The C&O was almost exclusivly an EMD road but in 1956 they took delivery of some 6 motor Alco RSD-12 units to replace H-4 and H-6 class 2-6-6-2 mallets in the Logan coal field. Congregating mostly around the Peach Creek, West Virginia yard they worked mine runs until transfered to the B&O in the 1960's.
When Weaver announced it's RSD-12 factory painted for the C&O I decided to order one. It would come with the standard 3-rail swinging pilots but after talking with someone at Weaver I found I could mount the two rail pilots for a more realistic look.
When the engine finally arrived (after a 6 month delay) I opened the box and in general was quite pleased. To my suprise the engine had all 6 axles powered with flanges on the outer two axles of each truck. This is far superior to the standard rail practice of powering and flanging only the two axles nearest each end. It does make the engine run a little rougher on very sharp curves but since I don't plan to use curves tighter than 0-54 I wasn't concerned. After examining the 2 rail pilots I found I could use the 3 rail couplers if I opened up the coupler pocket in each pilot. My friend the machinist made the changes for me and I had an engine with fixed pilots that could negotiate 054 curves!
After I compared the engine to some books I have I found that while fairly accurate, there was some room for improvement. The prototype engine had a bell very prominantly mounted on top off the short hood. Also, the cab had sunshades which were also very visible. I decided to add these two details. It all snowballed from there! See below for a complete list of all details added and changes made.
Above is the classic 3/4 view. You can see most of the details added,
which include:
Fixed Pilots
New side handrails
New end handrails with drop-steps and MU's
Bell on top of short hood
Seperate grab irons
Windshield wipers
Cab sunshades
Cab wind deflectors
Correct Leslie 5 chime horn in correct location
Seperate lift rings
See-through radiator grill with fan
Builders plate
Cab interior figures
Improved decoration:
Painted MU hosesHere is a side view. You can really see the effect of the fixed pilots and stepside painting.
Painted stepsides on pilot and skirt
"F" on sideskirt
Painted cab interior
Black paint wash applied to side grills and exaust opening
Painted windowframes
This closeup shows the see-through grill:
Here is a sideview that shows one of the figures in the cab. I had to
file the figure almost down the middle to get it to fit in the narrow space
between the cab and hood!
One last shot shows the changes I made to the cab and skirt. If you look carefully you will notice that the long hood handrail on the engineers side (see 3/4 view) isn't straight - there are some battery boxes next to the cab and the handrail bends up as a result. Originally, the firemans side was like this as well. After looking at some photos of the prototype I noticed that the long handrail on the fireman's side was straight -there is no battery box. To make my model correct I cut off the battery box and glued the walkway floor back on so that it was straight the entire length. I also had to put a patch on the side of the cab to fill in the resulting opening. Finally, I added a small duct in the corner. In the end the only major descrepancy between the model and the prototype is the arrangement of grills on the side and the window on the fireman's side, which has only two panes instead of three. I figured both of these details would be very difficult to correct so I left them alone.
To make it a little easier to picture here is what it looked like before
the conversion (courtesy of Walther's website).
Please let me know what you think! If you have any questions just email me.