Right now, the Stockton & Copperopolis has only three locomotives it can call its own -- the Andrew Jackson, the American Eagle and the Washoe.
The Andrew Jackson is a mostly-scratchbuilt locomotive based on the prototype engine. The locomotive's frame is from the brass import of the St. Paul & Pacific's William Crooks. It had to be lengthened and new cylinders were made. The boiler, cab, domes, etc. were all either scratchbuilt or detail parts. The tender is from a United Reno and contains the Sagami motor/flywheel along with a Soundtraxx decoder and speaker. The sound is great and I am motivated to add sound decoders to my other engines.
The American Eagle started life as a United Reno but the domes, were all custom made to match the prototype. The stack is a Stevens Style 1 stack (named after A. J. Stevens, Master Mechanic of the Central Pacific who designed it) and was custom built. The tender is from the William Crooks loco and it, too, contains a Sagami motor but no sound unit. There just wasn't the room.
The Washoe (No. 8) was originally lettred for the MSN. Recently, I reworked the engine to add a Micro-Tsunami sound decoder. When I did this, additional electrical contacts were added and the tender relettered for the S&C. The tender was repainted to reflect the "new" ownership. In researching the lettering style, I found the proper colors at the California State Railroad Museum on a model locomotive built in the 1880s. Everyone is convinced that they are correct since the model was built by a Central Pacific employee who had only to look out the window to see the right lettering. An old woodcut gave evidence that the prototype S&C engines were painted in this scheme.
.The locomotives of the Moraga Springs Northern are those that survived from my last model railroad. These will be used as MSN locos mostly running through freight and passenger trains from the staging yard at one end of the railroad to the other. Some may be "leased" to the Stockton & Copperopolis, at least until I am able to build some more S&C locos.
4-4-0s
Numbers 5 (James Aubrey and 19 (Oronoco) are 4-4-0s using the United Reno as a base. Not too much was done other than putting a Sagami motor in the tender with a Northwest Short Line drive line to the engine. The MSN follows the prototype practice of the 1870s-80s in naming their engines as well as assigning a number. On most railroads, this practice faded out by the 1890s but the MSN, being somewhat provincial, continued it. Incidentally, most of the names were the names of actual engines owned by the Central Pacific Railroad.
2-6-0s
Numbers 22 (Raven), 24 (Solano) and 25 (Tahoe) were all built using the Model Engineering Works V&T Tahoe as a base. A new gearbox and Sagami motor was mounted in the engine as well as a new stack and pilot coupler. Soundtraxx decoders were installed in April, 2009.
4-6-0s
Numbers 30 (Benicia), 31 (Carson) and 32 (Alta)
Heavier loads for the MSN required heavier power and these "big" engines provided it. The ten-wheelers all came from Model Engineering Works Colorado Midland models. New motors and gearboxes completed the modifications.
2-8-0s
Number 10 (Nevada)
The lone consolidation on the railroad is a Hallmark Colorado Midland 2-8-0 which is essentially unmodified except for paint and a pilot coupler. More engines of this type will ultimately be needed.
0-6-0s
Number 16 is the only switch engine currently running. It is a bit larger than I would like for this railroad so I may have to find an 0-4-0 to substitute. It is a Model Engineering Works Colorado Midland switcher.
Motors
Even though the era of the motorized rail car was some 15 years in the future, the managment (me) of the railroad appreciates and likes McKeen cars so there will be at least one of these units on the railroad. It may be hidden away, though, when more prototypically-minded folks come to operate.
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