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This engine began life as Anthony Sava's 2-8-4 Berkshire based on the real Pere Marquette 1225, from which I purchased instructions of way back in 2012. I then modified the model with a new boiler, longer wheelbase (two extra drivers making it into 2-10-4), reddish brown exterior paint scheme, new cow-catcher, smoke-box door, and pistons. More recently, I reconfigured the engine back into a 2-8-4 Berkshire in order to add a better front pony truck, modeled after the one in the Emerald Night set. (10194) The engine handles better than the Texas version, and is easier to roll thanks to the improved pistons. Here is the engine on a curve to let you get an idea of the overhang. The firebox door maybe a little large, but I like it better than the original 4 x 4 dish that was on the original Berkshire way back in 2012 when I first built it. No ldd file is available, sorry! ...and here is a picture that looks good as a desktop on my computer: "Take it to the limit" Brick Railway Systems "Berkshire" 6297 meets Southern Pacific "Daylight" 4460 at the yard limit sign near Barrett's Station. And yes, the title is a nod at the Eagles song of the same name. Here is the train this engine pulls: The baggage car The three updated coaches.. and yes, I know the cars are a bit wonky in their placement: the first car is off the rails a bit, while the second is on a bit of a hill and the third is cut-off in the left edge. The observation car... this one features the 909 markings on the rear deck. Originally these cars were 30 studs long and 8 studs wide, plus their were six of them. Their length wrapped around my Dad's 8 foot-long layout, so I got rid of two of them, reducing the length dramatically but also reducing the number of cars to four. A Berkshire (not yet a Texas type at this point in time and way before being color-swapped to brown and going back to being a Berkshire) type pulling a skimpy four car train looked silly, so I came up with what you see here: five 24 stud-long train cars in 6 wide. Where did get the idea for them in the first place? They were inspired by a 8 wide Galaxy Express 999 MOC I saw years ago on Brickshelf. (see it here: http://www.brickshel...ry.cgi?f=374748 ) The name of this train was changed to the tune of the Beatles song "One after 909" from the album "Let it Be". Then I tried a bunch of words after that go with 909, including the following: limited, express, cannonball, flyer, runner, and a bunch of other names and combination of said names I can't recall right now. Eventually, I ran into National Limited on accident when correcting a typo. I liked the way it sounded, and thus 909 National Limited was born. Unfortunately, their is no LDD file for the passenger train. -
These two trains comprise my space-train fleet for the Nexus Force, one streamlined passenger train, and one generic freight train. You can see more the Nexus Force stuff in this thread here in the Space sub-forum. It features a modular base, trucks, crawlers, and several spaceships, along with the mini-figures. (human or otherwise!) The Moonlighter train is owned by the Nexus Force, and is a retro-futuristic stream-liner mix of old-school steam technology, but with hyper-modern safety features designed specifically for use by Nexus Force personnel as a very high-speed, high-security ground transport between the northern-most city of St. Nicklaus and north-pole-hugging outpost of Ice Station Odyssey, around 500 miles away. (this all takes places on the ice-bound planet of Beta Polaris, which orbits what we here call the North Star, far away from Earth.) Thus this makes it a space train! Unlike the slower Earth trains, the Moonlighter type of space-train is super-streamlined, and can go up to speeds of up to 110 MPH (135 is the loco's top possible speed) on it's special track, with super-elevated curves and long straight-away's over hundreds of miles, all while using Positive Train Control (PTC) on the the mostly double-track mainline, where all vehicle crossings are flyovers and switches virtually non-existent once out of St. Nicklaus city limits. This train runs along with nine other identical versions of this train (10 total trains in all) on