Swapping sides - Working on my HO scale 3025

Well this weekend would have been spent up at the Big "E" fair grounds exploring the four buildings packed full with all things trains and model railroading. But like with most thing during this pandemic its was shelved for another time. It was not all for loss though as there was over 12+ hours of live stream presentations, clinics, and product announcements at the Virtual Amherst Railroad Hobby Show. 

It was the perfect thing to put on in the background as I spent most of the weekend working on model trains things. I spent most of Saturday 3D modeling parts for my HO scale Walt Disney World Engines, which you can see the results of on my Facebook group.  But the biggest find of the weekend was part of my HO scale 3025 model!!!

I'm a bit ashamed to admit this but it was ever since the move to the new house I have not fully unpacked all of my model train things. While looking for items for the WDWRR project i found a small green box that happened to have about 80% of my 3025 models.  It gave me such a rush to find these items that I put the Disney trains aside and took out the parts of  to see what I had and what the next steps were.

Now the Bachmann SY models are very accurate to the real life locomotives which is a blessing as it means many if not all of the major details were included in the base model. Accurate as the model is there is one major issue when it comes to converting the model into 3025.  

The SY locomotives were created by the Tangshan Locomotive works in Tangshan, China. Chinese railways are "left-hand" drive, meaning that the engineer sits on the left of the cab and the fireman on the right. This is opposite of what is common practice here in the USA. This means that components of the engine that drive the locomotive, like the reverser, are alongside the left side of the boiler. The Bachmann model depicts this perfectly. So what my issue? 3025 and its predecessor 1647 were modified to be "right-hand" drive!!!!!!

So what does this mean for my model? I have to carefully cut off and remove many of the modeled in and separately applied details and reattach them to the opposite side of the model. A simple task on paper but increasingly harder in practice. 

In the following pictures you can see my 3025 boiler compared to a stock Bachmann SY to show what I removed.

Nothing terrible yet until you examine the parts I cut off. Lets take the reverser for example. (please forgive me if this is not the actual name of the part)  the way the model is designed it is hollow on the back side that would normally face the engine. Meaning I can simply spin the part 360 degrees and re-glue it as I had hoped to do. So now I have a part that is not longer usable and now replacement to fit on the other side. What to do? Well take measurements of the existing part and start to 3D model my own part. It was during this time I took the liberty to "upgrade" the part as well. The Bachmann version used basic shapes and mine was a little more.....rivet counter level........

 No telling if this will print the way I want but that's a story for another time.

My next item to relocate what the air pumps. ( Again please don't be too critical if i got he names wrong) This would fit into a gap in the running board on the right or East side of the boiler. In order to move the pumps to the West side a new gap would need to be cut out. This was the job for the hand held razer saw. 

Carefully I made my cuts for the new gap as well as cutting out the existing running board strip. 

My plan was to use the off-cuts on the opposite sides to fill gaps, basically swapping sides. and after some filling and a bit of 0.04 styrene sheets the new running board was super glued together.

And here is where I stopped for the night. Not the most things done off the list but a good start on some of the trickiest parts. I have learned that Model Railroad projects take time and should not be rushed. It one of the main reasons why I'm redoing my WDWRR models. Slow and steady will win the race on this one and I hope that it ends up being well worth it in the end. This is one of the first times in the new house I have sat down and worked on a model in a proper workshop and it felt amazing. Hopefully during this pandemic and the winter months I can get more work done on the trains. But only time will tell, but for now I need to prepare for the expected 16" of snow we are getting tonight. 

I hope you enjoy reading this update and I hope you all are staying safe and healthy,