Great

Thats a great project, I like to see such effort.

It's something missing for me since I model in Nscale and using steam..

N scale steam are difficult to modify especialy around the running wheels.

And the aviability of steam details is poor to make specified prototype.

Production of models is only USRA models with a few no USRA but if they are not USRA they are PRR....

Brass offer in N scale steam is poor and most of them are very poor runner; the three I own have needed new motors and better electrical contacts to run properly.

I will follow your progress for sure.

Looking forward to it!

It is going to be a great looking locomotive there Dee. That weathering pattern on the prototype looks so interesting.

Is it me, or the tender looks glossy/newer in comparison to the rest of the locomotive? If that is so, then it is very unique (to my eyes) to see this difference across tender/loco.

Following with interest.

Thanks for posting

Yannis

Marc,I'm a novice at this so

Marc,

I'm a novice at this so I will need all the input I can get especially with applying the brass numbers.

I have never seen a brass N Scale steam loco in action. I'm curious now and will check to see if someone has posted one on YouTube.

Yannis,  it appears the

Yannis, 

it appears the tender may have been recently washed or painted. 

I'm going to look up some info in order to understand what makes a loco look like this in regards its stains and streaks.

Cheers

Bad Water

Railroads frequently were required to provide their own water for servicing. That could be drilling a well, accessing a surface water source or in some instances, transporting water to remote locations. As users of raw water supplies, the expense of treating water was on the RR's dime. The penalty of not treating water was in more frequent maintenance.

Your locomotive was probably showing the results of whatever water supply it used and the CNR's effort to make it usable for locomotives through additives and sediment removal. Lime (or other minerals such as iron, salts, etc.) scaling is probably what you see and why it is restricted to the areas that have a water/steam drainage onto the boiler.

Tenders have interesting weathering patterns too. They are subject to condensation on the water cistern area. That is a magnet for dust even on well maintained equipment. You can see that clearly in many locomotive photos - dust accumulation is heavy where the water cistern is.

All of these patterns are subject to season and locale.

Have fun. I really like that CNR Mikado. Great looking locomotive.

Bob

Omaha

Bob, thank you for the

Bob, thank you for the informative post; explains a lot.

Did you know that Steam Town has a CNR Mikado?

Check out the dust on this tender and not the nice brass numbers on the cab.

Got the brake hangers in the

Got the brake hangers in the mail today and they fit perfectly. Will post pics of it later.

Also applied a decal to the tender:

I put on the new Precision Scale brake hanger; seen between the two right drivers:

It fits nicely and is longer than the original one seen to the left. Luckily it doesn't touch the rail and the shoe is in a good position. Will eventually replace them all.

Clean tender on dirty loco

Hi,

looking good.

As for the clean tender on the not-so-clean loco... Railroads tended to keep the tender with it's loco, but if necessary they were swapped.

Also, sometimes tenders got rebuilt, for whatever reasons. So a loco might have its tender swapped due to some rebuild program. The loco's original tender gets rebuilt next and will be put on another loco...

Finally, in order to do some repairs, like replacing some steel, it will be necessary to (partially) clean the equipment that is to be repaired and re-paint it afterwards. Depending on the size of the repair it might have been easier to wash down the full tender and inspect the whole thing while it's being worked anyway... I'm just trying to imagine what it would take to repair some corrosion damage around the bottom outside of the tank...

Have fun!

Nice decal work!

Looking forward to the weathering Dee! Well done!

Interesting info on changing out tenders on the locomotives.

Yannis

Thanks dark2star. Great

Thanks dark2star.

Great informative post. I'm tempted to keep it to a degree clean.

@Yannis,

Thanks.

I'm totally confident now to do the tender on the 2-8-0.

I took the shell off and put

I took the shell off and put it aside for future weathering.

I removed the cab so it will be easier to get rid of the numbers and put brass ones on.

I thoroughly cleaned the crud out of the gear box, and cleaned the driver and bearings.

