ALCO RS-2 Build List

One of the articles that I have been working on for Shoreliner covers the DERS-2 locomotives (RS-2 and RS-3).  There is one specific piece of information I haven't been able to nail down, so I'm simultaneously hoping others may have a reference I don't, while sharing the list that I've compiled that  I don't think has been published anywhere in this form.

Of course, this is a work-in-progress, so may be in need of many corrections.

Alco Specification E-1661

When built, the RS-2 designation didn't exist yet. The first locomotives were built using Alco Specification E-1661. The RS-2 name wasn't applied until c1952, after production had evolved to the RS-3 (Specification E-1662).

Alco Specification E-1661A (and B)

In March of 1947, D&H 4006 (builder number 75141) was built under the new specification E-1661A, although CIL 22 (b/n 75142) was the first delivered, although a different account identifies GN 200-203 (built June 1947) as the first. So yes - inconsistent.  This was a significant upgrade, as the belt-driven auxiliaries were replaced by gear-driven ones.  However, locomotives combined to be built under the original specification simultaneously, into 1949.

The New Haven diagram only lists one auxiliary generator, the 5GY24A, which was the belt-driven generator used in specification E-1661.  This would imply that the first run (December 1947-January 1948) and second run (November-December 1948) were all built to specification E-1661, even though locomotives were already being built with Specification E-1661A. 

Although many references group E-1661A and E-1661B specification locomotives together, only the nine MLW-built units were specification E-1661B.

According to Kirkland, there were 35 locomotives built to specification E-1661, the last of which were five CGW units (53-57) built August 1949.

There were fifteen built before March 1947:

• D&M (5)
• D&H (7)
• CIL (1)
• Demonstrator (2)

And two were exported to Ontario Northland. Including the final five units for CGW, that leaves only thirteen of the thirty-five which isn't enough to cover all seventeen of the New Haven units. It is likely that CGW 50-52 were also this specification. That leaves only ten units built for the NH.

In that case, the first order of ten (0500-0509) would be specification E-1661 with belt-drive auxiliaries, completing the 35 units built under that specification. This makes sense.

But that would mean the second group of seven (0510-0516) had to have been built under the second E-1661A specification and not the earlier one, and the NH diagram is missing information.  The alternative is that published accounts (which seems to start with Kirkland) of only 35 locomotives being built under specification E-1661 is inaccurate.  I suspect it's probably a 50-50 chance of either.

In theory, all of these records are held by the ALCO Historical & Technical Society, but they aren't in a position to find them right now due to some reorganization going on now.

Specification E-1661C

Multiple sources also indicate that there were 31 units built under specification E-1661C.  The major upgrade here was to the 244C prime mover with 1,600 hp. Seaboard was the first to receive them, along with WM and Erie. The thirty-first unit was Demonstrator 1600.

But the first eight "RS-3" units built, for Great Northern (197-224) were also built to this specification. They had the new RS-3 carbody, but the 244C (instead of 244D) prime mover, and other mechanical aspects of the RS-2.  These changes were iterative, essentially the next step in the evolution of the major components. But for all practical purposes, these are RS-2 locomotives, not RS-3s.

This assessment is in line with Alco's practices, too, where the mechanical specifications is what determined the type of locomotive.  In 1962, when rebuilding RS-3 locomotives for the NH, they were initially going to be rebuilt as (per Alco documentation) DL-701 engines. That is, they would receive 251 prime movers and, as far as Alco was concerned,  they would be RS-11 locomotives, even though they would have retained their RS-3 bodies. The financial condition dictated otherwise, and they were instead simply rebuilt with 244H, aka model 250 prime movers and other upgrades. 

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Anyway, here's a spreadsheet that attempts to compile all of the specification numbers for Alco RS-2s. Hopefully somebody can confirm whether the second group of NH RS-2s were built under Specification E-1661 or E-1661A.

