scratchbuilt styrene brackets hold the piping in place. I also used brass rod for the handrails but the turned brass stanchions came from the Richart Company in Escondido, California. The whistle is a white metal casting from Shortline Car & Foundry.

I modified plastic parts from the LGB 2085D for use as boiler steps. Brass rod and angle stock make up the smokestack's exhaust splitter. The splitter's purpose was to diffuse the exhaust enough to keep it from damaging snowshed and tunnel linings as the huge mallets climbed the Southern Pacific's steep grades.

I also had to re-wire the model so the lights would operate. I used a small iron to solder new wires between the mechanism's circuit board and the tender's backup light and markers. I soldered W.S. Deans Company gold pin connectors to the end of each wire.

Before we turn attention to the tender, one more word about the locomotive: By now, the model's large size, its heavy lead weight, and its fairly delicate detailing will have combined to make it awkward to handle. I will save your having to learn for yourself where to hold it. While the model remains disassembled, pick it up under the weight. After you assemble it, use both hands to pick it up beneath the weight. If you are careful of the handrails, you will find the model will remain undamaged even if you or your friends handle it frequently.

THE TENDER

You may use either an LGB 4060 flatcar or the chassis from any ARISTO-CRAFT car as the basis for the tender. We will mainly use the underframe and bolsters for mounting the trucks. You will have to cut apart the car, take out a section, and splice it back together. If you use an LGB car, you also will have to remove the side sills, stirrup steps, stake pockets, and truss rods. If you plan to add a sound system, you also should drill holes in the floor as in Photo X.

The body of a prototype Southern Pacific tender is really two separate tanks but I built mine as in Figure 1. The vertical strips of styrene at the point about one-third of the distance from the front to the back respresents the joint between the oil and water tanks.

Many modelers, including me, have had trouble trying to use an oven to heat a large sheet of styrene prior to bending it around a form so I avoided the oven. I made up a frame, then secured .025-inch thick styrene sheet to the inner shell with cement. After I had bent the sheet around the frame, I used C-clamps to secure it between a pair of scraps of 1- by 2-inch lumber.

The resulting tank will be surprisingly strong. When the cement has dried, add rectangles of .100-inch thick sheet styrene at each inside corner of the subfloor to accept the four flatcar mounting screws. Then punch rivets in a .025-inch thick sheet styrene wrapper and laminate it over the shell.

Use prototype photos and the photos of my model as a guide for adding detail. I built up most of the parts on my model from styrene, just as I did on the locomotive. I used brass rod for the piping and handrails. The brakewheel on the front of the tank comes from Clubhouse Models (Pittsburgh, PA). You could drag a razor saw over strip styrene to form "wood" running boards on top of the tender or you could do as I did: Use strips of 1/16- by 3/8-inch pine. They rest on Plastruct supports. Build up the ladders from Evergreen styrene strip or strip brass.

Build up four corner step assemblies from sheet styrene and cement them to the underside of the modified flatcar chassis. Refer to the photos. The Bettendorf trucks on my model are from Clubhouse Models; Model Die Casting's 1:32 scale Bettendorfs were still unavailable when I built my tender. I added Talgo coupler mounts to my trucks; MDC trucks include them. The front truck has a simple drawbar with a hole through the end. It mates with the drawbar on the locomotive. A bolt holds them together. The rear truck has a Clubhouse 1:32 scale dummy coupler. Now that Kadee® Number One scale couplers are available, you might prefer them.

PAINT, DECALS, AND CONCLUSION

Southern Pacific has never had a reputation for maintaining its locomotives in pristine condition so I airbrushed my Cab Forward with Floquil Grimy Black. For a newer locomotive or one the shops have more recently washed, you might prefer Floquil Engine Black. You may want to paint the faces of the drivers black, too; it will help to camouflage their size. (Real MM-2 Cab Forwards had larger diameter drivers.) The cab interior is light green. Before you apply paint, remember to mask the windows carefully and to protect the electrical connectors and components.

Fortunately, decals of almost the correct size for 1:32 scale are available: Champ O scale Southern Pacific Daylight set number 4210. In the days when the MM-2 saw service, Southern Pacific lettering was smaller than it was in the later 1940s.

If you enjoy building, you will really like tackling a locomotive as large as a 1:32 Cab Forward. When you watch your model's boiler hang out over a curve or admire its running gear powering a sleek passenger train up the grades of your layout, you will feel tremendous pride in your effort. I am now joining and modifying a pair of Bachmann Big Hauler 4-6-0s into a 1:32 scale Southern Pacific 4-6-6-2 Cab Forward so my MM-2 will have a companion. Try 1:32 scale. You'll like it.