Preserved Steam Locomotive Models

Over the past few years, I've gotten into custom painting and lettering locomotives. Here are a few "Models" of preserved steam locomotives I've done:

Hampton & Branchville #44

The real H&B #44 is a 4-6-0 built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1927. Since then it's only left the state of South Carolina once, in 2012 to be used in the television show Revolution. This was a pretty simple project. The only paint required was the cab roof and tender grab irons. I printed my own decals for the tender and used Woodland Scenics dry transfers for the cab number. 

This is not a perfect model by any means. The tender is all wrong for the prototype (and the Bachmann 4-6-0 in general for the matter) but it contains the DCC decoder. I'm sure there are other inadequacies as well but I'll leave those to the rivet counters to sweat.

Reading & Northern 425:

 

Blue Mountain, Reading & Northern #425 is a light pacific that is used to pull excursions out of Jim Thorpe, PA. This is a Model Power pacific, which I painted Floquil "Conrail Blue." This is not my best work. The paint is a bit sloppy and the wrong color. 

Norfolk and Western J Class #611

My railfan friends and I are ecstatic that after 20 years of silence, the real N&W 611 is being returned to operation. When the restoration is complete, #611 will be used as part of Norfolk Southern's 21st Century Steam program. Since NS is already running steam excursions around Horseshoe Curver with Nickle Plate Road Berkshire 765, I figured an excursion headed by N&W 611 wouldn't be too much of a stretch. With that in mind I acquired this Bachmann model. I've upgraded the locomotive to DCC using a Digitrax sound decoder. Other modifications include an engineer figure in the cab and a new coal load.