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The DL535E was built by the American Locomotive Company (Alco) and later by
the Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) for the White Pass. The first units were
delivered in May of 1969 from ALCO and an additional three units were
delivered on December 10, 1971 from MLW. Those left on the WP&Y after
the closure in 1982 were the
three delivered in 1971 from MLW, numbers 108, 109, & 110. Numbers 102 and
105 were destroyed in a roundhouse fire at the WP&Y. Numbers 101, 103, 104,
106, 107 were sold to CFM in Columbia and operated there from 1988 to 1998
and at end of operation in Columbia were repurchased by WP&YR in 1999. These locomotives were
1200 HP units. They have been in three different paint schemes, the current
scheme being the original yellow and green, After the purchase of the WP&Y
by Federal Industries some were painted Red White and Blue and later this
was revised to an all blue paint scheme which eventually all locomotives
were to appear in. In 2008 some 20 years
after the reopening of the railroad for tourist operations and almost ten
years since the five 101 Class engines were returned to Skagway the line is busier now than it ever was in its heyday,
with possibly the exception of the war years when the Alaska Highway was
being built from Fort St John, BC to Fairbanks Alaska. Since the shut down
of the Newfoundland Railway it is the only passenger operation in North
America on narrow gauge running diesel power.
Class 90 GE shovel nose engines were numbered 90 to 100
Class 101 Alco DL535 built by MLW units were numbered 101 to 107
Class 101 MLW DL535 units were numbered 108 to 110
Class 111 Bombardier DL535 wide cab only 114 reached the railway. The
other 3 units units 111 to 113 never reached the WP&YR and went to a narrow
gauge railroad in the USA that mines Gypsum. I believe 112 was wrecked in
grade crossing accident and is no longer in service.
Links to the railroad are here
www.whitepassrailroad.com
and www.wpyr.com
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Where to start. You will need to find a copy of the Ntrak Narrow Gauge
Data Book Fourth Edition page 56 - 58 and the Nn3 Manual also from Ntrak
Version Five pages 10 & 11 or pages 19 & 20 in version 4 for details of
conversion and a picture. This job was first described by Dave Freehling for
the Nn3 Manual from Ntrak. For a year or so Pete Postal of Brooklyn
Locomotive Works made up kits of parts for this conversion and I purchased
one of those kits.
Preparing the parts. You will need to locate several old MRC locomotives. For the shell you will
need a couple of C420's. At least one of them must be the single powered
truck type. For the trucks you will need at least two sets of trucks from an
RSD-15 or RSC-2, Mine came from an MRC RSD-15. If you can find one, get a
Kato U30 cab shell from which you want the rear cab doors, but this may not
be necessary based on which unit you are making and what date as some of the
units have no side door to the cab. I believe the original order units 101
to 106 had these doors when delivered and the units 107 - 110 did not have
these doors. The first step is to take apart the C420. Remove
the shell from the chassis. Remove the trucks from the chassis. Remove the
motor and electrical wiring from the chassis. With an Xacto knife carefully
remove the handrails from the side of the body shell and the porch at front
and rear.
Preparing the shell. First mark a line all around the shell one
scale foot above the deck of the running boards. Next make a cut on the rear
portion of the long hood by cutting down 26 feet back from the cab and just
behind the door hinges below the two small grill panels. The cut should be
just flush with the running boards on both sides. Next cut the body shell
away from the running boards, flush with the top of the running board deck.
Then remove the grill with careful cuts along the outside edge of the rear
edge of the frame and the do the same at the forward edge of the frame. For
the final cut from the open end of the rear part of the shell cut along the
top edge of the louvers to remove the grill in one piece from each side. You
need the frame with the louvers. Now cut the bottom foot off of the rest of
the shell at the top of the lower hinge on the access panel doors on the
shell. Make this a straight and smooth cut as you need the shell later. Now
check your work: the nose should be 4 feet tall and the hood part 7.5 feet
tall. Next shorten the nose by removing 2 feet from it. You'll have to
decide where best to do this. At some point in time you want to remove all
the detail from the sides of the cab and the nose, the roof of the cab and
the low hood. Fill in the Headlight holes with body putty and smooth the
contour there also. Next cut is 26 feet back of the cab on the long hood.
Make your cut just behind the door hinges. Now remove the details from above
the doors between the two sets of grills, then remove the roof details on
the long hood. Now cut and remove one of the three sections from the grills
you removed from the rear of the long hood. If you are careful in removing
the third section of the grill you can use it later. If not you will need
the grill from the second C420 later. Dress the side of the grill so they
are the same width and the top and bottom sills so they are the same height.
