Dickey News - #58 Comes Home

[Mike Trent]

Greetings. It's been a while since I have updated news from Dickey, but today's the day.

In April, Bill Rogers, being the good guy he is, sent me an eBay link asking if this was a #58. It had been listed by the seller as "Precision Scale 2-8-0 Non-Articulated On3 Locomotive". With no box, which was a clue that the seller had no idea what this actually was. His uncle had passed away two years earlier in Tennessee and was tasked with trying to sell the collection.

Turned out that yes, it was a #58, although dressed in an imaginary paint scheme for an imaginary railroad, the "Coosa Valley Railway Co." But it was numbered #58. Bill wasn't particularly interested, as he prefers the early days of the C&S for his aspiring plans. The listing, with a minimum bid of $1450, ran its cycle with no bids and was re-listed at a $950 minimum, but indicated the seller would accept offers. After about 30 seconds, I decided to make an offer of $1,000, mostly because I didn't want to sit there and watch a rare One-of-25 PSC locomotive slip away into the wind for $950. About five minutes later, my offer was accepted, and I found myself once again the owner of the equivalent of a pet animal rescue project. No idea if it was operable, and no idea if the paint was even good enough for primer. But I did know that the Coosa River runs from its headwaters in Georgia, and ends in the Alabama River. Coosa Valley is at Gadsden, AL about an hour from where I spent many years in Scottsboro. What could possibly go wrong? #58 was coming home.

When it was delivered, I was very pleased to find that not only was the engine operable, it appeared that it had never been run at all, probably a display engine. The paint was very well done, but in strange livery. It appeared that the base color was, as I would have used back in the 80's, Floquil Grimy Black. There had been no modifications at all except for the paint.

To begin with, I set about making the same changes I always do to bring C&S models into the fold. I removed the steel coal doors, replaced the badly undersized air tank on the rear of the tender, and relocated the front truck on the tender 12" to the rear as it should have been. I used Tamyia Flat Aluminum paint on the smokebox and firebox, and used old Floquil Grimy Black to remove striping, the odd red and green decorative trim, and the lettering on the sand dome. The cab and tender had been given a light coat of semi-gloss, so I had to use Tamyia Gray Surface Primer to cover them. After a couple failed attempts to find the right answer to match the Grimy Black color, I found that "Rustolium Dark Gray Automotive Primer" was virtually perfect, and the film of the old decal film completely disappeared.

Returning to Ebay, I was able to search for some PSC castings using stock numbers from my old Catalogs and their online catalogs. In this way, I was able to order parts, water valves, a new whistle and pop valves that needed to be added or replaced.

I found that one of my old suppliers, "The Whistle Stop" in Pasadena CA still carries Thinfilm Decals in stock. Make a note. Whistle Stop. Thinfilm Decals.

So, after another couple of weeks of work, and the usual fiddling around, a tweak here and a tweak there, a little bit of magic and a dose of luck, #58 has emerged as part of the family. It fills a hole in the roster, and I'm very pleased with the result. I painted one of these in about 2003, but never really thought I'd luck into one of my own. So, it just goes to show, you never know what you might find out there. Sometimes with a little help from your friends,,,,

As delivered:

 

Completed

 

With #69



   

[Matt Hutson]

What a great story. Well done!

Cheers,
Matt

[Darel Leedy]

Very nice Mike! Cool story and great work. Thanks for the update!

Darel

[Tim Schreiner]

Nice restoration!

[Lee Gustafson]

Mike,

Great you “saved” a rare C&S #58. If brass locomotives could talk what stories they could tell. It’s found it’s “for ever home” for now.

Contact me off line I have a question about a Sunset #74.

Lee Gustafson

[Monte Pearson]

Mike, Very nice job, There could be a question — About Bill being a good guy! 😎.

Also Very nice photos of your layout.

Monte

[Mike Trent]

[pizlinard72]

Hi Mike
Very nice job. Looks great at Dickey.
Thank you for the description of your changes. It‘s these small details that make the engine your own.
Best, Christian