I'm not familiar with this motor and the markings on it. It runs nice, but not as nice as a Mashima.

This is great! I look forward

This is great! I look forward to following along to completion.

Jim Six, Millersburg IN

The main reason that the Santa Fe switched to diesels ahead of

most other railroads was the bad water in the areas of their operations.  So much of their mainline ran through the southwest desert, and the water was so alkaline that it would plug up the steam systems with scale in a short time.  I don't know if the U.P. and S.P. ran into the same problems, but the S.F. used to run tank trains hauling treated water throughout the system parking loaded tank cars by each water tower and hauling the empties back for refilling.  They were given special permission from the War Dept. to buy hundreds of Ft units during WW2 when there were restrictions on the purchase of new products that utilized precious resources needed for the war effort. 

@Jim Six, I am currently

@Jim Six,

I am currently researching for a replacement motor. Also for a technique to apply etched brass numerals to the cab.

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/37779

@Russ,

Interesting and informative. Scaling is caused by hard water?

it seems I have the knack now

It seems I have the knack now in regards to airbrushing clear coat so I'll be applying it soon to the 2-8-2's tender to seal the finish and decal,

but not yet until I finish decaling the other tender, which goes with a 2-8-0.

Probably best to do seal both tenders at the same time in the paint booth.

When the tenders are done, I can move on and work removing the numbers on the 2-8-2's cab.

I'm trying to figure out if

I'm trying to figure out if the numbers on this cab are raised [brass] or painted.

When Image Enhanced...

It seems that there are faint shadows that would imply brass numerals.

Bud,Brass numbers it will be

Bud,

Brass numbers it will be then.

I'm currently researching why some cabs had brass number and others were painted. I thought it may be a time thing, but have seen them as late as the late fifties.

Looking through my CNR Steam Books

I never paid much attention to the "raised" cab numbers on CNR steam locomotives until you started your blog.

As a result, I got out my small collection of books to take a look. It appears that very few locomotives had polished brass numbers and that the raised cab numbers frequently got a coat of yellow paint. Most of these photos are taken during the last decade of service in the 1950's. Not a clue of what happened earlier.

The U-1-f, K-5-a and U-4-a classes (mountain, hudson and northern) with numbers mounted on  the wide green running boards seemed to keep the polished brass. These were primarily passenger service locomotives in their prime on the busy routes out of Toronto. The U-1-f types got a little farther afield during their WWII to late 1950's service life and had more freight service as well.

An interesting detail to be sure and classy CNR trait.
 

King_coal,I did not know

King_coal,

I did not know about them being painted yellow. I'm guessing that was the look Division Point's Boo Rim models were going for:

Overland Models' Boo Rim models did this also:

I started on the cab and

I started on the cab and managed to removed the numbers.

Bloody hell Murdoch ; )

I exposed a little brass on the other side so I won't be able to just clear coat it; I'll have to paint it.

I painted both sides of the

I painted both sides of the cab.

I also put a minuscule amount of Micro Mask over the Class and percentage markings on the cab before I painted it.

I removed the mask and it turned out.

You can see them at the bottom edge: "S-1-b 53%"

After the paint cures I'll give it a polish with some Tamiya fine compound and figure a way to align/apply the brass numbers. Contemplating if painting the brass numbers yellow as an option, as I recently learned that some were painted.

All polished and ready for

All polished and ready for numbers.

I cut out some numbers and filed the flash off them.

I just placed them on to see how they will look.

I think they will look good; just got to figure a way to align them nicely and perpendicular.

Not quite ready, as I noticed

Not quite ready, as I noticed the "S-1-b 35%" is way too low so I'm going to paint over it.

I also just learned that there are two style of brass numerals - narrow and wide. Western locos had the narrow ones and Central and Eastern the wide ones.

I now have to research, which one 3265 had. What I know so far is it was reassigned to the Atlantic region in 1955 for the west, but shows it has a coal tender. The question is, was it originally in the Eastern region and at some point ended up out west before it was reassigned to the Atlantic region.