Alco RS-2 Build List and Specifications

Power for the New Hartford Local

Chris has gotten started on building his undecorated Proto 2000 S-1 for a New Haven DEY-3 class switcher. I had started some modifications on mine a while ago, and we need to add decoders as well. So naturally, I pulled mine out to provide some input. Which has led to the locomotives hitting the bench for some more work.

So what locomotives will I need? 

In my case, I need the S-1 for the New Hartford Local. Although I usually refer to this as HDX-5, it's a bit more complicated than that as things were changing throughout the era I model. For now I've decided to focus on 1949 and later since it will be easier to get the diesels running. Especially since HDX-5 used a K-1-d mogul with Southern valve gear, a variation that NERS never released (despite the initial announcement that they would). So until I'm comfortable I have the skills to modify the valve gear on a brass model I'll start with these.

1949

HDX-5 was briefly eliminated in early 1949 when the K-1-d was pulled, and the tonnage absorbed into NY-4 which would work the New Hartford branch on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Presumably there was enough traffic, perhaps combined with the fact that HDX-5 originated in Hartford instead of Cedar Hill, and it was reinstated by September, 1949 with DEY-3 (S-1) no. 0967 assigned. It was built on May 13, 1944. 

John Wallace took this photo of  0967 on the Valley Local in Wethersfield in May, 1949. 

John's photo shows that the locomotive was still in it's delivery scheme in early 1949, and records confirm it wasn't repainted until April 3, 1952. So for my purposes it's still Pullman Green.

In 1952 it would have received the current (as of May 9, 1950) scheme of a Pullman Green cab and hood top, with a narrow band of Pullman Green and the curved fillet at the base of the hood, and the remainder of the hood in Warm Orange. This was the third scheme that the DEY-3 and DEY-5 (S-2) locomotives wore.

Later on, it was one of a few of S-1s that received the August 2, 1957-March 24, 1958 Matter/McGinnis scheme with black sides on the walkway. It was one of a few that had a small "NH" on the front of the hood. I haven't identified any other schemes worn by this locomotive, so the third scheme it wore may have been its final one. It survived to the Penn Central era.

1950-1951

In autumn of 1950, the assignment for HDX-5 has changed to DEY-3 0994. This is one of the postwar S-1s, the second to last one, and was delivered in Hunter Green and Warm Orange on January 1, 1949. 

Chris found this undated photo of 0994 in Wethersfield. Looking closely, you can see the line between the green hood top and Warm Orange hood. The question is, which green?

In mid-'51 the NH started the Pullman Green/Warm Orange scheme that 0967 received in 1952. But in a document dated January 27, 1955, no. 0994 hadn't been repainted yet. At that time, the current scheme was 401 Green with Warm Orange, and a 90 degree fillet had been added at the top next to the cab. In other words, the "full balloon" or "hot dog" scheme. This scheme was replaced by the first Matter/McGinnis scheme on February 1, 1956. So it must have been the "full balloon" scheme.

Sure enough, here's a photo confirming this scheme:

Location, date, and photographer unknown.

This was the fourth scheme worn by these classes. I haven't found any record or photo showing that 0994 was subsequently repainted prior to the PC era either. There are some photos of DEY- class locomotives in these (very worn) schemes in the late-'60s so it's possible that neither 0967 or 0994 were repainted again.

I don't have any engine assignments for 1951 so for now I will keep 0994 on that assignment.

1952

In Spring of 1952 the New Hartford local and the Cedar Hill-Holyoke local were combined, operating out of Hartford. By September 1952 the New Hartford local is reinstated, now as NX-25 after the elimination of the Hartford Division. It still originates in Hartford, and has DERS-2b (RS-2) 0503 assigned. This is convenient, since it's one of the two locomotives regularly assigned to NY-4/YN-3 in earlier years and I've already modeled it.

I don't have any repaint information for 0503, but here's a shot in South Boston in another scheme:

Date and photographer unknown.

This scheme, the same as noted for 0967, was applied from ~June, 1951 to ~June, 1953,  and was the second scheme applied to RS-2s.

