Kitbashing the #173 - Part 2

Right, so, now that the first part of the kitbash is completed, it's on to the nitty-gritty. The painting! The paint of a model can make or break a look, regardless of how good of a job you do with the actual modeling. When working in smaller scales, detail is nice, but trying to create a sense of detail without their being much detail at all is a key part of it as well.

First, I began applying lettering decals. As you can see, they cracked a bit,
but this is fine as the black is a very easy touchup. I had these custom printed
using Testor's Inkjet Decal paper.

Here's what it looked like after the headlight and tender lettering
was applied and touched up. Spiffy!

I continued applying decals and detailing, adding more and more as I went along.

Then it came down to something I wasn't looking forward to, which was painting the 

boiler and Russia Iron bits. When it comes to real metal finishes, like brass and polished iron, it's very very difficult to get a good, realistic finish off of paints. Especially when you're on a budget, and can't afford a lot of expensive supplies. I have a trick for gold-banding, which is to paint one side of clear plastic using a brush-on gold leaf, and then cutting the gold banding out of the plastic in strips and using the side I didn't brush on as the outer face. This allows for no visible strokes!

Luckily, after receiving a tip from some fellow modelers, I began looking into Testors Buffable Gunmetal Metalizer. It is this neat paint, that once dry, you can buff to a light-gray metal sheen. The more you buff it, the shinier it gets. Unfortunately I didn't buff it as much as I should've, so it's a tad on the dull side on this model- live and learn!

I have to touch up the guides for the rods, the silver paint has scratched off during the course of working on it.

Next up is some freight cars. Although, yes, I am modeling the Central Pacific, I'm going to have some Southern Pacific rolling stock included as well, so I'll have an SP boxcar to go with the consist. The consist I'm aiming to replicate is this one:

Although this isn't an image of #173, it is a photograph of a locomotive patterned after the 173, showing what I can only assume is a typical freight consist for the class. The engines were created as heavy freighters, so I hope to show that in my model.


I'm waiting on the boxcars to arrive in the mail, and I have some railroad roman decals on the way from Microscale for lettering as well. Here's hoping it all goes to plan! The next engine project is going to be a CP 4-8-0 based off a Tyco model.

Kitbashing the #173 - Part 1

When it comes to 4-4-0s, I have a problem. When it comes to HO scale 4-4-0s, I am a hoarder. When it comes to being a model railroader who kitbashes 4-4-0s, I am lenient towards overall scale. What I mean by this, is simply due to their high availability, I prefer kitbashing Rivarossi 4-4-0s over more modern, to-scale models such as the new Bachmann Old Time 4-4-0.

This is partially due to the Rivarossi engines being slightly overscaled, which although not accurate, is enjoyable to me. The husky build simply means they look larger in scale, despite being manufactured out of scale to the original designs. While the #173 was indeed closer to the Bachmann 4-4-0 in dimensions, I have chosen to sacrifice this detail until I go through with 3D printing it.


To begin, I got a victim engine off of EBay. You can find these up on the website almost constantly, for a relatively cheap price. The engine I got had a small diamond stack and horizontal slat cowcatcher, which I removed. Here's how it looked when it arrived, in addition to a 4-8-0 I got at the same time. The 4-8-0 will actually be receiving the 4-4-0's original stack.

As you can tell, I have a very messy desk. The engine had the old style coupler, and the original horrible can motor the engine came with.

I first began with taking the engine apart and maintenancing it as usual. This includes cleaning all the moving parts, lubricating them, and cleaning the electrical pickups. The engine ran alright after doing all this, but it had some jitter in its roll which had to be fixed. If you're brand new to the hobby, you can easily Google tutorials on how to maintenance your engine- if anything, I'd recommend you do.

Once this was done, it was decided to remotor the engine, add working headlight, and additional electrical pickup on the tender. For fun, I put on a Bachmann On30 Heisler stack, and was surprised by how it looked strikingly similar to the 173's outline. What was originally going to be a freelanced model instantly became something else, once I saw this.

I immediately went to work, and began to scratchbuild a new pilot for the engine, as well as started considering all my options for making this engine look the best that I could.

The plan of attack was as follows:

1. Build a new pilot/cowcatcher that more closely resembled the 173's. If unsatisfied, can always order brass replacement in future. (Which I may end up doing, as it's beginning to look a bit too clunky in my opinion)
2. Lower the firebox and add airbrakes, customize the steam dome to be taller, make a new headlight bracket, shorten smokebox door to 173's curvature, and add plastic window panes to the cab.
3. Chop off the tender's flaring trim, and replace it with a sloped one. Then extend the back of the tender to make it go to the back of the frame, to allow for a extension.

Then it all had to be primed and painted, and I wanted to make it the best repaint I've done, so I looked into a lot of new techniques- specifically for replicating Russia Iron, which you can read about here. 

The cowcatcher was first designed and drawn out digitally, and then I spray glued the printout onto a piece of styrene and cut out all the pieces I needed.

Once the cowcatcher was completed (You can see my lovely Xacto-pricked-finger-sporting hand holding it to the right), I proceeded to work on getting the tender to the shape I needed. 

The tender was an interesting problem, as I needed to first remove the tapering flare that went around the tank so I could add my own, then remove the rear wall, build an extension, and THEN scratchbuild a new flare that would be sloping upwards to the rear. 

 I sanded this part of the engine extensively, so as to get the best finish that I could. The final result turned out fairly well, as you'll see in part 2 of this engine. As you can see in the photos, I've already extended the steam dome's top piece, as well as wired the headlight. I don't recommend anybody who's new to this process to attempt to wire a headlight, as even after doing it for all of my engines, I still am faced with new challenges every time I do it. Same goes for remotoring, this engine had stuttering issues even after being remotored and I had to add more electrical pickup.

 Going forward I built the new headlight bracket, which I later replaced with a thinner version made out of clear PVC painted black.

From this point on, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (They'll have captions mind you). You should be able to decipher my steps based on the images.

Added tender load using real gravel bits and some scale coal I had laying around.

Second & Final Prime

Began Detailing Locomotive, scratchbuilt brakes using styrene
 and plastic bits I had laying around.

 I'll be posting the second half of the process tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that!

Modeling the Central Pacific Railroad in HO

Hello everyone!

I'm Nathaniel, a university art student and model railroader, among other things. This is my personal progress modeling blog, where I'll be posting my progress as a model railroader to see how I improve over the course of this project.

It started with Central Pacific #173, an engine I've had interest in for years. I've always wanted to create the most realistic model of it that I can, and so a lot of this blog will be dedicated to progress specifically on that loco.

However, I also have a general interest in the Central Pacific, and intend on modeling out (in rolling stock along at this point, as I have no room for a layout) a lot of the CPRR. I already have a reasonable collection, however from this point on I will be dedicating my modeling to the CP.


I already have completed 2 kitbashes of the 173, the first being of Walt Disney's version, and the second an attempt to replicate it as it appeared in the above photo. I have begun 3D modeling a version based off the actual loco's blueprints, and hopefully when that's finished I'll have a model anybody can 3D print and buy off of Shapeways.

I'll end this post here, as this is just meant to serve as an introduction. See the next post for the actual modeling!