Model Train Journal

Maroon expressed an interest in a Lobaugh Mongrel Mogul - said he had never seen one. I in fact have one, sent to me by Billy Davis a billion years ago.

I have put Jim's name on it, and am threatening to send it before it becomes an estate item - so to that end I decided to finish it and power it.
The Lobaugh postwar 0-6-0 was powered by a very short permag open frame motor. It only fits if you know the trick, and if you don't, you will destroy the motor brushes on assembly/disassembly. My solution is "tender drive."

Accordingly, I now have it running smoothly on my test loop - you may actually see a video of it in the near future. But I will provide some still photos as I progress.

First, here is a re-run of the locomotive as it has existed for the last quarter century:



It will lose the Vanderbilt tender - the new tender will be rectangular to better fit the motor, with Fox trucks. It will get a very few refinements to the boiler, and a quick bead blast with a following coat of rattle can black. I am thinking wood burner, but of course that can easily be changed to coal, or slightly less easily, to oil. And I will need a name for Maroon's lumber company.

So, more later.

bob turner wrote:........ the new tender will be rectangular to better fit the motor, with Fox trucks.

I'm not sure that I have ever seen a tender on Fox trucks!

And I will need a name for Maroon's lumber company.

I was unaware that he had one......and here I am selling off all of my logging cars and such......

here you go:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... aw%26r%3D0

Here's another:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... t=0&sim=11

And of course Casey's locomotive:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... aw%26r%3D0

And numerous UP Ten-wheelers, Consolidations, and Mastodons. Too many to count, at least eight photos in Kratville's book.

Edit April 1 - found a Maine Central photo of a Mogul sporting Fox trucks.

Interesting......thanks! Looks like an FEC loco.... None of the CVRR loco tenders used them - PRR trucks generally in the latter years. I'll put my Fox trucks under reefers.......

Ad there was a link there to: Turner Locomotive & Components, LLC - Locomotive Sales

Ad there was a link there to: Turner Locomotive & Components, LLC - Locomotive Sales

Yeah, and they play with really big trains.

Martin is probably right. FEC 113 is the only photo I could find with Fox trucks. I thought I would find a bunch.

They are easily changed - bolster setup is for Lobaugh. These are Thomas castings, but bolsters are close. I may make new bolsters to bring the sideframes in a bit.

The photo is the last I will do before beginning to marry the boiler and tender superstructure. I think I have flawless operation right now.
I note that this "horny ball" setup is actually better than my usual NWSL setup. Also, and you c@nnot tell from the photo, hooking this thing up is almost as simple as hooking up a standard tender - you just come in at an angle with the tender post, then rotate the ball into the cup.

You can see the tender coming along - this is more or less a Lobaugh tender, which would be appropriate I suppose - but the new Mongrel Mogul deserves slightly better:



I might add - those are not Lobaugh arch bars, and the underframe and oil tank are scratch - but the sides came with the original 4-4-0, and are not scarce at all. The 4-4-0 was tender drive, but its cast underframe (the tender) is really not usable with today's can motors.

I was going to dazzle you with a photo of my only 3-rail scratchbuilt - Dry Gulch #6 - patterned after an HO version that ran on the Gorre & Daphetid railroad of mid-century fame. The HO version had Fox tender trucks; mine has tinplate Lionel. Alas, I have no digital photos of that. I will rectify that in the distant future. Off to the airport . . .

Got a couple decent photos of Dry Gulch - here's one:



3-rail, giant flanges, tender trucks from a Lionel train I destroyed during nursery school. I did it for OSR, soon to be re-named OGR, and sent it to Myron Biggar for evaluation. Myron was an ok guy, but he really didn't care for this one - no smoke, no sound, and it did not like his switches (only one roller for center pickup).

I have been tempted to 2-rail it before I croak, but I think I am up to maybe four scratchbuilt 2-rail 0-6-0s, and it is almost as easy to just build another one. The 2-rail version would have Fox tender trucks, of course.

Power was originally an Escap "heart pump" motor with NWSL O.5 gearbox, but it got robbed for some other project. Now all these kinds of models are tender drive, so the tiny motor is no longer challenged with four plastic box cars.

Bob,
The photo of the tender drive is worth a 1000 words! It is extremely helpful.

Somewhere I have a Lobaugh Mongrel Mogul decorated in B&O packed away for the move. I originally thought it was an 0-6-0 switcher with pilot truck. But then noticed a completely steam chest.
Thank you,
Rob

We have decided on an oil burner, CM&SA markings, arch bar trucks. I am getting very close to another photo session; I have to build the oil tank and change the engine to tender spacing slightly. This thing would have sat on its display shelf unfininshed probably until my estate owned it if it weren't for Jim's interest.