The diagram for the following "full balloon" scheme was dated for June, 1954, but it was noted as a correction, and photos indicate that the switch occurred earlier, probably mid-1953. So there's a possibility that 0503 would have the pictured scheme by late '52, but it could have been sometime in 1953 as well.

1953

In fall of 1953, NX-25 and NY-4/YN-3 are replaced by NX-28, but it now operated out of Plainville. 

No 0967 is assigned to this train, but we know that 0967 was repainted in the above scheme on April 3, 1952 as noted above. But it doesn't work New Britain at all, which is one of the reasons there are no daytime freights in my November, 1953 ops sessions. This train, as NX-28, would switch back to originating in Hartford for fall of '54 and NY-4/YN-3 would also be reinstated by then. Tom McNamara caught DERS-3 (Fairbanks Morse H16-44) no. 590 on the job in that era.

All of these changes are beyond the operating sessions on the layout. 

Repaints?

During this era, locomotive paint schemes were changing frequently, and those schemes help set the era. But not all of a given class received a particular scheme. Although I know 0967 was repainted by 1953, it doesn't look like it was operating in New Britain at that time.

As for 0503, that could have been repainted after November, 1952, the last year it will be running on the layout. At that time, there are a couple of DERS-2c (RS-3) locomotives, one of which will be in that scheme (and the other in one similar to the RS-2 delivery scheme, but Pullman Green and including a band of green along the bottom). So three different RS- paint schemes running at once if I stick with the delivery scheme on 0503. I do have a third model already disassembled, and I could do a second model if I wanted to. For the moment that will stay on the back burner unless/until I find documentation that it was repainted prior to November, 1952, and I'll get working on the S-1s instead.

More Passenger Cars

 Well here's an interesting photo...

This is DERS-2B 9RS-2) 0509 with a westbound passenger train at Plainville, June 16-1949. Another Kent Cochrane photo, of course. The photo states there are 4 passenger cars, although only three are visible. One of the wooden heavyweight baggage cars, of course.

What's interesting is that the two Pullman-Bradley lightweight coaches are the 10-window version, and not the 11-window commuter coach version. One has the skirting in front of the wheels removed, the other one does not.

Both are in the original Hunter Green with aluminum window frames and the New Haven lettered under the windows. They aren't smokers since there aren't script heralds above the trucks. It would have been highly unlikely since there were only 4 lightweight smokers until 26 more were converted in October of 1949.

Although I have a couple of pictures of DERS-2b (RS-2) locomotives on passenger trains on the Highland, I don't have any assignments for that service. 0509 didn't have ATS equipment, so it couldn't have run on the Springfield line. I probably won't be modeling another RS-2, but I do have a photo of 0510 in passenger service on the line.

YN-3 in Simsbury

 Bob Belletzkie, creator/curator/maintainer of the excellent Tyler City Station site that covers CT railroad stations in great detail, came across this photo:

What a pleasant surprise! This is, of course, YN-3 in Simsbury, c1948-51. The freight house is still there, now as Plan B Burger Bar. (Excellent burgers, too!)

Bob thinks he may have seen a couple other photos from the same sequence, but can't seem to find them right now. So there may be more to come...

--

Interesting NYC box car, too. Unfortunately the photo is too blurry to make out the Lot number. The NYC had two major and one minor class of early steel box cars.

The first group was 6,500 steel auto cars built in 1916. They were later modified into single door box cars starting in 1937. The rebuilt cars are available as resin kits from Westerfield.

There were also 9,500 double sheathed auto cars built in 1916. Many of these were rebuilt 1935-7 into steel auto or box cars. One group of the rebuilt box cars was released in resin by Sunshine.

The NYC also built nearly 30,000 cars to a design produced, but never built, by the USRA. They were as numerous as the Pennsy X29 box cars in this era. These cars were built through the '20s. These cars are also available as resin kits from Westerfield, or in plastic from BLI. The Westerfield models cover the life of the cars, with BLI good for a smaller group.

In addition to these cars, there were also 4,000 auto cars built to this design. These are available from Westerfield.

Which car is this, though? 

The rebuilt double sheathed cars have a side sill that is narrower than the car body itself, like many rebuilds. This isn't evident in this photo.

