For those of you who don't know me I am 14 years old and since school got out in May, I have been scratch building a 0-4+4-0 fairlie locomotive. The prototype was purchased by the Denver & Rio Grande in 1873. It was built in England by the Vulcan Foundry Co. and named the 'Mountaineer". There are two known photos of her, one a builder photo in England, and the other somewhere on La Veta Pass between La Veta and Alamosa, Colorado. She was #101 and the first articulated engine ever to run in Colorado.Supposedly she was less than successful because they junked her in 1883 and scrapped her in 1887. She was a helper on La Veta most of the time to help trains up the 4% grade. The problem was that one set of drivers would pull the bulk of the train while the other set just spun randomly.
Here is the builder's photo taken at the Vulcan Foundry...
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Here is the one on La Veta after the D&RG altered it a bit...
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The whole model is scratch built aside from the running gear which are both from Bachmann ten wheelers. The boiler is a piece of pipe, the frame and tanks are styrene, and the steam domes are Bachmann EZ-Lube bottles. David Fletcher sent me the Hartland stacks, Aristo headlights, and crew figures. He also helped me with the paint scheme which he got from the "Josephine", a surviving Fairlie. I had quite a bit of trouble with headlight brackets for a while. I finally ended up using some from "The General" 1:25 kit on the front and I made brass ones for the rear. The one thing that I love about both the prototype and my model, is that each set of drivers swivel on the frame enabling her to track sharp curves.
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Here is a close up of the builder's plates and name plates on one of the tanks. I had them custom made in New Jersey...
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This is the interior of the cab. She had tandem firebox doors (which must have been a pain to fire). I made the top of the boiler accessible in the cab so that I can get inside to turn the radio on and off and so that I can charge the batteries.
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Unfortunately my computer caught a nasty virus a few weeks ago and the hard drive had to be reformatted. Due to this, I lost all of the pictures I took during the construction of the locomotive.
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Thanks for looking
Here is the builder's photo taken at the Vulcan Foundry...
Here is the one on La Veta after the D&RG altered it a bit...
The whole model is scratch built aside from the running gear which are both from Bachmann ten wheelers. The boiler is a piece of pipe, the frame and tanks are styrene, and the steam domes are Bachmann EZ-Lube bottles. David Fletcher sent me the Hartland stacks, Aristo headlights, and crew figures. He also helped me with the paint scheme which he got from the "Josephine", a surviving Fairlie. I had quite a bit of trouble with headlight brackets for a while. I finally ended up using some from "The General" 1:25 kit on the front and I made brass ones for the rear. The one thing that I love about both the prototype and my model, is that each set of drivers swivel on the frame enabling her to track sharp curves.
Here is a close up of the builder's plates and name plates on one of the tanks. I had them custom made in New Jersey...
This is the interior of the cab. She had tandem firebox doors (which must have been a pain to fire). I made the top of the boiler accessible in the cab so that I can get inside to turn the radio on and off and so that I can charge the batteries.
Unfortunately my computer caught a nasty virus a few weeks ago and the hard drive had to be reformatted. Due to this, I lost all of the pictures I took during the construction of the locomotive.
Thanks for looking