the route with up to seven in running order on the route and at least two in the maintenance shed / in emergency backup storage at any one time. They are numbered 200 through 210. The Nexus Force logo on the nose of the Moonlighter streamlined casing, (near the smokestack) and the rear of the observation car, while the engine's number (207) goes under the cab windows. The two forward tanks are for oil, and the rear tank is for water. The engine is equipped with a water scoop (like on the old New York Central steam locomotives) for refilling the water tank on the fly. There is a ladder from the tender-top deck to the coupler level behind the engine for access to the trailing passenger cars, and two ladders on either side of the steam loco for entry into the enclosed control cab. Three of these passenger cars go on the Moonlighter, with two before the dome car and one immediately after it. The recessed panels are the platform doors. One of these vista-dome cars goes in the middle of the train. (You may have noticed there are no exterior platform doors on this car. I decided not to add them because they didn't look good with the dome.) The rear observation car is currently missing it's rear curved windows, but it will have them when built IRL. The Nexus Force logo goes on the rear of this car, as previously mentioned above. After 45-ton locomotive 2011 has arranged a freight train in the Nexus force spaceport's yard, a electric main-line loco has arrived on scene to pull it's train to the some 500+ miles distant city of St. Nicklaus. This larger locomotive is numbered 99, and is running with a mobile armored cannon unit for the journey ahead, as it runs through some areas that could be ripe for an ambush by enemy forces, as you never know where the Maelstrom might have agents in deep cover or have planted ambushes alongside the line. A train was derailed and attacked last month in Avalanche Canyon by pirates, which is why the railroad is taking no more chances while it's position is being currently fortified all along the route. The other cars being pulled are: a flatcar carrying Commander Bob's 1960's sports car (going for it's yearly tune-up in town), a fully-loaded gasoline tanker, bathtub gondola with ice boulder load, and a bay-window caboose for the train's rear-end crew and a few more soldiers... just in case! This orange and white electric locomotive was inspired by the preliminary version of set 60198. (2018 Freight train) The inside is accessible via the removable roof sections. This model was inspired by this armored train MOC, that was itself inspired by the movie "Castle in the Sky" and it's armored train therein. The road vehicle model is partially inspired by Lola the car from the TV show Agents of Shield. (although this one doesn't fly) The sports car doesn't have great off-road capabilities, so it has to be trucked in on a flatcar to the remote space base. This fuel tanker is filled with gasoline or diesel fuel for use in the space base's land vehicles. Usually two or three tanker cars are sent into the base every couple weeks for refueled the on-base supply. This bathtub gondola is filled with ice boulders that have frozen ancient lifeforms trapped inside. The Nexus Force is sending them to a specialist laboratory off-world to have the DNA decoded and the beings themselves studied. Due to height clearance issues in St. Nicklaus city, regular-height cupola caboose types are forbidden. So, the bay window type is used instead. This moon base-like space base model is where the Moonlighter travels to, and was inspired by set 60036 (Arctic Base Camp), with a rooftop shield generator partially lifted from set 75098 (Assault on Hoth) and a sensor array inspired by set 76157 (Wonder Woman VS. Cheetah) The base consists of eight separate, interchangeable, modular sections, all of which have opening roof / wall sections for ease of access. These sections include (but are not limited too): a common bunk room, a spaceship control tower, a fusion generator, communications room, break room, and several more. As you can see, I joined the base to the rail-line with a short siding for freight deliveries, and for the servicing of steam locomotives on services such as the Moonlighter.
