The SCRR

The Spring Creek Railroad
G Scale Model Railway
Conductor Jerry Barnes
Engineer Jerry Barnes

The Project Page

This page contains two projects
The Challenger Project and The Stock Car

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The track expansion project Jerry's New Trestle Making 'Sylvia's Stream The metal bridge	The Waterfalls Project The Metal Bridge The Rotary Snow Plow Project

Jerry always wanted a Union Pacific Challenger locomotive, it stops in Lexington almost
every year on a trip across the USA. A company
makes one in 1/32nd scale, but it is over a thousand dollars.

He came up with a plan to use two 1/29th scale Aristo Craft Pacific type locomotives to
bash into one Challenger. The Pacifics had 3 large drivers, which would serve as
half of the Challenger drivers, plus they were the right size.
He found two used ones at a good price.

The 3977 Challenger is on display at North Platte, NE. Jerry took pictures of it
and put them together on the computer for photo plans to work from.
He did the same with pix of the one that still runs. He took those on its stops
in Lexington. These were printed off in full size and taped together.

It was decided to start with the tender, after reading many locomotive
builders seldom get it done, if they do the locomotive first!
He made up some bulkheads and wrapped it with 1/16" plastic.

The plastic was covered with embossed copper that
he put a rivet pattern into with a pounce wheel.

The Challenger tender is called a 'Centipede' tender, because of all the wheels. This is
made commercially for the 1/29th scale USA Trains Big Boy. Jerry obtained a set of
trucks and side frames, but in while waiting for them, made his own and thought they
compared well to the commercially made ones, and they cost $90, so he sent them back.

The side view of the finished tender. He did use the front USA tender trucks.

A top view shows the hatches and boards.

A trial fit of the Pacific pieces was done to see if it would work out and it looked fine.

The two pieces were bolted together with a 1/2" piece of square tubing.
The front set of drivers pivots, so it can go around curves easily,
the real one does the same thing.

A Graupner u-joint from Hobby Lobby was used to allow the front drivers to pivot,
the motor for them is mounted on the front of the rear set of drivers, which are fixed.

The test run went well, so the build could continue!

Parts of the Pacific boilers were used, an 8" piece was put in the middle, attached to
the bulkheads. He used a plastic sign for the boiler piece and to extend the Pacific cab.

As with the tender, the boiler/cab were covered with embossed foil.

The two Pacific trailing trucks were joined to create the two axle unit a Challenger has.

The Challenger had long side rods running from the rear drivers. The Pacific locomotives Jerry was using had the rods running from the center driver. It was hard to get them off and move
them to the back, but he got it done. He was able to put 3/4" extensions and attach everything back to the bottom of the boiler. Making the rods longer was a delicate balance in geometry,
but he got these for the rear drive done, good practice for the challenge that the front drives would pose.

The front drive pivots under the boiler, so the valve/pistons and rod mechanism could not be attached to the boiler as the rear unit was. He used some brass pieces to attach to the motor block. One runs forward to provide more support to the pistons(painted black in this picture). The one across holds the rod mechanism with a brace forward to hold it steady. The valve gear has a smaller brass piece holding them. The rods seemed to come out a bit different in size
from the rear drive's rods, but they seem to work okay now.

The Challenger has steam pipes that run from the rear cylinders to the front cylinders. These pivot some, due to the front unit pivoting. Jerry decided to eliminate the attaching the pipes
to the front cylinders and having it pivot.The pivoting could have caused derailments.
He used some copper tubing and fittings for the large pipes. Many small ones still to
be made will be from copper wiring and smaller tubing.

Jerry got a newer Aristocraft smoke unit and modified it so smoke will come out of both
stacks on the Challenger. He used the old stack smoke unit from the Pacific, turning it
upside down and gluing it to the newer smoke unit, with the tubes going up to vent the
smoke up through both stacks.

Once the pipes were on he thought he'd check out the fit of everything. He had detailed the
boiler some more and was working on the smoke box in front, adding some copper
cladding to it. More detail will be added to it and the boiler, including the handrails,
lights and smaller piping. Lots of work to go, but he's happy with how it's going.

More testing revealed that the u-joint was not allowing enough of a pivot. After corresponding with another modeler who had made a Challenger Jerry adopted his method of using some Plastrut gears and mounting the motor on top of the axle block. Jerry had to notch out the bottom of the boiler some but it was a good solution that worked very well. The rear drive is fixed, so it was not necessary to change that.

The gears mounted in the locomotive. Set screws hold them to the shafts.

Once the drive problem was solved Jerry finished up some detailing and got a coat of paint
on it. He used Krylon satin black spray cans. The silver smokebox is a silver
'Argent' color from the Ford garage.