The 1916-built steel cars have a stiffener below the side sill that runs from bolster to bolster, so that can't be it either. The best I can tell, they also had ladders instead of individual grab irons.

So the USRA design cars would make sense, especially since there were so many of them. The side sill looks like a match, and the (blurry) build date looks like it's from the '20s. But those cars only had 6 grab irons, not the 7 in the photo.

That leaves us with the USRA design auto cars. The 40'7" IL is also visible and matches this group (but not all of the other possibilities). These are lots 417-B, 418-B, and 419-B. 

Although, another look and now I think the blurry lot number might be 414-B. In that case it would be in the 101000-101999 series of box cars, built in 1920 to the basic USRA steel box car design, but with slightly larger dimensions. There isn't an existing model that matches, as it's 1" longer and 6" taller than the other cars built to that general design. This makes some sense since it was built before the 1923 ARA recommended practice (basically the X29 design), since the NYC cars built after that time generally conformed to the ARA recommended dimensions.

Another thing of note is the 5-pointed star under the herald on NYC box cars indicates it is used in grain service. Many of these cars were converted to box cars. They were assigned lots 659-B, 696-B and 718-B. Lot 659-B is available as Westerfield 7951. Note that the model has ladders instead of grab irons. I don't know if any of the double door cars would be in grain service, nor how many of the cars received ladders. I also don't know what industry in Simsbury would have received grain, or if the cars stenciled for grain service were used only in that service.

--

The northern part of the Canal Line job is interesting during the postwar period. As I noted in this post, YN-3/NY-4 was eliminated by September 1953. Since this was the "Canal Local," what trains worked the job after that date?

Alternate schedules actually started before that time. In Spring of '52 the job was moved to originate in Hartford as YA-1/AY-2 (with 'A' being the symbol for Hartford, and 'Y' Holyoke). By fall of '52, it was back to originating in New Haven.

In fall of '53 it was handled by NX-28 which was a local that originated in Plainville and operated to Westfield.

But by spring of '54 YN-3/NY-2 was reinstated.

In fall of '56, the through train is NY-2/YN-1, and the local traffic is handled by NX-25. That's the Cedar Hill - Meriden - New Britain local, and operates to Plainville, plus Collinsville and Westfield as needed. 

By fall of '57 NX-28 is now a Hartford to Westfield local, but by fall of the next year NX-28 is gone and Canal Line north freight is being handled by NX-25 again.

In spring of '62 traffic to Simsbury is handled by the (lower) Canal Local, NX-18 at this time, which also handles Collinsville on alternate days. This is the case through at least spring of '65, the latest freight schedule I have.

In this post with several train orders I indicated that I thought the two orders from 1968 were likely for the Holyoke freight. With this new info, I think it was NX-25, or the New Britain local.

Modeling NY/YN Freights - DERS-2b (RS-2) 0502 and 0503 - Part VII

 Part I, II, III, IV, V, and VI...

I was hoping to finish these off this week but got tied up with some other projects. So I'm continuing to finish up the small details after looking through the pictures again. First, I can confirm that the unknown commenter was correct, those little things on the walkway are oil cups. 

I went over to CNZR with my buddy Dale so he could show me some on the ex-NH RS-1 they have. In this case they are below the walkway, just above the truck and apparently lubricate the center pin of the trucks.

One of these days they'll get this running again...I hope!

You can also see a small pipe in the upper right corner of this photo, which is a lot of what I've been finishing up on the models. Initially I was just using styrene rod, but I decided to see if I could do something about the interesting pipes above the truck on the RS-2s:

It looks like a pipe-within-a-pipe. It doesn't show up in many photos, and it's another detail that nobody is likely to see unless I point it out to them. But it lets me experiment with something different, and hone some more scratch building skills.