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"Masterpiece" Spending so much time at the Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum, one will really begin to appreciate everything in their collection, not to mention the facility itself. Everything from the extraordinary to mundane will find its way into your mind and heart. I must admit that in my years of steam locomotive research and enjoyment, the Nickel Plate 700's did not strike me. For whatever reason, they just didn't click with me. I'm not sure what it was, but obviously, that's changed now. Cale and I modeled 765 way back in 2017 when we were still figuring out Brick Model Railroader. It took some convincing, but we eventually decided that Nickel Plate Road 765 would be our first collaborative steam locomotive model. We had a running model that needed some adjustment, but quickly became disinterested in the project due to external factors. We were never quite happy with where we left this project, and vowed to each other that we would return to the model some day to do it again, properly. Several years later, in late October 2021, and on a whim, I laid out a scaled wheelbase in stud.io, just to see what it would look like. I left the file alone for a couple more months until the Holiday season of 2021. I began thinking about a Nickel Plate Berkshire running around a Christmas tree, inspired by the amazing "Travel Refreshed" speculative project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2mU6jVcv4w&ab_channel=FortWayneRailroadHistoricalSociety This set my mind racing with thoughts of the late 1940's when large mainline superpower led "hotshot manifest" trains through the heart of America. If there was ever a perfect depiction of postwar steam railroading, it was this, and the Nickel Plate Road was the poster child. The Nickel Plate Road connected the farms of the Midwest in St. Louis and Chicago to Buffalo in the east. The road took a fast, level route along the southern edge of the great lakes. A direct competitor to the New York Central, it was purchased by the Vanderbilts in an effort to remove competition. As such, the line was never optimized and operated with older and slower equipment. The Nickel Plate was purchased by Oris and Mantis Van Sweringen, brothers from Cleveland who had controlling interests of several other roads including the Chesapeake & Ohio, Wheeling & Lake Erie, Pere Marquette, Erie, and more. The "Vans" would lead efforts to completely transform the Nickel Plate into the powerhouse bridge road it is remembered as today. One of those efforts included the creation of the Advisory Mechanical Committee (AMC), which served as a design bureau for the roads under control of the Vans. One of the first projects for the AMC was the design of the C&O T-1 class 2-10-4 engines, the largest two cylinder steam locomotives when built. Continuing in efforts to rejuvenate the Nickel Plate, president John Bernet assigned AMC officer William Black the task of designing a super-power locomotive. The result was the Nickel Plate S class of 2-8-4, built by ALCO Schenectady in 1934. The AMC, capitalizing on their winning formula for the T-1, maintained the factor of adhesion just above 4 while scaling down the rest of the locomotive: eliminating the fifth pair of 69" drivers and creating a locomotive with 70% of the tractive effort and 70% of the weight. Unbeknownst to Bernet, Black, and the AMC, they had just captured lightning in a bottle. To truly appreciate why the 700's were such good locomotives, the operating mentality of the Nickel Plate must be understood. The road was a masterpiece of engineering, maintaining a very flat right of way along the mainline, running shorter but faster trains handling bridge traffic over the line. Operating conditions like these coupled with the high-horsepower 700s, there has hardly been a more perfect match of locomotive and railroad. The Berkshires were so effective and loved, the Nickel Plate laughed away EMD diesel demonstrators multiple times until the end of steam in 1958. Even still, several of these locomotives were stored serviceable in anticipation of a traffic spike that never occurred. 763, part of the third batch of Berkshires in total (S-2 class) and second batch from Lima (Works #8671), was one of these locomotives. Officially retired a few years after the end of steam, it stayed in Conneaut, Ohio until 1966 when it was purchased by the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia. 763 remained in Roanoke for several years until it was towed to New Jersey for inspection to pull the American Freedom Train, but other locomotives were selected., and 763 returned to Roanoke. Ohio Central and Age of Steam founder Jerry Jacobson purchased the locomotive from the museum in 2007, returning the engine home to Ohio. It is currently stored inside the Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in stall 4, a regular favorite part of any regular public tour. All that to say: I never expected to have such a deep, genuine understanding and appreciation for these engines. It says a lot when someone can connect with a piece of machinery in such a way, and gain understanding of its purpose and reason for existing. The 700s were truly magnificent