Wow. Great work!

She looks great, and it's nice to see another big Consolidation back in service. Are the roller bearing trucks on the tender permanent, or just under it for the time being? Do the original trucks exist?

Thanks, Taylor

Looking great, indeed! The smokebox looks a bit naked without any rivet heads, though. The addition of builder and superheater plates will help this, methinks. The larger tender looks good - I was concerned it may have out-sized the loco, but Southern did have several Ks class 2-8-0's with the larger size tenders like this one. The tool boxes underneath are sizable enough to give the tank the similar chunky look of the smaller original tank.

Unless the original Andrews style tender trucks were scrapped, they do still exist, though the Barber style roller bearing trucks with Wabco Pac truck mounted break cylinders simplified things on the new tender frame. No body mounted brake cylinder necessary. I looked at modifying the Andrews trucks with Wabco Pac or Nyco Pac add-ons and determined it could be done, but that plan got dropped in favor of the easier solution. Further, the Andrews trucks would have needed roller bearing conversion as well (not absolute need, but preferable to solid bearings for service on today's railroads). Not a terribly difficult task, but something else to spend money on. I do think the Andrews trucks would have been much better riding and certainly better looking with their leaf springs instead of coils. But, the new ones can be repaired by any block truck or RIP track which could come in handy out on the road. 4501's tender has similar style Barber S2 trucks.

Kudos to the hard work that brought it back from the dead.

Look Ahead, Look South
Mike