I am settiing it up so it could be back-dated to coal or wood with two machine screws - but the photo we have shows the CM&SA Mogul with oil bunker.

C'est bientot finis

Pardon my spelling - it has been a very long time. Yep - finished - but I now see that I could use some skirts below the car body.
I note that better stirrup steps are available, both from Stevenson and CLW, but I sort of ran out.

I have added to my Fox truck post, but it bears repeating - I found numerous photos of Union Pacific Ten-wheelers, Consolidations, and 4-8-0s with the Fox trucks. Still, we are converting to elliptical spring arch bars.

Here we go - it will get painted and sort of decaled before it leaves here, and I will post a final photo. I note that I had a short circuit on one of the drivers yesterday - not entirely sure it is cured, but as of right now it runs like a little Swiss watch. The pilot and lead truck gave me additional grief, finally resolved by bending the pilot up slightly.

Is this a Mongrel Mogul? I saw this at George Kanary’s layout on the Chicago meet layout tours.



I thought this was a good looking mogul at the Illinois Railway Museum.

No - the above model in your post is a good scratchbuilt, I think. The Lobaugh Mongrel Mogul was merely an SP switcher with a different pilot, cylinders, and one fewer domes.

I don't think it was a good seller - I have only seen one.

There exist many preserved Moguls - I think SP preserved maybe six? One was operating this century. Considering that the only actual steam locomotive I ever pulled the throttle on was a Mogul, it is surprising how few 2-6-0s are in my collection.



SP actually under steam when this photo was taken - Fairbank, Ariz, 1952. You can see a tiny wisp of steam out the injector overflow.

Here is my 1 1/8" gauge Mogul - needs a new dome and stack. I probably over-did it on the piping, and this sports the first set of drivers I ever did from rough castings.

After some back and forth, Bob agreed to letter the Mongrel Mogul for Texas shortline Moscow, Camden, and St. Augustine. As it turns out, this seven-mile railroad, which ran steam into the 1960s and offered passenger service into the 1970s, had only one Mogul, #201. Here is a photo of it in 1937:



Bob offered to decal the model with a lettering set, but I wanted to reproduce the font used by the prototype as closely as I could. The first step was to isolate the letterboard on the tender:



Next four steps are shown from top to bottom below. First, bring the photo into a drawing tool. I use Powerpoint, only because I have a lot of experience with it from the days when it was the only drawing tool that my employer would let me have on my computer. Second, because the photo is at angle to the side of the tender, stretch the photo out a bit to get back the approximately correct proportion. Third, insert a textbox, type out MC&SA, size it up to match the photo, and go through every font set on Powerpoint to find the one that is the closest match. The font set Square721_BT is pretty darn close once you toggle "bold" on. Fourth, modify the ampersand to better match the prototype. I used a combination of raster and vector drawing tools to do this. This was a tedious task, one not recommended for the impatient. I imagine that experienced graphic artists know a better way, but for one character, my inelegant method was sufficient.



The number on the cab was created the same way. The next task was to draw up the boxes that frame the lettering and cab number. For that, I had Bob measure the side of the cab and tender. I drew boxes the same size (shown in gray below), created the white letter box to fit, and sized the lettering proportionately. Non-intuitively, black graphics are required for anything that gets printed white. Finally, I then broke up the boxes into four separate sections, as I figured it would be easier to apply five smaller decals (four sides of the box and the lettering) than one large decal. These steps are shown below:



If Bob tells me otherwise, I will put the boxes back together before printing. Actually, I wouldn't blame Bob a bit if he skipped the tedium of applying the letter boxes, or if he used a paint pen to draw them instead. I drew them up as I was already in the middle of it and it would give Bob this option if he wanted to use it. Also, drawing the boxes now completes the set in case somebody wants to use them down the road for something else.

These will get printed on the Alps. I have left out a lot of details here. Specifically, there is a lot of back and forth between creating the graphics in Powerpoint and preparing the printer-ready version, which is mostly done in a dedicated vector drawing program (I use Inkscape, which is widely supported freeware). The learning curve is a bit steep. I wisely have kept careful notes over the years, as I create and print decals infrequently, such that I would be starting over each time without the notes.

Jim

Jim,
Interesting presentation. I can definitely use this info. Now comes the challenge of tracking down an Alps printer.
Rob