MOC: Texas State Railroad #500

[SavaTheAggie]

Gallery, including work in progress shots.

Texas State Railroad Pacific (4-6-2) Engine #500.

From the TSRR Website:

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Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1911, engine 500 began its career with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway wearing number 1316. It was originally built as a compound steam engine. This design proved to be mechanically unreliable and the locomotive was converted into a standard steam engine in 1923. With a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement (that’s four small wheels in front, six large wheels in the middle and two small wheels in the rear) engine 500 is what’s known as a “Pacific” type locomotive. The 1316 was primarily utilized on fast passenger trains and saw service over most of West Texas, often through the city of San Angelo.

As the golden age of steam railroading drew to an end in the late 40s, this powerful steam locomotive was reduced to pulling local freight trains as the newcomer diesels began taking over its job of fast freight and passenger service. By the early 50s the Santa Fe had completely dieselized its operation and donated the once proud 1316 to the Fort Concho Museum in San Angelo, Texas for utilization as a static display. This seemingly brought to an end the distinguished 1,347,383 mile career of this engine.

In the summer of 1980 crew from the Texas State Railroad showed up at the Fort Concho Museum and, laboring in the West Texas heat, began preparing the engine for a rebirth. The TSRR had arranged to purchase the engine and transport it by rail to the piney woods of East Texas. After a year of dedicated hard work by employees, the former Santa Fe number 1316 was once again on the rails under its new road number, 500.

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This is the second version of this locomotive I have built. The upgrade was a 100% rebuild, nothing of the original MOC remains. She's been upgraded from a 7 wide design to 8-wide, and is now nearly studless. She also utilizes a true, fully functional 4-wheeled pony truck design.

The original MOC of the #500.

--Tony

[aawsum]

Nicely done

The white line and also the new shape of the boiler are so much better. The extra detailing make it look completely different. Well done

[WesternOutlaw]

Very nice Tony. I really like green, and the combination of green with light grey gives this train a very pleasant look. I like the use of the hose around the front end and along side the boiler, as well as the classic red windows for the cab. How do you make your decals? They look great.

Overall, a very clean design. Front-Paged!

[missouri_bb63]

You have done a great job of rebuilding those trains with your newly developed skills! The detailing and use of parts is now up to the same level as your more recent projects. I still like the old versions as well though. They have a real classic look to them.

Edited November 5, 2009 by missouri_bb63

[MetroiD]

Tony, I've always meant to say this -- those guys at Texas State Railroad need to pay you for advertising their railway! As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the best viral marketing approaches that I've seen

[Big Cam]

That's just incredible, it looks so clean and proper almost like a legit LEGO set. Incredible work, I don't know how you train guys do it.

[SavaTheAggie]

Nicely done

The white line and also the new shape of the boiler are so much better. The extra detailing make it look completely different. Well done

Thanks much! When I originally built the locomotive, I thought the white pinstripe was distracting and too small to adequately build. Little did I know then how much that sort of thing adds to a MOC.

Very nice Tony. I really like green, and the combination of green with light grey gives this train a very pleasant look. I like the use of the hose around the front end and along side the boiler, as well as the classic red windows for the cab. How do you make your decals? They look great.

Overall, a very clean design. Front-Paged!

Thanks much! And thanks for the mention of this and the #300 on the front page. She's certainly one of my more striking models; I look forward to when I find the money to start putting together the TSRR passenger cars for her.

I make my decals "by hand" in photoshop, usually overlaying a picture (if available) of the real locomotive to make sure they're accurate. I cheated with the TSRR locos when it comes to the arrow head TSRR logo - I didn't recreate it, but rather took it from their website. I then take my decals and print them up on my father's nice fancy printer on "Do-It-Yourself Photo Sticker Paper" which I buy from my local office supply store, which happens to be Office Depot. It's darn expensive stuff - $2 a sheet (5 sheets to a package) but do they ever look nice. Color matching is done by printing out a test sample using the official LEGO RGB color values (available at Peeron), and then tweaking accordingly. Green is a notoriously hard color to match, since most printers don't actually have green ink - just blue and yellow.

You have done a great job of rebuilding those trains with your newly developed skills! The detailing and use of parts is now up to the same level as your more recent projects. I still like the old versions as well though. They have a real classic look to them.

Thanks much! I never thought of the previous versions as "bad", I also think they've got a nice, clean feel to them, they were simply horribly inaccurate to what I was claiming them to be. Before I tore the original #300 and #500 apart, I built them in LDraw and put together instructions, so that I can rebuild them if I so choose. I may also make said instructions available for purchase in my Bricklink store.

Tony, I've always meant to say this -- those guys at Texas State Railroad need to pay you for advertising their railway! As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the best viral marketing approaches that I've seen

Heheh.... thanks. I don't know if I'd call it a viral marketing campaign... at least not until there was some evidence people were actually going over there because of me. The TSRR folks are actually very aware of me now. My first encounter with them was at the World's Greatest Hobby on Tour model train show in San Antonio this spring.

And then later at their Railfest this fall I actually visited the site and spoke with some of their representatives.

We've discussed some possibilities, but nothing I'm willing to talk about until specifics are discussed and plans made.

That's just incredible, it looks so clean and proper almost like a legit LEGO set. Incredible work, I don't know how you train guys do it.

Thanks much! We do it through lots of research, planning, and failure. And... sometimes a healthy dose of dumb luck.

--Tony

[MrTools]

Wonderful MOC, your attention to detail, and color is amazing. The wheels on the engine look amazing as well as the SNOT work.

[WhiteFang]

Beautiful re-creation of this Texas State Railroad #500.

Very nicely done and great job! I didn't know tthat you are able to make use of bright green bricks to construct a very nice train. In fact, it appears to be rather refreshing, kinda of reminds me of peppermint. Nevertheless, this is an outstanding train moc. Thanks for sharing it with us.

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