Southern Pacific AC-9 #3802

[Ropefish]

Flickr Album

Hey all! i finally got the AC-9 to a point were I took some nicer finalized photos and was satisfied with the final build! all in all its been a long journey and for my first physical locomotive im rather happy with how it came out, She can full take R104 curves and has come out at around 9-10W in scale wich is pretty spot on to a number of models and technical drawings i scoured! its a sad thing though that all real life examples of this locomotive have been destroyed. This left me with very little things to build the model with, but thankfully there were a remainder of some real life photos that had been digitized and a rough enough technical drawing to go off of! finer details i compared multiple models to make, getting as accurate as i can.

Im proud to have built my favorite locomotive, Many times i almost gave up and felt my skills paled in the shadow of others. But i stuck with it, and i hope to build more in the future!

Edited August 26, 2024 by Ropefish

[bogieman]

Really looks great! Nicely done. Do you print your own valve gear and rods?

Dave

[Feuer Zug]

Amazing build! That's an incredible amount of detail you worked into the locomotive. Brick ON!

[Ropefish]

9 hours ago, bogieman said:

Really looks great! Nicely done. Do you print your own valve gear and rods?

Dave

Thank you! I did infact do so, @zephyr1934’s file repository has cad files for Ldraw and such wich I assembled for the custom set here then printed in PETG light gray ontop of other parts I custom made from bits and bobs.

8 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

Amazing build! That's an incredible amount of detail you worked into the locomotive. Brick ON!

Thank you very much!

[Murdoch17]

Congrats on making the front page - it's well deserved for such a fantastic MOC!

[Ropefish]

On 8/27/2024 at 7:15 AM, Murdoch17 said:

Congrats on making the front page - it's well deserved for such a fantastic MOC!

Thank you! i was surprised it did.

[zephyr1934]

That looks amazing and the skyline casing is the icing on the cake. Now you just need 100 PFE reefers to pull behind it!

 

On 8/26/2024 at 8:05 PM, Ropefish said:

Thank you! I did infact do so, @zephyr1934’s file repository has cad files for Ldraw and such wich I assembled for the custom set here then printed in PETG light gray ontop of other parts

Hey now, when my hungry children turn up knocking on your door for food you better feed them. In all seriousness, the LDraw files do not have all the details the rods I sell. That is fine if you are modifying the LDraw files for personal use, but please do not sell or distribute derivatives of them.

[Ropefish]

25 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

That looks amazing and the skyline casing is the icing on the cake. Now you just need 100 PFE reefers to pull behind it!

 

Hey now, when my hungry children turn up knocking on your door for food you better feed them. In all seriousness, the LDraw files do not have all the details the rods I sell. That is fine if you are modifying the LDraw files for personal use, but please do not sell or distribute derivatives of them.

hah hah i am working on the PFE reefers! just gotta get the parts, and yeah to add i had to touch up the files after the fact, but they were a good basis to work off of! if you don't wanna labor for hours in cad software and test fitting/iterating components Zephyr has their shop!

[-DoNe-]

Shaping and proportions are very well done. The valve gear is a treat in itself! 

[Ropefish]

14 hours ago, -DoNe- said:

Shaping and proportions are very well done. The valve gear is a treat in itself! 

Thank you! i actually wanted to get the valve gear more accurate but it'd require even more specialization of parts, I got wonderful advice from Glenn Holland about making the gear /feel/ like the real thing then fully function and i think i striked the right balance! I could have gone with a technic piston like other builds but the southern pacific locos of its era all have this lovely shape i couldn't captured without them being brick built! So i think i made the right choice in the end!

[-DoNe-]

19 hours ago, Ropefish said:

Thank you! i actually wanted to get the valve gear more accurate but it'd require even more specialization of parts, I got wonderful advice from Glenn Holland about making the gear /feel/ like the real thing then fully function and i think i striked the right balance! I could have gone with a technic piston like other builds but the southern pacific locos of its era all have this lovely shape i couldn't captured without them being brick built! So i think i made the right choice in the end!

Definitely. The functionality adds another dimension to a build like this. I bet it looks a treat on the tracks! 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Beautiful locomotive and great attention to details.

The 3D printed wheels with the white profile are incredible, the complex mechanics of the pistons looks wonderful!

[Ropefish]

1 hour ago, -DoNe- said:

Definitely. The functionality adds another dimension to a build like this. I bet it looks a treat on the tracks! 

im working on getting a video soon, still been fiddling with the motors to run smooth together!

 

1 hour ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Beautiful locomotive and great attention to details.

The 3D printed wheels with the white profile are incredible, the complex mechanics of the pistons looks wonderful!

thank you! the 3D printer really came in handy with the build :D

[Ropefish]

Finally got some good videos of it running! don't mind the floor, the cats like to just make a mess of it the exact day we clean their litter boxes :x

 

Edited September 3, 2024 by Ropefish

[bogieman]

Looks great running! I can't tell from the second video if the trailing set of drivers rotate relative to the boiler. If they do, where did you locate the pivot?

Dave

[Ropefish]

5 hours ago, bogieman said:

Looks great running! I can't tell from the second video if the trailing set of drivers rotate relative to the boiler. If they do, where did you locate the pivot?

Dave

They don’t! This runs only on R104 or larger radius, the main driver set is attached by two of those old wheel suspension bricks that I replaced the springs with, and then locked down onto the driver set.