So by the looks of the large tubing you are going with the early Mallets before they were modified to 2-8-8-0s? I'd love to have a model of the older models as well, but I'm modeling 1952+. Does anyone know when the trailing truck was removed and the boiler modified to the N1sa?

I am doing the later N-1. They were originally compound engines which has a cleaner look. The large pipes I have made is for the rebuild to a simple articulated locomotive meaning instead of steam going to the rear set and reused in the front set both sets of drivers get full steam. They changed to this for more power and faster speeds at the cost of a little efficiency using more steam. The speed made up for the use of more steam, and fuel to make steam.
Side note, as the later version you would hear individual chuffs for each set of drivers not timed to each other as opposed to a compound engine where you would hear one set of chuffs. I saw a recent video of a broadway limited Y6b that had sound for independent chuffs which being a compound engine is not accurate.

The rebuild to simple articulates happened in the later 30s (36-37 based on image dates) in phases. There are pictures of the engines with the large, later steam delivery pipes but still 2-8-8-2s. During this rebuild is when they seem to have gotten bigger tenders as well.

Here is rebuilt 1811 in 37' still a 2-8-8-2.

**More info for the last post: The conversions started as early as 1934 as mentioned in Memories of Reading Company Power, and that book also says the locomotives lost the trailing truck between 1940 and 44. So the engines changed quite a bit over their entire career.**

I only worked on this today since last sunday but got quite a bit done. I did a test run before starting any more construction to make sure the steam delivery pipes were working the way I thought they were, rolling it on the track with no motor installed. I need to make a new draw bar to which will require another test run before finishing.

I started with the pilot steps and platform on top of the cylinders. I used brass strips for the vertical frame work to keep it thin yet strong. I added little .040 tabs to the bottom of the platform to keep it up off the cylinders a little.



Then I did the foot boards, all .010.



The markers appear on the front with the wrap around running board to the face installed. The little piece of running board over the pipe was fitted by drilling a hole the size of the pipe and cutting the bottom of the circle out so the piece looked like a U which fit right over. The first air tank was placed as well as the air compressors so I could mark where to repeat the drilling method for the pipe and air compressors. The air tank set the height of the running board since the pipe needs to be able to move around it the running board sits on top of the tank.



With the remainder of the running board in place the other air tank was placed. That air tank is glued with thin connecting strips to the top half of the boiler to make the shell removal less complicated after all the plumbing is installed.



The engineers side has the same basic spacing but no air compressors to work around so it went a little faster. This is where it sits now starting to look rather Reading.

Work this week started with windows in the cab made from mostly .010 scrap then the cab interior got a coat of black.


Then the roof sheet was cut out in .010 for wrapping.


After the roof was glued down the rood detail went on.


Other things were done this weekend too like the safety valve area, sand dome hatches, and some major parts were added like the check valve and the power reverse.



The tender got some work too with the footboards and water hatch made.



I set a new draw bar and did some test running. One I had the draws bar kinks worked out it ran great.



Here is a teaser video from the test run pulling a 30 car train with ease. It was quickly taken with my phone so the quality isn't the best.

I suppose there is a plan to put build a 2.6% grade to provide a proper Locust Summit test. The video shows the locomotive is certainly up to the challenge.

Finally got around to ordering parts with no luck at shows. So now the major castings are installed and I built the latter on the rear of the tender and the steps on the on the back of the pilot. Next will be rivets done with micromart decals before doing all the plumbing.