John Ott's locomotive art prints

A month or so back I ordered two of John Ott's locomotive art prints that he has for sale on his early rail website http://www.ottgalleries.com/. The prints are in the style of the lithographs produced by locomotive builders in the mid 19th century.

When I enquired about purchasing the prints, I found that John has been very busy indeed and has completed many more prints than he has listed on his website, including a new version of the Central Pacific's Jupiter 4-4-0.

The new version is a likely colour scheme based on the latest research. As much as I like the Jupiter's blue colour scheme displayed on the replica at Promontory presently, I felt that if I was going to hang something on my wall I wanted it to be as authentic as possible. So I ordered a print of the Jupiter with her likely colour scheme. I also ordered a print of the 119. Both engines captivated my imagination as a young boy and are largely responsible for my interest in early railroads.

John Ott's prints of the Jupiter and the 119 hang on the wall along with a golden spike. (Unfortunately not real gold).

John was very helpful and shipped the two prints very promptly all the way to New Zealand. The prints spent some time with the local picture framers and I now have them back ready to go on the wall.

John has really put an incredible amount of research and detail into these prints. If you are a fan of early railroads, you won't be disappointed with these prints. They are fantastic and my kids think they are great too. Hopefully, they inspire another generation of early rail modellers.

Track plan

Recently a reader asked if I had track plan of my layout. I had a drawing in the pipeline and their interest gave me the motivation to do the drawing properly and complete it.

So here is the plan for the Thoroughfare Gap Railroad 1895 in HO Scale, completed with good old paper and pen. I have created a separate page on the blog with a high-resolution copy of the track plan here.

The layout evolved into the current configuration The large island to right the original layout and the track plan was inspired by Ron Hatch’s HOn3 Fulton County Narrow Gauge Railroad featured in  Railroad Model Craftsman Sept 1994. This was alot of fun to build but operations were somewhat hamstrung due to a lack of staging. After a while I started to think seriously about expanding the layout. This was not surprising as I enjoy building scenery and there were a number of signature scenes I wanted to model but there had been no space on the original layout.

I didn't want the scenery on the layout to all be the same. I really liked the 'colour moods' approach to modelling scenery that John Olsen used on his Mescal Lines Railroad. You can find out more about this concept in John's article in the January 1984 issue of Model Railroader.

Following this concept, I imagined scenery transitioning to completely different environments to give the impression of the train going 'somewhere' and so added 'L' shaped corner section in modules up but not including the Erewhon section. This gave me the oppportunity to model the small town of Cass, a turntable, sawmill, decidous and redwood forests and a logging scene.

The mainline continued on past the redwood logging scene to a temporary fiddle yard. This was not satisfactory from an operating point of view. If felt the line needed a natural end point and the temporary staging did not have enough space for all my locomotives and rolling stock. I did not like handling the trains everytime on had finished a run so I built Erewhon section which is actually part of a large shelving unit.

Erewhon is a complete compromise. I only had a certain amount of real estate as it is part of a storage shelf unit. I needed tracks to store and turn locomotives, a run around loop and sufficent trackage to store my cars. I also wanted to have a go at making a snow scene which I wrote a little about here and here.

A new locomotive...

My latest modelling project has been kitbashing a new locomotive. If you have explored my locomotives page, you will know that I have three 4-4-0s, one 2-8-0 and one 4-6-0 on the roster. However, I've been missing a 2-6-0 and wanted to fill that gap.

There are not many 2-6-0 pre turn of the century models available. There is a brass mogul which are expensive or the Roundhouse/Athearn 2-6-0 model which is quite beefy for a pre 1900 locomotive.

John Ott has a page on his fantastic website outlining how he kitbashed a Roundhouse 2-6-0 mechanism with a boiler from the Tyco/Mantua 4-6-0 locomotive. You can see John's modelling here. I really liked John's model and decided long ago to give the conversion a crack myself. I already had a junked Mantua 4-6-0 in my draw and finally I managed to buy an old Roundhouse 2-6-0 mechanism.

You will see I borrowed John's concept and many of his ideas like the paper sectional counterweights for the driving wheels. This technique was really simple and looks really good. I'm thinking of applying it to the Bachmann Spectrum 4-4-0 and 4-6-0. John's model is of a much higher standard than my attempt. Nevertheless, I'm pleased with my final result and enjoyed the project.

I stuck to the basic concept and used the Roundhouse mechanism with the shortened Mantua boiler. But, rather than scratchbuilding a cab I retained the Roundhouse one. I also used a spare tender from a burnt out Bachmann Spectrum 4-6-0 and pilfered some of 4-6-0 details, like the bell, headlight lens, airpump and pipework. The oil lamp housing itself came from an old Bachmann 4-4-0 (old tooling) model. Surprising the headlight lens from the burnt out 4-6-0 was the perfect fit for the housing and snapped into place. I also ditched the open frame motor in favour of a can motor. After taking the photos I realised the model is missing airtanks under the running boards so I will add these at some stage.

I chose to paint the cab to represent a wood finish. I like wood cabs and felt an all black cab would make the locomotive too dark, especially when compared with the rest of the roster. The decals were made in photoshop and printed on white decal paper.

The locomotive has a Tsunami 2 sound decoder fitted, along with a current keeper. I have been very impressed with this decoder. It was easy to install and set up using JMRI Decoder Pro. I am especially enjoying the cut off feature which allows you to adjust the steam cut off, while the locomotive is moving. This allows the locomotive to truely 'drift' downgrade with just the rod clanking sounds. Given my layout has a large grade, I really enjoy this feature. When funds allow, It will be hard to restrain myself from upgrading the existing Tsunami 1 sound decoders in the two Spectrum engines and the 2-8-0.

The current keeper is a game changer. This device allows the locomotive to continue moving for up to 10 seconds after power has been lost. More than enough time to assist the locomotive over any dirty track. The risk of course is that if the locomotive derails it may keep on travelling over the scenery causing damage or perhaps find its way to the floor. I believe the risk of this is relatively minimal and the flawless running with the current keeper is next level. I am seriously thinking about installing current keepers in my other locomotives that will accept them, like the Bachmann Spectrum 4-4-0 and 4-6-0 and perhaps the 2-8-0. Although, the 2-8-0 may not have the space given it's tender is smaller.

I hope to do a Youtube video sometime to talk about the project and show what the locomotive is capable of. When I do I will post it here.

This is the link to my Youtube channel