So I started with the largest styrene rod I had which is 3/16", or 0.047", or which is more relevant, 1.2mm, and drilled out the end with the .7mm bit:

You need to be careful to keep it centered, since you'll have a wall of .25mm. I then used a reamer to flare it slightly to widen the hole as much as I could:

If you're paying attention, you'll see a small yellow piece in the picture above. That's the insulation stripped off of a 23 AWG wire. I glued that inside the tube. Here are a couple that have been completed:

Here it is installed:

I also drilled out the end of a 0.020" rod and bent the end for the drain pipe next to the water tank. I then added the diagonal wire for the pipe that's there too. 

I also noticed a pipe I hadn't added yet to one of the models. Instead of the styrene rod I used wire insulation again.

To make it easier to see the other details, I decided to weather the chassis again.

I painted all of the unpainted parts black first. Once that's dried, I used a paint pen to apply wet paint to the truck sideframes, the battery boxes, and the air tanks. Basically all the parts that are likely to be handled. I then applied black Pan Pastels to those parts while wet, hoping that will help it adhere a little better. 

I then use gray and burnt sienna to add brake/road dust and rust. The effect should be close to the RS-1 truck above. Here are a number of shots of both sides. The approach makes those tiny details pop:

With luck these will be finished by next week. You may notice I decided to add the ESU Power Pack (keep-alive) to these, since I had them anyway. They fit above the short-hood truck without a problem.

There's very little touch-up left to do. A few things on the shell, the final application of the ATC boxes and step, a couple of air hoses, and maybe one or two things I'm forgetting.

The one that has the biggest chance of something going wrong is renumbering the second 0503 to 0502. I've already removed the '2s' and have the decals, so we'll see how it goes!

Modeling NY/YN Freights - DERS-2b (RS-2) 0502 and 0503 - Part VI

  Part I, II, III, IV and V...

I know I said this was going to be a short couple of posts, but as I've been looking closer at photos, I keep noticing some other details I want to try to include. Case in point, when examining this photo of 0502 and 0503 in Plainville c1948 (photo by Cochrane)...

...I noticed something on the walkway that I hadn't seen before. 

I don't know what that little thing is just behind the railing stanchion, but there's one at the other end too:

Looking more closely at this photo of 0509 (photographer unknown), it's there as well:

We can see it more clearly. Examining other photos, they appear to only be on the engineer's side. In part because I want to get better at scratchbuilding, I wanted to see if I could make these. It's another example of something that I have no idea what it is, but all I really need to know is that it is there, and what it looks like.

So I started by drilling into the end of 0.020" styrene rod, and inserting a short piece of 0.010" wire (I think, it was scrap).

After cutting the styrene to a length that looked good, I sliced a thin sliver of 0.030" styrene rod to make the cap:

Then it was a simple matter of drilling a hole in the walkway and installing it:

One tip - really good drill bits. I recently ordered some from Amazon for a slightly different reason. One of the challenges I often struggle with is getting a wire-gauge drill bit chucked up so it is straight. The slightest bit of off-axis alignment means the tip is moving quite a bit out of alignment, often causing it to walk, or break. I thought this design would make it much easier, and it did, since it's a much larger portion to chuck. In fact, it's not much smaller than the maximum my Dremel chuck will accept.

So as I thought, that worked great. What I didn't expect was how sharp they were. The first thing I needed to drill was a hole in the metal frame. It was like drilling styrene it was so easy and fast. They are incredible. I've even used them as their own without the dremel or pin vise, as the 'handle' is large enough as it is. They do break easily with any side-to-side force, but I've broken far fewer since they drill so well. I highly recommend them. They do come in many different sizes, all labeled in mm, so you can consult a chart like this to select the sizes you want. 

BARCO Steam Lines

I also cut out the front of the pilot to allow installing the BARCO steam lines as seen in the picture of 0502 and 0503 above. To do this, I notch with the corner/edge of a file to define the width, then continue to shape it with a file.

I used Custom Finishing parts. They are cast in a soft pewter and aren't quite as crisp as the brass ones were. These are spun cast in rubber molds, and it's also clear that the molds are old because many of the parts are incomplete. You can see the difference between these two castings:

In the first one, several of the parts are malformed, including one of the BARCO steam lines, which are the only parts I'm using from this casting. So I recommend ordering at least one extra set of parts. I usually do this anyway, since there's a good chance I'll lose or break a part anyway. If you can find the brass version, grab them. I'm happy that they are still available at all, and an occasionally bad casting is not something I worry about.

