[?]

By Ron Schlicht   Making a Mill Engine from a  Casey Jones

There are a number of A.C. Gilbert accessories on my traveling layout. For years, in order to show the operation of the log loader, dump car and sawmill, we would manually pull a gondola and the log car into position to show how they operate (not exactly impressive). There was a need for a very short engine. Even an AF dock-sider was not the answer, still being too long for the short siding, especially with a gondola car for loading.

Taking a Casey Jones, I removed the pilot truck and shortened the shell. Using the remaining front portion, I narrowed down the cow catcher and an area above to fit inside of the portion of the shell that was shortened. The front sand dome was then filed off. The smoke stack was cut off and glued to the shell where the removed sand dome had stood. The boiler front just fit right in. A spacer was made on which to mount the motor. (Sadly, there is no bell on the engine.) The rear of the cab roof was also shortened. It was necessary to add weight to the front of the engine to keep it balanced during operation, since there was now more weight behind the rear drive wheels than in front. Since there was no tender an AF gondola was cut down and shortened . Flyer trucks with the brass strips were added and wired to power the locomotive. A wood floor was added to conceal the wires to the trucks. The setup is on an isolated stretch of track with preset engine speed. A simple on/off light switch is used for the track power. Sequentially the logs are loaded onto a 914 log dump car. Note the car has the fence side opposite the log loader. Then the engine moves forward to a position between the log loader and the sawmill. The operating car dumps the logs. At that point the engine was in a spot that was in alignment with the sawmill which now drops the sawn boards into the shortened gondola. The advantage of the two position reversing unit in the Casey Jones is by simply turning the power back on the engine is in the reverse mood and the cycle can start again.