machines. So, in deciding that I was going to model one of these amazing locomotives, I began working in stud.io, and over the course of several months, I came up with what must have been at least a dozen iterations of the rough shape of the engine solely to achieve "the look." With 765 currently operating and with countless fans of the locomotives, the 700's are well recognized and people are going to be able to pick out the details, so any model of one has to be done properly. Once I had the correct shape and proportions, I filled in gaps and rebuilt section after section until I had a completed digital model in June of this year. By then, I had just seen 765 operate in person for the second time and was feeling inspired, so work on the custom wheels and connecting rods progressed alongside. Refining, trial, failure, adjustment, and testing continued until December 2022 when I completed the physical model. Naturally, I had to model 763 specifically, being the preserved example at Age of Steam. Under the hood this model is identical to my Mohawk: a pair of Power Functions L motors geared 1:1 driving the third axle, each operating from its own Power Functions IR receiver, and powered by a Tenergy 7.4v 2200 mAh battery. 763 operates smoothly and without issue thanks to the drive train design and high-quality printing of the wheels, rods, and valve gear. Drivers and trailing wheels designed by me and printed by Rob Hendrix, all rods and valve gear designed by me and printed through Shapeways. All artwork was faithfully recreated by Cale Leiphart. Decals printed by OKBrickWorks and UV printed number boards and bearing caps are from Richard Glatter. Thank you all for your help with this project. Having completed and published Buffalo Creek & Gauley 13, Morehead & North Fork 12, and now Nickel Plate Road 763, my Age of Steam collection grows. Those who know me personally understand that I'm not one to brag about my work. However, I feel I must say that I think I've outdone myself with this model. I would say this is the most new, ground-up design of locomotive I have built in a while. I've achieved detail and accuracy that I haven't seen on even some traditional scale models, and it all works together to make 763 perhaps my best model yet. A masterpiece of a masterpiece, if you will. As 2022 winds down, I'm elated to publish this locomotive and check it off the list. As I mentioned earlier this year, I've had a lot in progress recently so wrapping something up feels fantastic. There's a bit more in store for the immediate future, but we'll get to that later. As always, thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone for their support of my work through comments, questions, and compliments. It is always sincerely appreciated and I am thankful to be a part of such a fun community. More photos here: Video here: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Glenn Holland
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Hey guys! I have a new MOC to share. This was a commissioned build that will be turned into a full kit for bricktraindepot.com. Will be doing additional full kits for Nickel Plate #765 and Pere Marquette #1225 as well. Pre-orders for all three kits will open on September 1st! If you purchase the C&O kit, $100 will be donated to Kentucky Steam to help with the restoration of #2716. Anyways, about the engine. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway's K-4 class were a group of ninety 2-8-4 steam locomotives purchased during and shortly after World War II. Unlike many other railroads in the United States, the C&O chose to nickname this class "Kanawha", after the river in West Virginia, rather than "Berkshire", after the region in New England. During the 1940s, the C&O K-4's were being built to haul heavy freight services and were used mostly for high speed freight and passenger services throughout the north-eastern regions of the United States and part of Ontario, Canada by the Pere Marquette Railway. C&O Class K-4s were one of the few recognizable 2-8-4 (Berkshires) classes in North America along with the Pere Marquette Class N (road numbers 1201-1239), and Nickel Plate Road Class S (road numbers 715-779). Both the PM Class N and NKP Class S were manufactured by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio. NKP 779 was the last standard-gauge Berkshire to be built in the world, and the last steam locomotive built by Lima Locomotive Works. My model features 2x L motors in the boiler with custom battery box in the tender and all specialty wire custom finished, 3D printed XL drivers, BrickTracks wheel in roller bearings, custom side rods by TrainedBricks, and decals by OkBrickWorks. I've finished the physical build and have been doing testing while waiting for OKBrickWorks to print my decals and wheels. Hope you enjoy the renders for now. More pictures will be coming soon! Left Front by Jeffinslaw, on Flickr Right Front by Jeffinslaw, on Flickr Getting close! by Jeffinslaw, on Flickr Additionally, be on the lookout for other train cars from BTD such as the AAR 50 ton hopper in C&O livery as well as an update to our TOFC to include a C&O flat car and some Railway Express Agency trailers. Let me know that you guys think! -Jeffinslaw