The Challenger is 32" long, the tender is 18" so Jerry is trying to figure out how to carry
it around and where to store it. Looking like a new shelf in the train shed just for it!

Jerry still needs to do the lights and the front cow catcher and a few minor details. He's
starting to feel sad about it nearing completion. It was a difficult build but the 'challenge'
is what makes it all worth while-no pun intended!

Side view of the almost finished Challenger on a test run. It is 32" long and 18" for the tender. Hard to carry around! The lights are all wired in and work. My lovely wife cut the vinyl lettering for me, she used to run a sign biz out of the house. Still has her cutter, lucky for me! I made it be #3988, lots of #3985's have been made, it is the one full size ne still running for the UP.

The herald on the front was done on ink jet vinyl, adhered to some plastic and cut out. The X lettering was also done on the ink jet vinyl. Just cut it out, peel off the backing and stick it on!

Rear view of the tender.

Going over the metal bridge, even the Challenger's weight did not make it sag.

The Stock Car

Wanting a stock car to match the size of the MDC cars that he likes to pull with his LS Mikado, Jerry found some plans on the internet and altered them to match the size of the MDC cars, which are roughly 1/32nd in size.

He used the classic modeling technique of building over the plans,
using pins to hold the coffee stir sticks in place.
He bought a boxfull of them for a few dollars!

The frame was made of clear pine, ripped to size, it was floored with the
sticks also. The brake detail was added from castings.

The ends were thin plywood with the sticks glued on.
The cast hay door came from a modeling friend.

With the ends on, the car was starting to take shape. Some beams were
added near the doors to support the walls and roof.

The wood was stained with a mix of india ink/alcohol to gray it,
some Union Pacific yellow was used for the color.

Some cows were obtained for the car and glued in with hot glue.

The roof was made of balsa with craft foil laid over it, after being embossed with some roof seams. It was spray painted with a red primer to simulate rust. The roof walks were made of pine that had been scraped with a hobby saw
and weathered with the ink mixture. Some Bragdon chalks were used also.

The finished car, with it's #820 KD couplers and USA trucks
that have 1/32nd Gary Raymond wheels.

A MDC car is shown with the stock car to compare sizes.
Jerry had a lot of fun making the car, maybe he'll do another next winter.

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Some of Jerry's Favorite Web Sites

	Jerry's Jukebox
	Jerry's Paintings that he did of things he saw while serving his tour of duty in Vietnam
	Pictures that Jerry took during his tour of duty in Vietnam
	Jerry's Model Ships
	My Large Scale dot Com This site is probably the best G scale site there is
	Steam in the Garden Magazine Lots of good steam info and people who know steam
	Aristo Craft Trains This is a a good web site with forums and is split into steam, electric and a few other categories
Live Steam 1/29	A site that Don McKay started up devoted solely to the Aristo Craft Live Steam Mikad o
	Large Scale Tech Tips This site was started by George Schreyer years ago. Lots of good info there
	Colorado Model Structures Very reasonable priced buildings a building parts for your railroad.
	Union Pacific Railroads This web site has information on their two live steamers they still run and where they are going to on excursions. You can follow them on line.
	Vietnam Transportation Association Good web site if you are interested in transportation in the Vietnam war
	A web site devoted solely to the Gun Trucks used in Vietnam and now in Iraq. Many good pictures.
	Modeling Vietnam Gun Trucks This site will show you how Jerry has donehis Gun Truck Models.
	Heartland Military Museum Museum at Lexington, NE on I-80. Devoted to vehicles used by the military.
	Always Jukin' Magazine Site devoted to jukeboxes, many ads and stories
	Fast Hits Music If you are looking for that certain 45 for your jukebox, this is the place to go to
	Kitabee Books Lexington, NE At Kitabee Books, we sell new and used books, book accessories & magnetic poetry kits.
If you have any questions or comments please use this link to email Jerry at jerrybarnes@nospamthescrr.com Please remove the nospam from the address

	John's Old Car and Truck Pictures
	The Covered Bridges of New Brunswick Canada
	The Covered Bridges of Nova Scotia Canada
	The Old Railway Stations of Canada
	Visit Lonnie Hedgepeth's of Rocky Mount, North Carolina site. He has used the plans provided on my web page and is building a Covered Bridge for his Live Steam train.
	The building trades class at Darlington HS in Darlington, Wisconsin built this covered bridge for a local business man
	Julie and her father Gary built a model bridge using the plans on my Covered Bridge site for a school project
	A tribute to the Steam Locomotives of the CNR
	A tribute to the Steam Locomotives of the CPR
	Ed's Marble Etchings

Webmaster John MacDonald

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