Pat Durand's 0-6-0 #315
Pat Durand's 0-6-0 #315
Building Alaska Railroad No. 315
by Patrick Durand
Back in 1954, I came across Alaska Railroad 315 setting on the switch lead while the crew awaited arrival of another string of cars to work. This sturdy 0-6-0 sat for quite awhile and then they moved off to the balloon track turned around and came back to the same resting spot. How lucky can you get on a sunny day when you have color film and time to chase trains.
Number 315 came to the Alaska Railroad in 1946 along with 10 sisters numbered from 310 to 320. All were retired and scrapped after 1956. At 40,000 pounds tractive effort they out pulled the s-160 GI consolidations of the 550 class placed in service starting in 1943.
These were among the last 0-6-0 locomotives built by LIMA and all went to the U.S. Army. They were turned over to the Alaska Railroad as surplus after WWII.
Here is the 315 clearance drawing and a few views of her in service.
If you want to see how the sausage was made follow these photos. This is my typical multi media kit bash where-in lead shapes are used, such as the air tanks, and lead fills all the voids I can find. A small surface mount LED is in the front headlight. The siamese sand dome is two pieces of 1/2" brass tube cloned together side by side with a lead core.
Note the pilot extension of about 4 scale feet using a brass strap on the bottom secured at the front by the coupler screw and at the rear by the cylinder block screw.
The Proto 2000 Life Like model is beautiful out of the box and it takes some guts to start whacking away to remove the two sand domes, running boards, air tanks and power reverse. All necessary. The final indignity was cutting that pretty little tender in half to remove about 4 feet. The ARR 315 clearance drawing now matches the model perfectly in all dimensions.
I relied on old school modeling to recreate the flat faced smoke box front with the small door that was moved above center to accommodate the duplex pump on the pilot. The small door is a thumb tack and the dogs are code 50 rail spikes. Here is 315 up close.
The failing of the model was lack of traction. My 315 now weighs 9.6 ounces and thanks to friends in high places sports a Walther's traction tire allowing her to take on big switching jobs. Next will be a Tsunami sound system.
One more locomotive in my quest to build one of each class used on the Alaska Railroad.
Happy modeling.
Patrick Durand
Parts list for creating #315
CalScale
Cary
Precision Scale
