Westside Models 2-10-0 The Brute

 In 1979 Westside Models released the first in a proposed series of free lanced HO scale locomotives.   This was a fictional 2-10-0 that appears to have somewhat inspired by John Allen's Gorre and Daphetid model railroad.  The story is that Westside had too many B&O U-1 0-10-0's made.   So 173 were converted to this model.  It came with a tender that could be either oil or coal. It also had a Franklin Booster on the lead tender truck  It may have been partially inspired by John Allen's 4-10-0 #34.

I was fortunate to find one online from a brass locomotive dealer.  Since my model railroad is DCC I needed to added a decoder, current keeper, and a speaker to it.   There wasn't enough room in the boiler for all the electronics so I installed them in the tender as is shown in the following photographs.   I drilled three 1/4 inch holes in the center line of the tender for the speaker and wiring.  Used a couple of lengths of  shrink tubing super glued to the underside of the tender to keep the wires from dragging, and some flat shrink tubing to gather the wires together.  The speaker is from Railmaster Hobbies.  The decoder is a Soundtraxx TSU-2200 steam 2.

I used a colored four wire TCS micro connector between the engine and tender.  Unsoldered the wires from the can motor, connected the red and black connector wires to the track power wires, and soldered the grey and orange wires to the can motor.  

The decals are from the K4 Gorre and Daphetid HO, S, and O sets.  The numbers on the engine cab are from the O scale set, Gorre and Daphetid are from the S scale set and the emblem is from the HO set.  The next step will be to test it and set the CV's.  Then I will paint the smoke box silver and weather it.