Another train that my dad had put together in the late 70s was a series of short passenger cars made by Roundhouse, pulled by an 0-4-0 with slope-back tender made by Model Power. The cars were non-prototypical “Overton” passenger cars built from undecorated kits by Roundhouse. They were shorter than normal passenger cars, but they looked about right for a short line or mountain railroad, and I think they looked okay pulled by the equally short locomotive. One of the things I liked about this model as a kid was the fact that it featured a smoke unit. None of our other HO scale trains did, except for my brother’s short-lived Tyco Chattanooga steam engine. My brother and I called this one “Poppers” because of the way the smoke fluid would occasionally sputter or “pop” out of the smoke stack. My search for a smoking version of this model turned up absolutely nothing. I have a vague recollection of this model coming in a blue Model Power box that had graphics indicating that it was a smoking locomotive, but I have doubts about that memory, because I’ve seen nothing like that on eBay. What I did find is that a foreign manufacturer called Seuthe makes smoke units that look very much like what “Poppers” had, and Model Power sells their own re-branded copy of the same smoke unit. So I’m assuming that he must have cut off the original stack and replaced it with this kind of unit. My dad can’t remember for sure. I thought recreating this train would be a good way to get some practice with kit building, custom painting, modifying (for smoke) and weathering.
I’ve checked eBay periodically over the past year, looking for the shifter in good condition. This particular model was sold in various road names, but my dad had custom-lettered his as the “Youghiogheny & Sweet Water Railroad”, possibly “Y&SW RR” for short. I haven’t confirmed with him, but I assume he must have purchased the engine with an existing road name and then re-lettered the tender, and he might have also renumbered the locomotive. A few weeks ago, I finally found a good shifter from the same era (more modern releases of the model featured a painted brown cab roof and painted silver boiler, which would have been more work to strip before repainting.). The model appeared to have never been used, with no wear showing on the wheels, no dust anywhere on the model, and mysteriously, no grease on any of the gears. The model was a Canadian Pacific, numbered 511, and was purchased from a Canadian, who shipped it from Bellingham, WA. It should be relatively easy to strip the markings from the tender and cab.
Shortly after receiving the item, I picked up some #39 Kadee couplers at the 2017 “Great Train Show” in Puyallup, to convert the tender. The instructions for the #39 were rather confusing. If I understood them correctly, installing #39 would have required cutting off the tender’s truck-mounted coupler and cutting a chunk out of the tender shell to make room for the coupler. After futzing with the #39 for a while, I realized I could more easily install one of the #5 couplers and their matching gearbox that I already had, as a truck-mounted coupler, without having to cut the model. So for now, that’s what I’ve done, and I think it will work out just fine.
My next step is to purchase one of those smoke units to see if I can install it in this model. After that, I’ll want to strip the numbers and letters from the shells, then repaint it. The locomotive’s plastic shell, which appears to be simply molded in black plastic and not painted, is currently more shiny than the tender, which appears to be unevenly painted in a more of a flat black color. In the mean time, I’ll continue watching eBay for good deals on the passenger cars. I didn’t see any of them at the train show.
UPDATE (1/18/18): I finally found proof that this model existed with a smoke unit. Here are the photos from eBay:
