Modeling The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway - Locomotives

As far as I can tell, everything the SAP had used slide valves, and all of them were oil-burners. Currently in service are an IHC Mogul with slight cosmetic modifications and an IHC 4-4-0 (modern; not the old-timer) that have been relettered for the SAP. There is also a Bachmann Spectrum B & M doodlebug that wandered in from someplace. (It was on sale.) I've got one of the recent Spectrum 4-6-0 models, which is very nice, but it hasn't been relettered yet. (Needs an oil tender, too.)

The IHC locos are pretty nice models, and the motors run well. They do have oversize flanges, and have problems on Atlas code 83 turnouts. Specifically, the flange bottoms out in the flangeway and lifts the wheel off of the rail. This causes a loss of electrical contact. The tender picks up on both rails, but not reliably. Code 83 flextrack is fine, as are code 100 turnouts.

The doodlebug is a recent addition, but so far works extremely well after an adjustment of the front truck and motor mount. (Apparently it was knocked out of position during shipment.)

The most common wheel arrangements on the SAP were 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 2-8-0, and 4-6-0. Switchers were mainly 0-6-0 with non-slopeback tenders. No SAP locomotives had trailing pilot wheels.

Colors for locomotives are a bit problematic, as I've never seen any color photos of the equipment. Based on black and white photos and the Hallmark C-24, here's what I'm doing:

• Boiler: Prussian Blue with black straps and domes. (the Hallmark blue is rather greyish. Russia Iron might be more appropriate.) Or balck, depending on what I feel like.
• Cab: black with red roof and window trim.
• Smokebox: graphite (my first efforts were too silvery.)
• Tender: black. Some photos show numbers on the back of the tender, some don't. I'm not putting them on because I don't have that many decals. Same goes for rear lamps -- some have them, some don't, some show lanterns at the rear corners.

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