Re: Tom Cardin Visits 487 & 488 PHOTOS

Hello, All -
SEVERAL years ago - I think it was 1968 or thereabouts, and I'm sure it was before 1973 - Model Railroader ran a superb series on the Rio Grande "Mudhens" which included shots taken of the bottom of #464 when she was being hoisted onto a truck for shipment somewhere. There were also some excellent plans of two or three different versions of the K-27's (seems no two were exactly alike), including top views of the engine frames, which you might find interesting.
While recuperating from surgery in 1974, I used these MR plans as the basis for a 30-degree isometric / "exploded" drawing, a copy of which was sent to Swede Norlin of Tomalco as he was interested in possibly producing castings of the valve gear parts. My drawing was based on the late version of #461, which was sold to the RGS, and differs from 463 in that the valve chambers are inboard of the center-lines of the pistons rather than outboard. My guess is that at one time 461 had Stephenson valve gear, and so the valves were set to line up for that. Later, when converted to Walschaerts (did I spell that right?), an extra rocker arm was used to line up the valve gear with the chambers.
I'll dig into my "toy" trunk in the next few days and pass along the dates for the MR issues - there were at least two, and maybe even three - dealing with the K-27's. If my drawing hasn't faded or gotten too wrinkled, I'll try to photograph or scan it and post it as well.
- Russo de los Locos