CATOOSA - Mantua Rebuild

I have embarked on the next addition to the W&A stable of locomotives, the Catoosa. She was a Norris built locomotive, same manufacturer as the Yonah. As always, a key reference for the Mantua General alterations is Al Mueller's manual...

One of the more prominent elements to his rebuild is his  idea on making room in the tender for a new motor, decoder, speaker and capacitor. Once the tender top is removed, grinding away some of the frame is needed to accommodate these parts. And since the original model comes with a plastic wood load, that is not acceptable for a fine scale model replication. Here's a page from Al's manual on preparing the form for the wood load. 

Now here's the result of my attempt to replicate his instruction. You can see that I added a brass plate and water tank cap; the cap is from Precision Scale.

 

These next two photos show the tender interior exposed. By being able to remove the wood load there is easier access to the motor section without needing to remove the entire tender. It also allows for more ventilation. The black tip coming out of the tender front is a drive shaft cup from NWSL. The drive shaft mechanism is another redesign element also offered in Al's manual.

I use a motor from a fella named "Motorman" who restores and rebuilds a wide variety of motors and can be found on the internet. He operates via eBay usually. This motor is a Swiss Maxon 13 mm 7 pole coreless motor-High torque (150731330992). They run about $45. My locos are able to pull 12-18 car trains which is quite a feat given that the Mantua General's are not known for their pulling power. Of course I weigh my cars below the NMRA standard to about 30 grams. 

The decoder is a Tsunami Micro. But these have been discontinued. Their replacement decoder is called Econami. Al has installed one or two and vouches for their reliability and easier programming as well as installation; these are slightly smaller believe it or not.

Turntable Discussions Episode 3 with Al Mueller

One common theme with these discussions is that my guests who model railroads of the American Civil War are all remote. Al is from the Milwaukee area. This is from my visit in February. As this was a rare opportunity to visit with him, I spontaneously decided to use a portion of time to shoot the next episode of Turntable Discussions. This is my first attempt using Adobe Premier Elements video editing. I want to apologize first for the blurriness in some footage. I used my iPhone 4S as well as trying to shoot while I was mobile. LOTS of lessons learned! The entire interview ran about 45 minutes. I edited much in order to meet the less-than-15-minutes allowed via blogspot. Additional footage will be posted at a future date.

Al Mueller's Orange & Alexandria RR

May 29-30, 2014

Another productive and fun visit to Al's O&A RR The following video was recorded with my iPhone. This features the Mueller Machine Works factory, an extremely highly detailed interior and exterior structure. Details include belt driven machines, winches, tool benches with tools, drafting tables and many scratch-built elements. Al is consistent with the quality of his modeling skills. The locomotive is the Dr. Thompson. This is an engine with the Atlanta & West Pt. RR., and is one of mine that I bought to 'Dr' Al, with some performance issues. As seen here it runs as good as it gets. The passenger cars are brass models that of course were built and painted by Al.

Decoder Installations

Over the last couple of years many activities have and continue to occur that provide alternatives for those of us/you looking to have quality running 4-4-0's, especially if using the Mantua General.

Over the last few months my primary focus has been to re-tool two locos. Al Mueller has been instrumental in helping me both with his manual on "Modifying the Mantua General", as well as locating a superb motor from a source known as "Motorman". These new motors clearly surpass the usual can motors. NWSL (North West Short Line) has been my source and the motor provided when Mantua was offering a retro-fit to replace the original open motors installed in their Generals. Motorman reconstitutes motors that he acquires. I use the Maxon Swiss 13mmx... Some are so small that there is plenty of room for a sound decoder in the tender. I use Tsunami micro and the OSI .62 speaker from Tony's Trains.

These two photos give you an idea on how I positioned them in the tender. Al's General rebuild Manual has been a key resource for ideas on how to modify the tender. You can also see that the small motor is a perfect fit. In this tender I fabricated a base for the motor for ease of removal. A piece of brass plate was tapped from under the tender then a styrene plate on top of the brass plate where the motor was attached with silicone adhesive. I can remove the motor if needed to make repairs or do maintenance. The speaker here is a .62 OSI round with its casing. Although someone mentioned the casing is not needed, I have not experimented with that idea...yet. 
In the photo below, foreground, I attached a plug for the hot (red) wire from the decoder to the the black which attaches to the loco drivers. Plugs are essential because of the number of times I may need to dismantle for maintenance, and there are times (sometimes too many for me) when this is needed. The drive shaft is piano wire attached to NWSL universal cups. You might also see my use of shrink tubing to prevent inadvertent shorting.

Photo on the right is an install after having machined the tender top and corners to allow more space. Lots of drilling and filing required!
Lastly, this photo below shows the addition of a tender "harness". This idea was another of Al Mueller's to ensure good contact,  key to the 4-4-0's operational ability.

Al Mueller's Orange & Alexandria R.R.

October 1 I visited Al Mueller at his home in WI, also the home of his HO scale Orange & Alexandria R.R., depicting 1861-62 Virginia. He plans to run both Union and Confederate operations and has the fleet of locos to do so, 10 to be specific and nearly all Mantua Generals that have been re-motored. Two of these are featured in a video posted a few days ago.

Al is fortunate to have a huge and nicely finished basement. In the background is a layout he built but depicting the 1950's. He has since seen the light and now models a most colorful era for locomotives. He has posted many photos of his locos on our yahoo sight Civil_War_RRs@yahoogroups.com. 

Al has been extremely helpful to a few of us as he wrote a manual for re-motoring the Mantua General. The two 4-4-0's in this photo however are of my W&A which I brought here for fine tuning by the master. Although seemingly basic, we were able to adjust everything from CV's in order to standardize speeds, learn differences between decoders as I use 2 different manufacturers, and some 'general' tips to increase performance. 

Al has set up the digital readout to the left on his fascia to show loco speeds. One of his talents is his engineering mind and patience, key skills especially for me as I continue to educate myself on the modeling nuances.
In his past he had a passion for rebuilding cars. Although slightly distinguishable, the black and white photo on his wall to the right of his cloud backdrop is him next to one of his autos. 
 

This is the Lincoln House by Laser Art Structures. The portico and columns were Al's addition. He is currently building a foundry with unbelievable detailing. Look forward to a posting once completed.

I had to show you the scope of his "workshop". Every tool a modeler would not mind having or at least access. Thanks Al!

The Orange & Alexandria R. R. A Visit to Al Muller's Layout

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to spend two and a half days learning from one of the masters. Al wrote the MANTUA GENERAL REBUILD manual for converting the basic General into one that runs with precision quality and to be extraordinarily detailed. Of course I brought along several of my 4-4-0 Generals to get Al's "laying on of hands" and came home with more than I could hope for as we fine tuned, machined and took my work to the next level. You will be seeing these in action in a future post... I hope! For now, here are 2 videos I shot while visiting Al's O&A. 

In the video below, the first train is led by the 4-4-0 Senator. The second loco is another of Al's transformations, the Lexington, also of the O&A. The second video is Al's Warrenton pulling a passenger train of resin kits by John Canfield.

As it passes the town of Atlee VA you may notice the young man butchering the pig as it hangs from the post. Al's rolling stock is BTS, Alkem, Classic Miniatures, Concord Car Works and a few resin Passenger cars. The structures include kits from BTS, Bar Mills, Blair Line and several scratch built. Enjoy the sound in these beauties,  Soundtraxx Micro-Tsunami decoders,TSU-750, #826001.