If so, it would fill one of the biggest gaps in the preserved Colorado loco fleet - the other being the Uintah mallets.
As the Mason Bogies were known to have flaws(?), it may be possible to use more modern engineering methods to improve the design. One option might be to fabricate the cylinders rather than cast them, as this has been done on 2 replica locos here in the UK.
One is a 2ft gauge 2-4-2T,
Lyn, built as a replica of a Baldwin original which ran on the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in North Devon until it was scrapped in 1935. Apart from fabricated cylinders, the replica is also superheated which the original loco was not, and this has improved its power output and coal efficiency.
The other is a much larger loco, a standard gauge 4-4-2 'Atlantic' #32423
Beachy Head, which is being constructed by a group based at the Bluebell Railway in Sussex. The original
Beachy Head was scrapped in 1958, having been built for London Victoria - Brighton express passenger trains by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LBSCR) in the 1900's, before being inherited along with its classmates by the Southern Railway and British Railways. Apart from its fabricated cylinders, the new
Beachy Head also has water-jet cut side and main rods, as the means to forge them - as was done for the original engines - has now been lost in the UK. The raw cut rods will be machined into the final rods before they are installed on the engine.
The original
Beachy Head looked like this, to give you a sense of the scale of this replica project:
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2020 11:40AM by AlpineCMR.