Now reassemble the rear of the long hood by inserting the grill at the end
of the long hood and flush with the walkway on the shell. Now you need to
file to fit the rear part of the hood to come forward over the new grill to
fit around the new grill which is only two panels wide now. When done, the
rear section over the lovers must be flush with the roof line and the lower
edge where the walkway will fit.
The
shell should be just short of 47 feet from end to end and with the running
boards in place, the length should be 52 feet over the platform ends, and 53
feet over the coupler knuckles. When lining up the running boards to be
glued into place on the shell remember the following. The forward edge of
the rear ladder is in line with the rear of the hood, and the forward edges
of the ladder at the front of the locomotive are in line with the forward
edge of the hood. This means that at the rear the ladder looks straight
across the rear platform of the engine while at the front the platform
extends forward over the plow and around the front of the hood. The trucks
on the under frame are located such that at the front of the locomotive the
front edge is in line with the rear edge of the forward ladder. At the rear
of the locomotive the trailing edge of the rear truck is 18 inches ahead of
the ladder. You will have to extend the walkway forward of the low hood on
the locomotive. I attached the rear portion of the walkway to the shell
first, cutting it off just in the area under the cab. Then I trimmed the
forward section of the walkway to fit under the locomotive with the joint
below the cab floor. I then left this part to strengthen and turned my
efforts to the chassis next.
The
chassis has a large round hole just under the motor and this is the area
where the previous motor electrical connections were made. Remove the
latches used to hold the shell down on the frame. Cut them down level with
the outside of the beam on which it sits. Next cut down the outside of the
frame starting beside the tower and working along the frame into towards the
hole inside the chassis. Repeat this for the other side of the frame at the
gear tower. When you are done you should be able to pull the gear tower with
its piece of frame away from the rest of the chassis. Move the two parts
back together, adjusting the truck centers to approximately the correct
spacing of 33 feet, testing the mating of the frame to the shell and when
satisfied that the distance is correct clean up the junction of the two
pieces by cutting the piece with the gear tower to flatten the end off where
the hole used to be. On the inside of the frame extend the hole towards the
rear of the chassis until you can insert the piece of the chassis with the
gear tower and maintain the new truck centre to centre distance. Next slip
the pieces of the chassis under the shell. The piece that does not have the
gear tower goes towards the nose and the piece with the gear tower goes to
the rear. next glue with liquid styrene cement the two pieces of the frame
together. Next mill out the frame to allow for a Kato replacement motor p/n
11501 and mount the motor into the chassis using silicone to form the shock
mount and hold the motor. The motor is mounted with shims below it glued in
place with liquid cement. The shim rails elevate the motor so that the shaft
lines up with the motor shaft, with a gap of about 1/8 of an inch or 3.5mm.
The motor has a round side so my shims are two rails that hold the motor in
place in its silicone mounting. For a shaft coupling use a piece of surgical
tubing with 1mm inside diameter 11 mm long. You have to cut off the motor
shaft at the brush end as the motor is mounted with the brush end away from
the gear tower. Next test fit the old trucks in place and trim the fuel tank
sides attached to the frame to allow the trucks to swing freely. Do not
overdo this, cut just enough to clear because when you narrow the trucks
they will have more clearance.
Creating narrow gauge trucks from the standard gauge trucks of an RSD15.
We
will start with the power truck first. Turn the truck over and observe that
on one half of the truck chassis there are holes for the gears and on the
other half there are none. The first thing to do is the take the truck
apart. slip the side frames off of the truck. Now remove the wheel sets and
pull the wheels off of the axles. Carefully remove the pickup wiper from the
half of the truck which has a solid bottom and no holes for the gears on the
axles. Next look for the two holes that match the pins on the other half of
the truck, you need to drill these holes out through the side of the truck
frame as the pins will fit into the cover when it is modified. Now use a
razor saw to remove the end, top and bottom flange leaving just the side of
the truck and the side of the gear tower. Try not to remove or damage the
raised strip that extends up and down the side of the frame inside the gear
tower. When done take a file and smooth the edge down flush with the side. I
hope you have a Dremel tool for the next job. It is to shorten off the
plastic gear axles to the new dimensions. The axle with the smaller gear on
it you will see has one side longer than the other. The long side you will
notice has three diameters on it: one for the wheel, one for the opening in
the side of the truck and other one to hold the axle in place inside the
truck and keep the gears aligned and in mesh. The short side has two
diameters and will not be altered. Place the short shaft into the half of
the truck with the gear holes in it. now mark the axle at the point where it
projects beyond the truck frame. Now place the short end of the axle into
the chuck of the dremel tool. Turn the Dremel tool up to the highest speed.
