Model Train Journal

Boy, this is a tough crowd. I am not yet ready to head for the airport, so I shall just keep plugging in Shutterfly images. This Mikado was from Bob Jantzen - all I did was put a couple decals on it and open up the tail beam under the firebox. I can get a gorgeous Hodge truck from CLW, but decided to leave this one essentially in its 1940 personality. Boiler is full of lead; I have no idea how to safely get it out. And the gearbox is weird; no axle bearings to support the housing. Yet it runs! Somehow!

I really love the SP Harriman Mikado. It is a tossup whether this, the T-31, or the MM-2, is my favorite locomotive. Fortunately I have lots of models of all three.

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Some of us are still drying out from the rafting trip! Geez!

Garberson ended up with a Q steamer from Bob Hyde, same thing, boiler filled with lead.
Die grinder in a Dremel and 30 days later....

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Yeah. Grinding lead with anything finer than a saw blade is not my plan.

I loved the smell of freshly ground lead, smells like ..........lead
but that was before the seizures

I better stick another Mike in here before I am forced to do a volume 2, huh?

This one is my first Lobaugh, bought from Harold Peters in 1981, I think. Harold and I became pretty good friends after that, and through him I met some serious O Scale artists. One was Hal Sharkey, who did really fine work - Hal was a Marine fighter pilot turned model railroader. I can show you some of his work later. Harold was an MD of some sort - lungs, I think - and had big bucks for collecting. He had at least one of everything through USH.

Anyway, I thought this Mike was pretty good when I got it. I stared at it on my desk in Monterey (flying for Golden Gate Airlines, now long gone). It was out of quarter, had a tilted cab, and was otherwise quite attractive - it is essentially unchanged except for cab, tail beam, and quartering.

This one is Scratchbuilt #2, I think. done entirely from photos in the Dunscomb book. As I recall, I got the boiler and smokebox front attached together at a slight angle, and rather than unsolder and do it correctly, I put the boiler in a giant press and forced the issue. This is what the Harriman Mikes looked like in 1906:

I was still using the giant 9434 Pittmans at the time - the driveshaft is obnoxious. My later models have hidden driveshafts.

Yeah Bob, I would never want something looking like #3206 with that screamingly obvious drive shaft

albeit I certainly appreciate your standards, why so much of your stable looks as good as it does.
BTW these mikes all look GREAT, #3236 is real eye-candy for any SP fan

Thanks for looking, Pete. Here is one closer to Maroon's home town - the famous "Austin Steam Train." This one is part scratch, part Lobaugh "Lost Wax," and part Henry Pearce. I actually measured the tailbeam and took notes while it was used as a homeless shelter in front of the Austin Fire Department.

John Dill found, somehow, a couple of pristine Lobaugh 1940 kits - a Mountain and a Mike = they even had dried-up vials of paint in them. Probably worth a bunch in that state, but not to me - I built them into models, and tried to preserve the blueprints. Someday I have to find a cure for Silverfish; we don't have many insects in San Diego, but these little guys eat paper and boxes.

Beside the point. Anyway, I found a photo of #3270 with strange domes, a beetle brow feedwater heater, and a converted coal tender, and the Mikado became that locomotive. I am sure the tender that came with the kit is around, but this tender is scratch.

Nobody likes Mikes? That's ok; I had only a couple more. Here's a T-31 Ten-Wheeler in 17/64:

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Oh, I do have smaller SP Steam.