Florian and Ed --
Thanks for the heads-up on Broadway Ltd.'s site.
I'm guessing the red paint Ed mentions is more of that "red lead" stuff
they used to insulate the metal from acid corrosion by combinations of coal
and water or cinders and water.
It's great Broadway is producing these models at reasonable cost. I'm sure
they'll be wonderful, and they look like a good starting point for
conversion to specific Q system engines. The main problems (for most of us)
would appear to be:
1) It looks like the Broadway models will be released as coal burners.
That is how they were delivered in 1919, of course, but I believe all the
Q's O-4s and the FW&D's E4A-2s had been converted to oil by about 1930. I
wrote to Broadway, asking them if they were going to release an oil-tender
version (no reply yet), and suggesting that perhaps they could offer a
"retrofit" kit -- something that could just be snapped into the existing
coal bunker. If not, coopering together an oil bunker out of styrene and
wire won't be the worst task in the world. And we do have plans to work
from.
2) Broadway's engines seem to lack feedwater heaters, which also were
added to all the CB&Q engines (but not the FW&D's) during the late 1920s.
Elesco FWHs were more typical (by a ratio of 2 to 1), but the two engine
numbers Broadway has chosen to release (5500 and 5508) both used
Worthington BLs. While their absence is not quite as conspicuous as the
lack of an Elesco would be, it still will be frustrating to purists. Adding
the proper FWH would involve moving parts of the running boards, relocating
the air pump on the other side of the engine, and adding all the other
necessary piping.
3) Minor details. You'll need to move the generator back from in front of
the stack to near the cab. And the 5508's Cole trailing truck will need to
be replaced with a Delta B (don't know the year when that happened). And
undoubtedly more stuff.
Broadway does say on its website that there will be some variation in its
models according to specific prototype, but whether that would extend to
something as large as a feedwater heating system, with all its attendant
piping, relocation of other details, etc., seems doubtful. That is
frustrating, certainly, but it is also probably unfair and unreasonable to
ask for the level of prototype specificity in a mass-produced $200 model
that you would expect in a $1,200 piece of handcrafted brass. Offering the
engines more-or-less "as delivered" probably gives modelers best basis for
the greatest variety of conversions.
Of course you could just get an FW&D engine (they're offering Nos. 451 and
454) and avoid the whole feedwater heater problem. Since my interests are
mainly Lines West/C&S, that's a plausible option for me -- and for anyone
who models the western end of the system, where the O-4s were assigned for
most of their careers. Another low-labor option is to model the engines as
they were in the 1920s -- which would allow you leave them as coal burners,
too; in that case, though, you'd need to re-letter them in the older
(pre-1927) style.
All in all, this is really good news. It's a great time to be a Burlington
modeler!
-Jonathan
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