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D&RGW C-19 Class #340 Circa the late 1930's era. ~ Revised December 14, 2010 ~ |
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Aside from the absolutely glorious green jacketing paint scheme which could be
seen occasionally on many of the locos of the D&RGW's narrow gauge locomotives,
this unweathered, untouched-as-it-came-from-the-box model showcases the "best
of the best" as far as factory paint work is concerned.
Over the years, many have asked how they can pull this off, model after model? And the answer is Time. They use the same method today that I used 'way back in my "early days" Namely, after the entire model is painted black, you apply many many tiny pieces of masking tape so as to cover each and every piece of piping and detail that you don't want painted green. This might take four-five hours on a model like this. And you hope you didn't miss anything because there's no going back... 5 minutes in the spray booth, and another hour or so of de-masking and you'll know whether you did good or not... This particular model was imported late in December of 2001. It, and sister C-19's #345, #346 and R.G.S. #40 and #41arriving in the same shipment from Samhongsa. Mechanically, this model is superior to our previous "C" Class models because we elected to pop for a Maxon "Amax" Motor which is both powerful and electrically silent. This mated to a well engineered die-cast gearbox makes for a eerily silent, smooth running machine. One that does real justice to the P-B-L Foreground Sound / Power System. Other noteworthy locomotive-specific details include
12 "C-19" Class locomotives were constructed by the Baldwin Locomotive Works and delivered to The Grande in 1881. Although very similar in appearance to the Class "C-16" locos, the '19's carried 160 pounds of boiler pressure, and slightly larger cylinders thereby being able to 18,947 lbs of tractive effort, hence garnering the "19" designation. ( The Grande defined their locomotive classes based upon T.E, or "Tractive Effort". C-16's generated around 16,000 lbs of T.E.; "K-27's" generated close to 27,000 lbs of T.E.; etc.] Number 340 started it's career as the #400. Fortunately it was sold by the D&RGW to Knotts Berry Farm in 1952, where it can be seen in magnificently restored condition pulling a "period" passenger train around their theme park. And on our last visit there it sported the same Green Jacketing paint scheme you see here on our model! Beautiful!
Click the photo above for a look at #340 from the "other" side.
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