Rotary #99200 | 2 Comments - Click Here :

    Mike Trent - With all the weather mayhem crippling a good part of the country this weekend, it seemed appropriate to get out the rotary for the first time this year. This On3 model was built in 1986 using the frame, cowling, wheel, and trucks from a Durango Press RGS Rotary #02. I used both the C&S Folio for #99200 and the plans and a few parts like the scribbed siding and some other odds and ends from the kit. After a long and meandering journey through the wilderness, it turned out pretty well. 

    During construction, I scoured every photograph I could find, and that anyone else could find for details, and discussed various aspects of how various things were, how they appeared, and could have or should have been built and maybe were over Saturday breakfasts with my barnyard friends at JJ McCabe's in Boulder for months. Sadly, one of the most valuable resources for this project were a couple of photographs taken the day after the 1935 roundhouse fire which burned off the wood body that appear in the Pictorial Supplement. In the end, like #537, I pretty much went through it making every effort to duplicate what I could find or see in photographs. 

    Within a week of finishing it prior to the 1986 Narrow Gauge Convention, Todd Hackett, with whom I had commiserated on too many aspects of this to be counted, found a rare 3/4 rear view of the rotary heading out of  Como on a run to Boreas, and that photo showed that the cover over the coal bunker was actually slightly peaked. In every angle and view we had seen and studied before that, we had been convinced that it was flat. Oh, well. So, Darel, take note! 

    Many helped with various things along the way. Old Doug Schnarbush's contribution was that he told me that the interior of the cowling and wheel were not painted, rather they just gooped up graphite and oil in there because snow and ice wouldn't stick to it. 

    The tender wrapper is from one of the PSC tender kits that were available at that time, similar to one I used on #537, and also on my new #73. which I bought on ebay without a tender. All three of the wrappers are different lengths, and all are very close to what each needed. The PSC tender kits do appear on ebay, so if anyone is looking to build one of these in 1/4" scale, keep your eyes peeled for them.

    And here is my first attempt to Photoshop anything like a winter scene here at Dickey. On occasion, the rotary was run on the passenger train, as is seen here leaving Dickey to plow up into heavy snow at Dillon. Afterward, the train backed down to Dickey and headed off into the teeth of the storm toward Leadville. Train No.70 Rotary 99200, #75, #6. 

Mike Trent