After bending the casting so I could glue it against the inside of the pilot, I used 0.010" scrap styrene to put across the bottom to complete it. I did a quick paint/preliminary weathering as well.

Hand Brake Chain Guides

Stephen Wintner asked how I installed the truck chains. I started by drilling the holes for the two parts of the chain guide. The Custom Finishing set has a third part, with the wheel horizontal, but they aren't used on the NH locomotives.

Incidentally, I also ordered some of the new Cal Scale plastic ones, which are the two parts with a plastic chain between them. Presumably you can add a real chain to the truck, but I didn't care for the appearance, and it would also have required drilling two holes in the precise location for the parts to install properly. Something I'm not good at.

Although I originally used a No. 70 or 72 bit (I think), I used the new 70 mm one for the final hole. I then filed the pins, especially where it meets the part, so it would fit properly against the bottom of the chassis. It also requires reaming out the hole for the larger chain guide so the 40-lpi chain will fit through it. 

I install only the smaller guide (the small wheel) first. I then make a small needle by bending 0.006" wire. Rather than bending it against the edge of the needle holders, I use them to hold the wire and bend it free-form to make it as small a hook as possible.

I thread it through the end link of the chain from the straight end (not the hook) because I find that easier. Then I crimp the end. I have two needle-holders for this. Holding the wire with the needle-holders locked in place prevents the wire from rotating when crimping the hook with the other one.

It's much easier to thread the chain through the guide using the 'needle' that we just created. Make sure the chain guide is facing the right direction. I then thread it through the smaller guide that's attached to the model already, then bend the wire around the back and glue the wire to the bottom of the chassis with ACC.

That keeps it secure at that end, and also prevents the chain from filling with ACC and stiffening. I then drape what looks like a decent amount of droop for the chain, and cut to length.

I then make a new 'needle' for the end of the chain.

I thread that through a hole I drilled in the end of the brake lever, and bend over the top and bottom, then glue the needle in place. This photo shows it bent into place, but before snipping of the excess wire.

This is an evolution of the process I used on the one RS-1 I've done so far. When I did the first RS-2, I hadn't installed the LEDs yet, and the way the chassis is designed it could be set upside down and worked on that way. For the second one, I had already installed the LEDs, so I used the foam cradle. This ended up being an advantage, because one of the things I struggled with the first time is the weight of the chain itself constantly pulling the chain out of the holes when I was trying to thread them. With the foam cradle, I could lie the chain on the foam slightly above the truck I was working on and it made it much easier.

I have a couple minor details left to add to the chassis, and I'll (re) weather the walkway and chassis. The shells are basically done, and I'll put them together.

Parts Used in this post:

The model is a Life-Like Proto 1000 (now Walthers Proto) RS-2

Custom Finishing Models (order direct)

147 ALCO Handbrake Chain Guide
336 BARCO Steam Heat/Trainline Hoses

 Detail Associates (find on eBay)

2210 Safety Chain - Black, 40 links/inch 

Modeling NY/YN Freights - DERS-2b (RS-2) 0502 and 0503 - Part V

 Part I, II, III and IV...

Chris and I had a chance to see what other photos we could dig up. So here's a collection of some detail photos for the project.

One thing I find interesting is that I've located a number of photos of NY-2/YN-3 with J-1 and DEY-5 (S-2) locomotives, but not the DERS-2b (RS-2) engines that handled these two freights from '48 to '52.  

Well, that's not entirely true. We have a photo of Tom Davenport in 0503 on the 'Canal Local' in 1948:

However, I now believe this photo is of the southern Canal local (New Haven to Plainville via Cheshire) since it was handled by 0503 in April 1948, and was identified as "Canal Local" in the NH records, rather than YN-3/NY-4).