Now comes the hard part. Use an Xacto knife as machine tool cutter to cut
the largest diameter down in size and to shorten it to the mark you made
earlier. Do this by making sure you have a new blade in the knife and by
laying the blade on the running part of the axle. At first have the blade in
line parallel with the gear on the shaft. Now tilt the blade to put the
blade edge on the running shaft and tilt the blade slightly towards the step
and slowly bring the blade towards the step. Go easy as it does not take
much effort before you are cutting away material on the shaft. Run the blade
up to the mark. Remove the axle from the Dremel tool and place the small end
into the unmodified truck half and place the modified truck half over the
newly turned-down bit of axle to ensure it just fits into the hole in the
side for the axle. Turn the axle by hand making sure it spins freely. When
you are satisfied with the fit, mark the long end extending through the side
frame. Now you are going to reduce the second diameter. This one is more
critical than the first because this is the one that must press into the
wheel again to hold it on the axle. Use the same method as before to reduce
the middle diameter and move the step back to the mark you made while trial
fitting the axle into the truck. When you are done see if you still can fit
the wheel onto the axle and move it beyond where it was positioned
originally. Hopefully it is still a tight friction fit. Do the same thing
for the second geared axle. On the idler you are going to do the same thing
again. There is only one diameter that needs to be reduced and the process
is just like the other axles. On the tower gear we are going to remove a
portion of the gear spacer to allow it to fit back into the tower.
Reassemble the truck. First insert the wiper into the modified side
frame and bend the tab up out of the way so you can bring the halves
together. Take the unmodified truck half and place the unmodified end of the
axle into the truck frame and push a wheel onto the axle and repeat for the
other two axles. Next place the modified side on over the axles. Push the
wheels onto the axles making sure the wipers are formed correctly and
touching the back of the wheels on the two end axles. Check the with a wheel
gauge for the correct distance between the wheels before you cut off the
axle extensions. Make sure the spring on the idler is also replaced in the
modified truck. If this is missing you will find you pickup poor and the
engine will derail going in the direction which places this axle as the lead
axle on the truck. On the forward truck it does not matter which half of the
truck you modify. Modify the axles in the same manner as before, only this
time there is only one diameter to modify. Do not forget to replace the
pickup wiper and how to modify it to fit the truck again. Also the fix the
spring on the idler to keep it from floating in its elongated hole.
Truck side frames are modified next. Remove the coupler that extends
flush with the end of the frame. Look inside and you will see two lugs that
hold the side frame in place. Now that the truck is narrower, you have to
take a piece out of the this section and glue the two sides back together.
Use ACC to glue one half of the side frame to the truck first and then glue
the remaining half of the side frame to the half on the truck.
Make
sure the tower gear fits into the tower on the power truck. Run the gears by
hand and make sure there is no binding and they run free. Next you need two
.015 shims to go into the tower on the frame, between the tower on the truck
and the inside of the frame tower to keep the truck centered in the hole.
The spacers are held in place by the tower gear axle which goes through the
frame as well. These spacers were made in an oval shape about 3 scale feet
long and 1.5 feet tall, with a hole in the center for the axle to pass
through. Next make sure the truck will articulate properly in the tower and
lubricate it with light oil and teflon powder. Then make sure that none of
the frame was interfering with the movement of the truck. On the forward
truck glue a small piece of brass tubing into the hole for mounting the
truck to the chassis after opening it up across the full width of the truck.
Use a file to dress the tube flat with the top of the truck, then place a
.010 washer on top of the hole and ACC it onto the top of the chassis and
use a 1/72 round head screw to hold the truck in place in the chassis with a
nut and brass flat and lock washers on top. Again check that the truck
articulates properly and freely. Next complete the wiring from the trucks to
the new motor and test run the motor and gear train to the narrow gauge
truck to make sure it runs well. Lubricated the whole thing while it is running
on its back with test leads attached. Break it in as it is with a minimum
load.
Mate
the chassis with the shell and modify the weights to fit the new shell. For
the pilots cut .015 sheet styrene to fill the space across between the
forward and rear ladders. On the rear pilot mark the coupler pocket height
using an Nn3 coupler height gauge and cut a pocket for the Micro Trains Nn3
coupler to fit into. On the rear pilot use a piece of .030 styrene glued
from behind flush with the top of the hole as a mounting block for the
coupler using a 00-90 screw. At the forward end cut two pieces of .015
styrene sheet to plate across the front of the pilot, the glue them and let
them set over night. The next day using a file mark the center of the pilot
and two feet on either side and then use a file to shape the two layers of
.015 on an angle so that the pilot is flush with the ladder and full depth
at the lines 2 feet off center. Now mark the coupler pocket and cut it out
using a drill in the corners and around the perimeter and then using files
to finish it. Next fabricate a large snow plow out of the aluminum pieces
that come with a 1154 Micro Trains coupler conversion. The plow is four feet
straight across the bottom at the center and then rises 1 foot to the
outboard edge. The bottom edge of the plow is a 1/2 foot above the rail
height and comes up to the bottom edge of the coupler pocket at an angle.
