[MOC] Southern Pacific/Western Pacific GS-6 4-8-4 "Warbaby"

[ProvenceTristram]

These are the slightly-less-well-known younger sister to the world famous 4449 - and an engine I'd love to one day see run again (the lone survivor is at the St. Louis Transportation Museum). The build itself was less difficult than I thought it would be, though widening/narrowing of the boiler was annoying, and I was exhausted by the time I got to the tender, so that took longer than it should have. Big Ben XL or Shupp XL are probably a bit too small to represent 72" drivers, but I feel like Shupp's XXL are closer to the 80" mark... so XL it is. 

Proto:

 

Model:

[Cylo]

That looks great! Are you ever going to build in real bricks?

[ProvenceTristram]

7 hours ago, Reaper said:

That looks great! Are you ever going to build in real bricks?

Unlikely. I'm unemployed and destitute. I am in large part doing these to try to distract myself from crippling depression.

[Cylo]

1 hour ago, ProvenceTristram said:

Unlikely. I'm unemployed and destitute. I am in large part doing these to try to distract myself from crippling depression.

I'm so sorry! I really don't know what to say now...

[zephyr1934]

On 12/7/2018 at 4:16 AM, ProvenceTristram said:

Unlikely. I'm unemployed and destitute. I am in large part doing these to try to distract myself from crippling depression.

Indeed, sorry to hear. Though if you polish up one or two of the designs you might be able to sell them as instructions or secure a commission that would allow you to build two+ copies (one for you and one for the customer).

As for the war baby, looks great, though I would suggest making the rungs on the ladders black. It does look to be white or silver in some of the photos, but to my eye the white plates draw too much attention given the fact that they are so much larger with the limited resolution of lego bits at this scale.

[ProvenceTristram]

5 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Indeed, sorry to hear. Though if you polish up one or two of the designs you might be able to sell them as instructions or secure a commission that would allow you to build two+ copies (one for you and one for the customer).

As for the war baby, looks great, though I would suggest making the rungs on the ladders black. It does look to be white or silver in some of the photos, but to my eye the white plates draw too much attention given the fact that they are so much larger with the limited resolution of lego bits at this scale.

The rungs are actually just stand-ins. On the model, I would use something like 93609, which would look a whole lot narrower. I just couldn't do it in LDD (well, I didn't even try, knowing the behavior of the tubes).

As an aside, I ran one high-detail POV of it last night:

Edited December 9, 2018 by ProvenceTristram

[Murdoch17]

I am lucky to have the 4460 (the only surviving GS-6 Warbaby Daylight) in my hometown railroad museum here in St. Louis, and as someone who has labored long and hard to get it right on my own 6-wide version, I applaud your excellent vision of what 4460 looks like in LEGO. You and me are two of the few who have ever attempted to build the GS-6 engine in digital format or otherwise, and I dare say you have blown my version away detail-wise. (you can see my model in real bricks below)

Congratulations @ProvenceTristram, I tip my hat to you! 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Murdoch17