Blackstone has been making some outstanding HOn3 locos for the better part of a decade now. Most of them come decorated to match specific Rio Grande narrowgauge prototype locos. In many, but not all cases, these locos have back-up lights as many did near the end of NG ops.
Blackstone has also produced painted, but undecorated versions of their K-27 and C-19 locos. The first run K-27 came with the back-up light. The C-19 undecs, however, came without back-up lights, as well as several of the decorated versions. However, all the ones that came with factory sound from the Tsunami boards have the capability to add back-up lighting. I wanted to do this with my two C-19 Silverton Union RR locos, as they spend a lot of time switching cars and shuttling back and forth up in the mountains.
For this project, you'll need a few parts. First, an appropriate LED, where I use the Ulrich Models/Richmond Controls SMD golden white LED pre-wired w/ 6" leads. The tiny size allow the fleixibility to mount in virtually any size headlamp.
Then you need a couple of PSC brass parts if you're doing a Rio Grande-associated prototype. I used brass, because this completed assembly is hanging on the rear of the tender and is subject to being snagged. These parts are also available in plastic if you prefer that route, but more care will need to be taken with the finished product, while the brass version is virtually bullet-proof -- your choice. So I used the PSC 585-3085 Pyle National D&RGW headlight and the 585-31305 Headlight bracket. These are the same parts that would build a front headlamp on most later Rio Grande narrowgauge power, but that's exactly what was used on the rear for back-up lights in many, but not all cases.
With the PSC Pyle lamp, you get the lens and the side numberboard light piping.
Here's a pic of the headlamp bracket.
You need to add some brackets to the headlamp bracket in order to mount it on the tender. I used 1/16"x1/16" brass angle to cut the rear bracket from. It sits on the lip of the tender shell. And I used some 1/32" square brass bar to bend the front bracket that rests against rear of the tender's tank.
Here's the rough cut of the rear, angle bracket showing it's a little longer than the width of the head lamp bracket's legs.
The front bracket requires you to bend its two long legs. This first shot is a side view. Note that the bracket is only being used to prop it up for the pic, as it actually attaches to the front, not between the side legs that it's resting on in this pic. Also note that it's very handy to leave the length of the brass bar attached for a handle until things are almost finished.
Here's the bent bar being sized up for fit.
Then you solder things up.
Next, check for fit on the tender and adjust as needed. Then file and generally clean-up your work.
Next, prepare the lamp by drilling any necessary holes for the wiring and LED. You can solder it to the bracket below, but it was easier to use epoxy for this and still plenty strong. While doing this, make sure everything is square and even by looking at how the lamp sits when sitting on the tender shell. The bracket doesn't need to be perfect, but you want it pretty much level where the lamp sits.
Prime and paint. I used Krylon Satin Black as a good match for the Blackstone paint.
The SMD LED is installed and held in place with canopy glue. On one, I used the supplied clear flat plastic lens. The other one got a MV lens, also held in place with canopy glue. Fish the wiring ending up by penetrating the tender deck and threading it through to the inside of the tender shell.
Here's a pic of the factory Tsunami board, which is in a different form-factor than the aftermarket Tsunami. The plug marked "BL" is empty -- which is why we're here.
There are two ways to connect your light. The circuit to the plug already includes the needed resistor to protect the LED, which I verified by talking with Blackstone customer sevice. They happened to have a plug with leads that they sent me, so I used that on one of the installs. On the other, I took a couple of short wire leads and tinned the ends. The BL plug has two pins that connect through its back and down to the board. There's room to slip in and sweat/melt the end of each lead onto the wiring on the back of the plug, so you don't actually touch the board itself. You'll end up with something like this.
IIRC correctly, the pin towards the back of the tender is the positive lead. Solder the LED leads to the wire stubs, tidy up the wiring, then take it to the programming track to confirm there are no shorts. You should set CV 34 to 66 to activate the back-up lighting. Here's #4 sporting her new lamp.
