Brazil BB36-7 & BB40-2

[doncsx]

I'm planning on building a BB36-7 & BB40-2 locomotives. They are American locomotives that was sold to railroads in Brazil that was rebuilt to run on narrow gauge tracks. Below is a couple of links to pictures of the locomotives I'm talking about.

I have a set of blue prints for a BB36-7 locomotive and the center pin for each track has not been relocated. Fuel tank has been cut down and the front and rear of the frames extended and the coupler has been lowered for use with the narrow gauge equipment that is used in Brazil.

I'm building the locomotives in HO scale and to run on standard gauge track. My question is I'm thinking about building frames for the locomotives from scratch. Any one have any suggest on where to start, are there any website showing how to scratch build locomotive frames?

I have also considered starting with a Athearn Blue Box frames and cutting the fuel tank down and extending the ends. Are there any suggestions on doing this?


BB40-2
www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?mid=995
BB40T-2
www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?mid=996
BB36-7
www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?mid=996

Thanks for any help on this project.

Take Care & God Bless

Donald Dunn
www.trainweb.org/kvo/
www.trainweb.org/ddminingsteel/

[Rudy Garbely]

Those are neat looking creatures.... I would start with an existing frame and just extend it using brass sheet.

[lv4142003]

I've been following those BB trucked engines for a while and was wondering how to get a frame to work. I think a bigger problem is the span bolsters. There's a fellow in Brazil who was attempting to do this also, and make the proper locally made side frames, but I've not heard anything about the project. I've also seen a photo of a Dash9-40 BB that was a dummy engine but no additional information about it. There's a guy in California just did a DDM45 (what a motha that is) who appears to be modeling the EFVM railroad maybe he'll come up with some solutions. Joe Hueber <lv4142003>

[puddlejumper]

Sounds like an awesome project. Apparently not all BB36-7 were narrow gauge, this one appears to be standard gauge. Since you are building a standard gauge model, I thought you might be interested.
Dave
www.railfan.net/railpix/submit/pedrorezende/.p.cgi?9537_C725_GFE_cruzando_1127_C714_calcario_Patio_vespasiano_31ago2006.jpg

[puddlejumper]

sorry, appears to be narrow gauge. It's hard to tell in some of the pix...
dave

[jmlaboda]

"It's hard to tell in some of the pix..."

The type of trucks are a dead give-away... they are GE narrow gauge export trucks, used because GE doesn't have a six-axle narrow gauge truck that can handle the full power output. This is the same reason that they have acquired new power with the same wheel arrangement.

[slowfreight]

These are meter-gauge units. Here's all the photos you could ever want, including some construction pics:

pedrop.rrpicturearchives.net/archivethumbs.aspx?id=3812&Page=1

Two different railroads operate the meter-gauge conversions (FCA and EVFM), and FCA appears to have much tighter clearance profiles, so look to see of there's significant differences between the two road's BB40 fleets.

I think it'd be more fun to build these for 3' gauge track at least, so you can run dual-gauge track with modern locos instead of steam.

[bdhicks]

I've always thought the 8-axle Brazilian locomotives were interesting beasts, although I don't think I'll ever attempt to build one. I have seen one HO scale BB40T-2 before, built by Edson Yamazaki:
www.flickr.com/photos/ckape/5879675403/

Harry Wong also has some more pictures in his BAPM 2011 gallery:
www.pbase.com/tracktime/bapm2011&page=all

Unfortunately I didn't ask Edson for any information about how he built it, and I don't know any of his contact information. I guess if I was building one I might not power all the trucks, especially since a large part of the frontmost truck is under the walkway.

As far as building frames goes, I've only built one before, on my GP20D project. It was just a simple construction with two pieces of brass tubing for the sides and two shorter pieces connecting them through the bolsters:
www.flickr.com/photos/ckape/3583829047/

If I were doing it again I would probably replace the square tubing on the sides with brass angle so it doesn't take up so much space under the walkways. I'm not sure how useful this is to you, since a BB loco would need a span bolster, which would be tricky with this method.

[oddball]

If you need any help with drive, span bolsters or converting to narrow gauge ive got the conversion down.

[cartelcaipira]

contact with this friend of mine here in Brazil he already made ​​several SDs be several GEs BB


ferreodavid.blogspot.com.br/2010/03/sd40-2-mrs.html

[oddball]

Thanks for the link. He does really nice work. Love the vale paint work.

[cartelcaipira]

in Brazil only uses narrow gauge railway truck bb
the broad gauge of 1.60 m has no locomotives bb

[bdhicks]

Since the BAPM meet was this past weekend, I was able to talk with Edson a bit about his model. He says that all the wheels are powered, but he wouldn't go into detail about how he managed it beyond saying there was a lot of milling involved. He also mentioned his youtube channel, which includes a few videos of his BB40T-2 and his DDM45:

[oddball]

If you want to save a lot of time, skip the milling and just build a brass framework. If you try milling, you have to account for the span bolsters,gear towers, drive shafts, it gets a little time consuming. My original project (BB AC4400) took about 10hrs of milling. My BB40-2's and BB45's take about an hour to build the frame and are a lot stronger.

[lv4142003]

Oddball, are all the trucks powered on the AC4400 or just the inner two? Also could you post some photos of the span bolsters and how you connected them to the frame?

[oddball]

All the wheels are powered through 4 gear box's. Hving trouble uploading pics so pm me and I can email the pics and specs. I do have some extra frames that work on the atheren sd40-2.