Converting a Mantua 0-6-0 to EBT Number 3: Introduction

The East Broad Top was a 3 foot narrow gauge railroad that ran from Mount Union to the coal fields on Broad Top Mountain in southern Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.  When the railroad ended common carrier operations in 1956, they owned six narrow gauge steam engines, along with two standard gauge 0-6-0 switchers stationed in Mount Union: Numbers 3 and 6.  Ironically, number 6 was the older engine, built by Baldwin in 1907 and seldom used in the 1950s.  It was the smaller of the two, with 48 inch drivers, 17x24 cylinders, weighing 84,200 pounds with a tractive effort of 19,600.  Number 6 was sold to the Whitewater Valley Railroad in 1975, where it remains to this day.

The other standard gauge switcher was number 3, also a Baldwin, built in 1923.  Number 3 was a heavier engine by far, with 51 inch drivers and 21x26 cylinders.  It weighed in at 137,000 pounds and produced a tractive force of 33,500.  It is currently stored inoperable in the Mount Union engine house.  Both nos. 3 and 6 were equipped with standard and narrow gauge couplers for operating in the dual gauge Mount Union yard.

To my knowledge, there has never been a commercial model of either engine, although an article by Dean Mellander appeared in the December 1990 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman describing how he built a model of EBT no. 6 by kitbashing an MDC Roundhouse 0-6-0 kit.

I have long wanted to include a working model of one or both switchers, to add to the realism of my own dual gauge yard, a compressed version of the one at Mount Union.  After reading Mellander's article, I thought of perhaps using the MDC 0-6-0 to represent no. 6, and even went so far as to acquire a kit.  Yet since no. 6 was rarely used in the era I model (around 1950) it seemed preferable to create a model of number 3.  But I was at a loss as to where to start.

A few years ago, I saw a modified Mantua 0-6-0 on eBay that had been painted to represent no. 3.  It was not an identical copy, as can be seen from the following photograph.  But it was "close enough" for my purposes, since it would operate in the background much of the time, and my focus was on the EBT narrow gauge 2-8-2 mikados anyway.

A quick comparison with the preceding photo reveals immediately some glaring differences between the two.  Most obvious is the fact that the Mantua engine has only one sand dome while no. 3 had two.  This suggests that the prototype also had a longer boiler.  There are also differences in the cab, and the cylinders on no. 3 are considerably larger than the model.  But again, I invoked the modeler's Rule Number One ("it's my railroad") and decided to purchase the Mantua engine and see what I could do with it.

In future posts, I will detail how I converted the open frame Pittman motor to a Sagami can motor, removed the worm from the old motor shaft and installed in on the can motor shaft, mounted the new motor and worm using silicone adhesive, installed an LED headlight and put a new SoundTraxx Econami sound decoder in the tender.  All this has proven to be a learning experience for me, and I am looking forward to sharing the story of how I did it.