I used epoxy to attach the completed lamp assembly to the tender. It rests on the tender lip on the rear bracket and on the spots at the bottom of each of the long arms on the back wall of the tender tank. I found that it could be broken loose without it damaging the finish on the tender, so you can easily convert back to a no lamp tender if you want to at a later date.
Here's a comparison between the lens supplied by PSC with the lamp, just a clear plastic disc, and the MV lens (#173 to fit this PSC lamp), which is silvered on the back and rounded. I use a file to gently remove the silvering from the back of the lens, opening a clear area in the middle for the light to shine through. The difference?
The PSC clear lens throws out a bunch more light, but looks a little less realistic.
The MV lens on #3 looks more realistic, but throws out a lot less light.
One note on the ladders on the rear of the tender. #3 came as a black-boilered undec and had the ladder offset to the side already, leaving the middle open for the back-up lamp. #4 was a green-boilered version, but the ladder on the rear was centered so it would interfere with mounting the lamp. The ladder can be easily relocated. You push the mounting lugs loose from inside the tender and relocate it to the side to clear the lamp by drilling new mounting holes for the ladder.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I had a note that there is no Reply bar for some reason on this post. There was for me, but I'm hoping that this shakes it loose for others. Be happy to answer any questions or suggest ways to help with the soldering, etc.
Teriffic thread, one to save for future reference. Thanks!
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
Yes, you're correct. The side lights on the lamp assembly were originally used for engine numbers when the lamps were used for headlights. Not all D&RGW locos received this style back-up lamp, as some used a much simpler round fixture that didn't have the side lights.
The evidence I've seen indicates that when the Pyle headlights were used for the back-up lamp, the side lights were blanked off with what looks like metal plates, so no numbers were displayed on the back-up lights. It's also the case the back-up light is only on when needed for reverse moves, so wouldn't display a lighted number except when used that way
I've actually been holding off dealing with adding the numbers because of how the Rio Grande did them, with a black background and the lettering either clear or in white, with the light shining through the numbers for night illumination. I plan to do engine numbers for these and several other locos I installed head lamps on previously by printing all of the ones I need at once on a sheet of transparency material with a black background and an outline of the opening to make it easy to cut them to the proper size.
I'm going to try just doing some blank numberboards to see it the tranparency material will block the light effectively. If not, I'll cut some thin styrene to block the numberboards for the back-up lights. I'll post that process here when I do it.
peahrens Teriffic thread, one to save for future reference. Thanks!
Paul,
Thanks, glad you found it useful. This application was Rio Grande-specific, but lots of RRs used back-up lights so it has wider application, too.
ImageShack and the forum software seem to be in a power struggle this morning over whether the pics will appear or not. I just tried redoing the links, with mixed success. Will wait awhile to see if it heals, maybe a server is down somewhere? Will re-do them again if still broken later in the day.
Nice job,Mike! 'Appreciate all the pictures.
I've got a couple of On3 K-27's that need backup lights. Fortunately,Precision Scale also has a huge catalogue of O Scale parts,including several styles of Rio Grande headlights/backup lights. I like the effect of the MV lens in your pictures.That might be the perfect solution for a few "too bright" headlights I have,which currently use the stock MMI lenses.
Mike
Mike,
Yes, PSC makes it easy to replicate in O.
With the MV lens, you control the size of the "hole" the light passes through by the filing or sanding of the silvering off the back. I'd start on the small side. The "hole" in #3's lens is probably one-fifth the diameter of the lens itself and that one was actually done a bit larger than the others I've done. The visible effect is hard to capture in pics. Here's one where I did manage a pretty good shot of the MV lens in #375's head lamp.
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Graff,
Glad you enjoyed it.
I decided to use the square bar for the front bracket because it was on-hand and it was fairly strong. I wanted to build the lamp assembly so that it was pretty much self-supporting. That way all it needs to do is hang on the back of the tender.
