A Piece of History

 Jim Fitzgerald, the founder of N-TRAK, built three locomotives in the late 70's; Cotton Brute, Cotton Boss and Cotton Beast. Cotton Brute was built from two Minitrix U30CG locomotive shells glued together, and the frame was built from several chunks of lead weight atop a single machined piece of depleted uranium. The finished locomotive weighed in at a pound and a half (remember this is an N scale locomotive) and set a record by pulling over 500 Micro Trains hopper cars.

In other words, it was well named.

After Jim Fitzgerald's death the locomotive was stored and not operated, and during its long storage it started to separate back into its component pieces. The locomotives were recently transferred to the present NRAIL (successor organization to N-TRAK) President, John Wallis, who also happens to be president of my local model railroad club.

With the locomotives in hand he decided it would be a wondrous thing to restore Cotton Brute to operating condition for the NRail 50th anniversary next year, and he put out the request for volunteers to do the work on them.

I tell you that so I can tell you this:

Yes, I now have temporary possession of a piece of N scale history for the purpose of restoring the locomotive to operating condition.

What's more, I have actually accomplished this feat, although the work is not at all completed. The motor on the locomotive did not run for reasons unknown, it was thought to be a bad motor and so a replacement, with a cryptic message on it, was included.

Fortunately the replacement was not needed, because when the lead weights were removed it was discovered that a wire had come loose. It had been soldered to the head of a brass screw, and over the years that solder joint had separated from the screw head.

This is a good thing IMO, since Cotton Boss is also in John's possession. It makes me wonder why the motor is in this box. But I digress.

Rather than attempt to solder the wire back to the screw I opted to make a tab out of brass and solder the wire to that. I also shortened the wires so they would fit better under the shell. Once finished the locomotive actually ran, poorly. A bit of oil on the drive line bearings and a bit of wheel gauge adjustment had it running quietly and smoothly again.

Once the chassis was running I then turned my attention to the shell. It was in three pieces, which were relatively easy to glue back together, and the front pilot with snowplow had come off as well. It, too, turned out to be relatively easy to put back on.

The locomotive still needs a good cleaning and lubrication, there are some wiring issues to address, it needs handrails fore and aft, and there is a front step missing on the conductors side. Future work will include hard-wiring the trucks to eliminate slide contacts, which will be done during the cleaning and lubrication, the addition of at least a rear Micro-Trains coupler (putting a front coupler on is possible, but will require the removal of the snowplow) and the completion of cosmetic work to include cleaning up the glue joints to try to make them a little less obvious.

After all this is done John plans to send the locomotive out to possibly have a sound decoder installed. That will require some milling of the frame, so a shop that specializes in that kind of work will be contracted to do it.

But for now, at least, I have a piece of history roaming the rails of my humble little layout.