The wings on either side of the coupler pocket rise four feet high and then
curl out and roll forward. The plow extends about 6 inches beyond the ladder
on either side of the pilot. When done the height of the plow should be
shortest by the coupler pocket with the most forward curl and almost four
feet tall at the ladder edge with only a small curl. The plow should also be
pushed back into the chamfer of the pilot. Once the plow was in place push
the coupler into the pocket and drill up from the bottom of the pilot a
00-90 tapping hole, then tap it and countersink the hole. Use a small screw
to hold the coupler in the pilot. Make sure the screw is countersunk so it
does not catch anything between the rails.
Preparing the Pilots On the rear pilot mark the coupler pocket height
using an Nn3 coupler height gauge and cut a pocket for the Micro Trains Nn3
coupler to fit into. On the rear pilot use a piece of .030 styrene glued
from behind flush with the top of the hole as a mounting block for the
coupler using a 00-90 screw. At the forward end cut two pieces of .015
styrene sheet to plate across the front of the pilot, the glue them and let
them set over night. The next day using a file mark the center of the pilot
and two feet on either side and then use a file to shape the two layers of
.015 on an angle so that the pilot is flush with the ladder and full depth
at the lines 2 feet off center. Now mark the coupler pocket and cut it out
using a drill in the corners and around the perimeter and then using files
to finish it. Next fabricate a large snow plow out of the aluminum pieces
that came with a 1154 Micro Trains coupler conversion. The plow is four feet
straight across the bottom at the center and then rises 1 foot to the
outboard edge. The bottom edge of the plow is a 1/2 foot above the rail
height and comes up to the bottom edge of the coupler pocket at an angle.
The wings on either side of the coupler pocket rise four feet high and then
curl out and roll forward. The plow extends about 6 inches beyond the ladder
on either side of the pilot. When done the height of the plow should be
shortest by the coupler pocket with the most forward curl and almost four
feet tall at the ladder edge with only a small curl. The plow should also be
pushed back into the chamfer of the pilot. Once the plow was in place push
the coupler into the pocket and drill up from the bottom of the pilot with a
00-90 tapped hole, then countersink the hole. Use a small screw
to hold the coupler in the pilot. Make sure the screw is countersunk so it
does not catch anything between the rails.
I was never totally satisfied with this engine. Yes it ran but it wobble
and the pick up was not the best and these were all symptoms of the parts we
had used. The Mehano built MRC units never ran very well even when brand new
out of the box. Never being satisfied with the way it ran I never painted the
original conversion and it languished on the layout for ten years or more.
New Chassis Option for this engine in
2008.
In December 2007 I found an alternate way to power this engine with a
better mechanism. I used a Hallmark Liberty Trains PA Locomotive from their
Lionel Christmas Ornament series to obtain the
truck side frames I needed and an Micro Trains Ltd GP35 chassis. I modified the PA truck
side frames to go over the MTL GP 35 trucks with the side frame detail
removed. Then added a dummy axle to the front and rear trucks of the PA as the GP 35
trucks are class B and the DL535 are Class C. This adds a better running
mechanism to the shell and now I will finish it. This does not get
the rear truck in exactly the correct place as it is roughly 15 inches to
far back from the front truck. Also the center axle does not line up with
the cast on journal boxes for the center axle on the truck side frame. This
is not noticeable when the engine is on the track as the wheel is there just
not perfectly aligned. So the truck is powered in the model 1-A-A while on
the real engine it is a Class C truck or all three axles powered. After
added 1/4 oz lead squares that had been cut down to fit in the shell and had
enough weight that this engine will pull about 25 cars on grades up to 1.5%.
Not quite as good as my cast metal body GE 90 Class engines, but certainly
within the class these engines could handle in real life. I replaced the
heavy hand rails cast in plastic from the original MRC model with custom
made brass ones made from .012 brass wire. The plow was made from some light
aluminum sheet that came from a Cuban Cigar tube. No I do not smoke, the Cigar
came from a friend who became a proud Daddy on the birth of his baby son. The
pilot was filed in and body mounted Micro Trains Couplers were added to
the pilots.
Now with a good picture of the 103 I can see I have some changes to make on
the cab to fill in the window in the door behind the engineer and raise the
window at the engineers position. Make the plow even bigger and add MU stand
to the pilot. Change the headlight from vertical pair to horizontal pair and
move the number boards down and add the marker lights above the number
boards.
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