Now, these days if someone built one, they very well might go for square tubing and it would come out a lot like mine. Back in the day, however, they really didn't commonly have square tubing. Looking at Rio Grande practice, they would use flat bar instead. So that's an option to build a more delicate looking one. It would depend somewhat more on the glue holding the legs of the bracket for its strength, so might be more fragile
Just thought I'd mention that for those looking for something a bit finer scale. The "Narrow Gauge Pcitorial, Volume 1: Rio Grande Southern and D&RGW Motive Power" by Robert Grandt has some useful pics. The Friend of the C&TSRR have the Richrd Dorman Photo collection up and it could be useful, too, and worth seeing anyway if you haven't been there. http://www.cumbrestoltec.org/interests/dorman-collection.html?id=162:dorman-catalog&catid=1
Since it's on the back of the tender, coming up with good pics takes some digging if you want to replicate a particular loco's back-up light to model.
I have bought two undecorated Blackstone C-19s over the past 4 years and so far have outfitted only one with my fantasy road's decals as Number 8, "th' 8 ball" as it is called on the P.U. &P (PUP). Your work is an inspiration and well done.
I plan on tackling such Blackstone bashing on most all my C-19 and K-27 loco's to show that the PUP's shop not only restored nearly scrapped models of these, but tore into them to fit the PUP's special needs. My motto is never leave any NG loco the way any road received or ran it. The K-27 had a ton of mods done to it from 1903 until the end. The PUP can do that too. Mudhens were born to be altered.
One of my decorated C-19's has a Pyle National on the front and an old box light on the rear. I have disliked box lights.
I also dislike the massive Congdon and diamond stacks. A nice tall, straight shotgun stack is my preference. Thank goodness 100% of Blackstones have shotgun stacks. The C&S "Bear Trap" cinder catchers are interesting and sport that big pipe extending to the rails to rid the clinkers and cinders. I do believe I have seen a video of either the Cumbres and Toltec or the D&S sport the full C&S system on one of their locos in the past, but I think that was a temporary thing as most of these roads went back to a more normal D&RGW look.
Gotta' tear that offending box light off my C-19 and go with a big ole Pyle on that tender. It is a true joy and relief to realize you don't have to do anything specific or follow any prototypical standard.
Again, fabulous work. Why not use the spare backup port on the encoder?! It was there, begging to be used. Good thinking, Mike.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
Richard,
Thanks, I appreciate your comments!
I brought up the prototype info, because I do pay attention to it. I may not do everything quite the same way, but I do try really hard for the "right" look, for both my Rio Grande equipment and that which is on my Silverton Union RR. Like the Mears lines it's modeled on, it has the Rio Grande look, because it got by mostly on Rio Grande hand-me-downs.
Same thing goes for my HOn3 diesels. Presuming the NG lines were alloted a little bit of capital and the traffic stayed good, I try to capture what the look of a Rio Grande NG diesel would be -- if it wasn't #50. Then there are various cars the Rio Grande never had, but they might have.
Don't get me wrong. I'm very much into know what the prototype did. But I don't follow it slavishly, rather use it as a starting point for what is often pretty much fantasy, but looks like it could be a model of something real.
Anyone know if the C&T or the D&S have finally settled on a unifrom road name on all their loco's tenders? I see some videos with tenders lettered for the roads as they exist now and other videos with the "Flying Grand" as originally run back in the day. The age of the videos varies, of course, from the 90's up until now.
The C&T really ran some bizzare looking passenger cars in the older videos and some in the more modern videos as well. I assume they made them up. The D&S passenger cars seem to be real D&GRW cars.
Finally, has anyone dared to model the scenic roads as they are now with their names on the tenders?
Mike, I really like your NG diesels. They are a bold departure. I might consider narrowing up one of my old Atlas RS-1s for the "PUP"! I have an undecorated RS-1 among my older HO stock. RS-1s were my only concession to diesels when I was in HO.