A Fun Week of Modelling

Back Story

About a year ago I finally bought a Wombat Models Drumhead Smokebox C30T with the 6 wheel tender when there were very few left. It was a bit of an on the spot decision.

My problem was that I wanted/needed a bogie tender version for my Cassilis Branch and Wombat hadn't announced an intention to do the bogie version at the time.

So my idea was to pinch the tender from one of my Eureka Models D50s and replace it with an etched turret tender as I had both a Lloyds kit and an Andian kit.

After launching my new Australian made brass NSWGR Lower Quadrant signals recently I decided that the time had come to attack the C30T. Email me for information regarding ordering (rpilgrim@bigpond.net.au).

The first step was to open up the 6 wheel tender to remove the 8 pin tender/loco connector that I would use on the sound decoder in the D50 tender. I had saved some wiring information for the 6 wheel tender/loco connector that Gerry Hopkins had posted some time ago on a Facebook group for reference.

Wombat Models C30T 6 Wheel tender Wiring by Gerry Hopkins

The sound decoder was a 21 pin Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 Steam 2 which was nice and small. Then the issue was identifying the correct wiring to connect the 21 pins to the 8 pin tender/loco connector. I used a 21 pin diagram I found in the ESU Loksound 4 Manual and cross referenced this with both Gerry's wiring for the C30T 6 wheel tender/ loco connector and the Tsunami 2 decoder. I made up a table including the correct wire colours to ensure that I didn't get my 'wires crossed'. I used an ESU 51967 21MTC Adapter Board to plug the decoder into and solder the various wires to the 8 pin tender/loco connector.

I removed the QSI Titan, speaker, etc. from the Eureka Models D50 tender for later inclusion in the etched Turret tender.

I also wired in a TCS KA2 Keep Alive and a Model Railroad Craftsman Micro Boost 'sugar cube' speaker with 13 x 17 x 7 mm enclosure that I have had for a few years. All components were held in place with some 'BluTak' (actually orange).

A rectangular hole was cut into the front wall of the D50 tender below the small floor section for the wires to exit the tender. The connections between the C30T and the tender were pushed into a space below the C30T cab at the rear of the chassis.

One thing I do with loco/tender connections either wired through or with plug/socket connections is to use a 2 mm button die (available from JayCar 11-2019) and put some threads on the tender pin and then use a nut to retain the loco connection bar to stop it from coming off the pin when handling the model. The pin was unscrewed from the tender, held in a pin vice that was then held in a bench vice and the 2 mm die was then used to cut about 2 good threads onto the lower end of the pin.

Keeping the loco and tender together retains the connectors in the rear of the chassis so that they don't get caught between the loco and tender.

The nut and the plug/socket can be seen in this photo

Now, the C30T bogie tenders came from D50's originally but the rear wall of the coal bunker area was moved about 18 inches forward to make room for the two air tanks and a larger tool box. Incidentally, the brass C30T does not have this moved rear bunker wall, it is still modelled in the D50 position.

The rear wall is actually on a separate coal load casting in the Eureka Models D50 tender. I carefully removed this casting so that I could cut the wall off it. Be aware though that this casting seems to be of the slippery plastic not polystyrene so is  a bit difficult to cut away. As can be seen from the photo below I cut vertically down through the coal load flush with the inner side of the wall using a Xacto fine modellers saw.

Coal load with rear wall and small tool box removed

Rear coal area wall cut off

I then used some 1/4 inch by 20 thou. Evergreen polystyrene strip for the sloping coal bunker floor and and glued the wall and coal load in place as per the photo below. This piece of floor on the prototype is sloping as the original coal bunker floor was not changed.

Part of the coal load cut away to allow the wall to be placed

By this stage I was a couple of days into the re-build and it was time to do something about the two air tanks and the tool box. I took about 3-4 hours to draw up the three parts and then it took two runs of 3D prints to get them to fit mainly due to the large air tank sloping floor under it. Now I was making headway!

At this stage I decided that I wasn't too interested in bending up the piping that goes over the side of the tender from the air tanks but I knew that not all (but most) had the piping like that. I had a Tim Arnot photo of 3036 in Broadmeadow loco depot in 1966 which showed the pipes going through the tender side above the water tank part. Another undated photo by A R Astle on a mixed near Sandy Hollow indicated that 3036 would be suitable for my Bylong line.

3036 at Broadmeadow 1966-09-12 - Photo by Tim Arnot

3036 on a mixed near Sandy Hollow - Undated Photo by A R Astle

I printed a C30T funnel and steam dome (available in Fine Detail Plastic or Raw Brass from my Signals Branch Shapeways shop) and replaced the supplied funnel and dome.

As the supplied whistle was a poor representation I used a Protype whistle I had from way back in the 1980's when I did a Z13 etched brass kit. I also had a generator from an Austrains C30 that replaced the supplied one.

Lastly I added a pair of locomotive jacks from the Stephen Johnson detail parts range to the front of the footplate next to the smokebox.

I mounted a cut down Kadee No. 16 coupler on the front of the loco using a piece of Kadee No. 5 box lid as a spacer and screwing into the mounting of the hook buffer section.

The coupler fouled the front bogie so I cut off the front bogie protrusion (same as the rear section - see photo) and put a fine screw to hold the top and bottom of the bogie together.

I also added some sheet lead to the underside of the bogie, front and back of the pivot as added insurance.

Next came numbering. It will be noted that I managed to remove the last two cab side numbers and I did this with Easy Lift Off and a wooden toothpick by carefully rubbing just on the existing 'painted' numbers. I added brass numbers to the cab, yellow numbers to the rear of the tender and small white numbers to the buffer beam. Note, I didn't attempt to change the front buffer beam from timber to the correct steel version, maybe some other time.

I hit the C30T with some flat grey/black paint followed by matt clear to finish. I will weather it at some time but not as bad as in the 1966 photo.

The print layer lines aren't really visible from the usual viewing distance

Here is a video of the C30T hauling a test load both down grade and upgrade on my layout. If you listen to the sound it makes you can see that the chuff drops away when going down hill but chuffs loudly when climbing near the end of the video.

The load behind the C30T is actually 50 ton over the maximum allowed for a C30T on a 1 in 40 grade which is what the ruling grades are on my layout. So the Wombat Models C30T pulls more than the prototype.

The load in the video was a train from my Cassilis branch line which is flat so load wise, all good. Also, the CV and PV in the load are old whitemetal Protype wagons on first run Austrains S truck underframes.