The 3rd locomotive to come to the Denver & Rio Grande railway was the beautiful Baldwin built 'Shou-wa-no' of 1871. She was
also the road's first Freight loco, a tiny 2-6-0, with 36" driving wheels, designated as their Class 35. This is a locomotive
I've wanted to model pretty much since I got into largescale in the mid 1990s. For some reason I always kept putting it off,
because there were a lot of unknowns about how the loco really looked. In 2001, Barry Olsen of Barry's Big Trains sent me a
solidly built BBT chassis, with 36" drivers in an unusual BBT 2-6-0 arrangement. The chassis comprised cast brass wheel
centres with stainless steel tyres, Pitman motor, in an aluminium frame with ball bearing journals. The thing was so robust
and well made. He also sent with the chassis, some basic dimensioned drawings of 'Shou-wa-no' along with a couple of detail
parts. With the Masterclass series up and going I just didn't get round to building the model! But I also still didn't feel
I knew enough about the loco.. one photo was all I had, and one drawing dimensioned from that photo! Early 2004 after
considerable time speaking to Railroad Historian Jim Wilke about 19th century paint jobs, the issue of 'Shou-wa-no' came
up again. Jim had done extensive research on this locomotive, and the era, and overnight filled in the blanks about the
loco's colour scheme and fittings. Jim's research on this locomotive has also just been published in the D&RGW Historical
Society Journal 'Prospector' which features some outstanding 3D renderings of Shou-wa-no by Jon Davis showing the very latest
understanding of how the loco looked in 1871.
Around mid year I finally got into cutting and building this loco! She features a typical Baldwin paint scheme of 1871,
including gold, white and blue trim. As Jim explains:
"The starbursts on the dome tops are a neat Baldwin thing the company used from about 1868 to 1872, and show up on a number of
builder's photos from the time. It should never have made its way into Baldwin's paint sample book (because it was dropped when
the book was started in 1874) except that an excusion railway on Coney Island had a light tank engine built in the 1880s that
incorporated them. The little railway basically took people on holiday from steamer landings to Coney Island's fun fair and
beaches, and it seems they wanted something a little funny or old fashioned - the 1880s equivilant of retro I think! Thankfully
we had a Baldwin drawing and were able to copy the colors exactly as Baldwin did them."
While not fully evident on the less generous copies of the builder's Photo of 'Shou-wa-no', the star bursts are most clearly seen
on the dome tops of 'Montezuma' D&RG #1, of the same year.
The loco is painted with a wine base colour, Russia Iron boiler jacket and Vermillion wheels (orangy red colour). The drive wheel
centres also feature a star burst of blue and gold. All the line work is done using coloured vinyls, cut into very thin strips and
applied to the model. Decals were designed and produced by Stan Cedarleaf, including the red shadow lettering on the tender
sides. The builder's plates, feature the correct M. Baird & Co. name of the Baldwin Co of 1871 and also the correct construction
number. Stan also produced the front and side plates as decals.
The Vertical Pitman photo in the BBT chassis was so large and tall, that it runs right up through the boiler and up into the
steam dome. The dome is actually attached to the motor, and not the boiler! Dome tops were parts from Bachmann and Hartland,
while the bases were scratch made. Cylinders and steam chests were also scratch made. The tender was made using my usual
techniques, but the rivets along the tank edges were deleted in order to get the line work on smooth. The pilot and deck come
from a Bachmann 4-4-0 (left overs), and fit beautifully. The iron spoke pilot was made by using the Bachmann wood pilot, cutting
out all the staves and replacing with 1mm brass rod.
Interesting for this 1871 design is that the engineer's side featured an early injector, standing proud on the boiler side,
while the fireman's side uses an older crosshead water pump. The pump actually pumps when the model runs, and is neat to watch.
The crosshead pump manifold was made from styrene pipes, and Sculpy polyclay for the orbs.
For such a tiny model, she is hugely powerful, well overpowered prototypically and is a top performer. A huge thanks to Barry
Olsen and Jim Wilke for making this project happen.
