4032 A.T & S.F
Santa Fe 2-8-2 Mikado #4032 (1 1/2-inch scale)
built by Bob Cummings
This is my second engine built from Railroad Supply parts. I began the project in 1995 and completed the locomotive in 2004 and the tender in 2005. The tender is scratch built. I ordered the cylinders, frame, and drivers machined. These parts needed to be perfect, and I knew that I did not have the skill or the machinery large enough to have a good outcome. Railroad Supply sells their kits fully machined or as rough castings or in any stage in between. They also sell them in logical sections allowing the builder to make a gradual investment into the project. My first engine, a 2-6-0, I bought over five years, fully machined but without the drilling and tapping done. Doing so gave me some hands-on work/experience and opened the door to learning to machine simple parts. I was more hands on with the Mikado and had a mill and lathe by then.
The engine is oil fired, burning an atomized diesel flame. The prototype was also oil fired and as was typical, burned “bunker C” oil. (Bunker C is not very clean and just light enough to flow through pipes. It usually needs to be pumped and in cold weather needs to be heated.) I learned to fire live steam engines on an oil fired Northern, club engine at Riverside Live Steamers, California.
Under steam water is supplied to the boiler by an injector and a compound steam pump. The steam pump has a syncopated rhythm which I enjoy as it exhausts through the stack.
The tender is completely scratch built. The skin is attached to an underlying frame and held in place by 1500(+) rivets. The outside frames for the six-wheel trucks were cast by a friend at RLS. I had them welded to a support frame. I made the journal boxes from aluminum bar stock. The axles were turned from steel bar stock and the wheels turned from rough castings. Suspension is by coil springs. There is a large stainless steel water tank and a stainless-steel fuel tank. Additionally, there is a battery operated compressor for train brakes and a battery for the head light, number board lights and cab light. There is room for my feet inside which eases the stress on my back.
Prototype information came from; “Car and Locomotive Plans for Model Railroaders” Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway System, 1953. “Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail” by Worley. “Steam Locomotives of the Santa Fe, a Former Shopman’s Scrapbook” by Frank Ellington. And photos from the Baldwin Locomotive Builders collection and others.
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