We also found 0502 and 0503 in Plainville in an undated Cochrane photo, probably c'48/9:

On a busy day it wouldn't be surprising that two would be needed. If you recall from the Arranged Freight timetables, the tonnage rating for the DERS-2b on NY-2 is 1500 tons from Meriden to New Britain due to the 1% grade on the Berlin Line. Coming back from Westfield it's 1700 tons. Assuming an average of 50 tons per car in this era, that's a 30 to 34 car train with a single engine. But based on the assignments I'll generally run them with a single locomotive (although I'm hoping to extend the 'Cedar Hill' staging track to allow a 30-car train).

This shot does give us a great look at the pilot of 0503 that I wish I had a few weeks ago...

Note how there is an opening for the BARCO steam lines, and how that part of the pilot is slightly lower than the footboards. That's actually a good thing, because I'll cut out that opening to add the steam lines, and I won't have to worry about keeping the bottom portion since I'll add that with strip styrene.

If you look closely, you can also see a second angle cock on the right side, above the air hose. In other pictures there are two air lines. I may add a second line to 0502, and just the angle cocks on 0503 for that variety.

There is also something on the walkways of both engines in front of the engineer:

There is also something in the same place on two other undated photos we found of 0509 and 0513 (photographer unknown). They are copy negatives and were extremely overexposed, but they do provide a lot of detail:

Here's a closer look at 0509:

My guess is that these are rerail frogs, and that's what I'll get for my models unless somebody else can verify that they are something else. Other small details that I haven't seen before (or seen only partially):

There's a pipe running down the back of the pilot. There's actually a globe valve at the top that I could spot in another photo. So I can add those. You can also see that the large (overflow?) pipe in front of the engineer has a right angle bend into the side of the hood. Not something I'm likely to change at this point (it's subtle), but I'll probably add the nbw castings to the right of it. There are a couple of other pipes visible that weren't evident in other photos that I'll add under the chassis.

Even though the angle is mostly from the side, we can clearly see that the pilot arrangement is different between the first (0509) and second (0513) deliveries, since it appears that these were both taken early in their life and at the same time. 

You can see the twin air pipes next to the coupler on both locomotives.

Initially I considered alternatives for the handrail stanchions, since the Proto ones have an angle bracket that is what pushes into the walkway, with the vertical portion just resting on the walkway instead of going into it. As it turns out, that's exactly how it was constructed on the prototype as well - the vertical stanchion is bolted to the angle that is bolted to the walkway. This is one of the main reasons I didn't alter the railing on the pilot, even though it's incorrect. The railings and stanchions are so fine on the Proto model that I couldn't drill holes for bent wire railings. If/when I get the Smokey Valley Model Works ones I might experiment, but it's hard to believe they will look better than the Proto railings.

Another detail - back when Chris was researching and detailing 0510, he was certain that the horn and steam generator intake were on the center line of the short hood, as opposed to the RS-3s which are slightly off-center. We searched and couldn't find any documentation or photos, however. After he completed it, I got this photo from eBay for him that shows just that:

It is particularly evident on the locomotive in the background. You can't see the steam generator intake (was it removed? The BARCO lines are also gone), but the horn is clearly centered. Photographer and date unknown (but it's the McGinnis era or later). I love the cinders and dirt along with the sand from testing the sanders.

Speaking of 0510, I've been considering completing the third one I have since it's numbered 0510 already. Why? Because it served for some period of time on 131/136:

We have several undated Cochrane photos, although this is probably the best one. It's also appearing on a shorter train, and we have 0507 on 131/136 too. The April 1949 Engine Assignments has 0510 covering this run, and it probably started in December of '48 after the last steam run. In fact, it was most likely the delivery of this locomotive that ended steam on the run. Considering the foliage I would say it's spring/summer '49.

By September it had been replaced by DER-1 (DL-109) 0707 leading one to believe it wasn't powerful enough for the 5-car run. Since it's not likely to have actually run during the periods that I modeled, we decided that Chris can just being 0510 over for a run if I decide I'd like to have it on 131/136.