The Steamy Continuing Saga ….. 

When I wrote my initial review of the new Aster C62-2 for Steam in the Garden, I was working with the first production model delivered to the US importer. That model was in stock and available for sale, so we were not able to steam it up. But shortly after the first article was completed, my local Aster dealer, Jim Pitts of Southern Steam Trains, acquired a factory built C62 for his own collection. He kindly offered me the opportunity to give that locomotive its first steam-up at his open house. About the same time, I purchased the first US C62 kit from Jim. 

Before we move to the initial steam-up, I’d like to share a few observations from my kit purchase. Upon opening the kit, I was surprised by a couple of major changes. First, the directions were really different. Many of you who have built Aster kits over the years will remember having to work with the awkward combination of a text instruction manual and a large format booklet of drawings. Now Aster has combined this into a single construction manual with surprisingly little text and the replacement of isometric drawings with detailed photos. This type of manual was developed by Aster to reduce costs, and Aster dramatically reduced the amount of text because they expected that the buyers were going to be experienced modelers.

The absence of text can cause some problems. They use a special “>” symbol to indicate where sealant is to be applied. I missed some of those symbols and had a leaking water tank to deal with. The second big change was the type of fasteners. For this model, Aster switched to the extensive use of Phillips head screws. I’m aware that some modelers – especially in Europe – have complained about this change because the Phillips head screws are not “prototypical”. Well, speaking just for myself, hex head bolts don’t look terribly prototypical either being overly large – much larger than the Phillips head screws. But more importantly, the Phillips head screws grip nicely to the tip of the provided screwdriver and remain in straight alignment.

This eases their insertion into some very inaccessible locations. I for one will gladly welcome them in future Aster kits because of this and because they allow the attachment of more scale-sized fittings and other details. Without them, the construction time on the kit would have been much longer. I very reluctantly remember my aggravation when building an Aster Southern Mike as hex fasteners routinely – and repeatedly -- fell out of the socket driver! Keep in mind that we don’t always have a free hand to grip the hex head screw in a pair of tweezers. Then the convenience of the Phillips head screws will be obvious. 

Well, this installment of the article was not intended to be a detailed study of the assembly of the C62. I promised Ron Brown that the second part of the article would be devoted to a follow-up article on the first steam-up and running characteristics of the model. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one more thing about the construction of this model. Aster advertises that this kit has over 1,000 parts. I took the time to look through the sections of the construction manual, and if you include fasteners in the count as I did, this kit has over 1,800 pieces. As an example, there were 81 parts in the leading truck alone! Awesome detail! Now on to steaming! 

The initial runs of Jim’s engine took place at his Fall Steam-Up and Open House. I was charged with the responsibility of firing and running the factory built C62 for his guests. Since at that time my kit was not quite done, I was delighted to have a chance to see first-hand what my model should be capable of. My first step was a careful inspection and lube of all moving parts. During this inspection I noticed that the factory assembler had omitted the four parts that make up the trailing truck centering spring assembly; and a couple of the parts in the trailing truck equalization system were incorrectly installed. I decided that the absence of the centering spring assembly would not be greatly missed but I went ahead and relocated the equalization system hangers.

In oiling around, I was delighted to find no binds in the driver assembly and that smoothness showed in slow & steady running in actual operation. Handling of the locomotive for lubing is a real challenge because of the high level of detail everywhere. It is difficult to pick it up at all without causing some damage so I had pre-made a cradle to hold the locomotive inverted for lubing. Subsequently, I went back to my workbench and made a new custom cradle that allows one to tip the loco over for servicing and to bring it back upright without having to handle the locomotive too much. The result is zero damage! 

The locomotive was now ready for fluids: water, butane and steam oil. Steam oil servicing was easy since the locomotive comes equipped with a large mouth lubricator hidden under a sliding plate – just below the smokebox door. Gassing up was reasonably easy too. The fitting works well with existing fillers in use in the USA and little gas is wasted. The only difficulty is that there is little sound to let you know that gas is transferring and there is no sputtering as normally seen when filling is completed. But I must have gotten plenty of gas in the C-62 because the initial firing run was over 45 minutes from light-up, and I ran out of gas before the engine did!

Filling the boiler was a bit more tedious. Remember that this is a good-sized Hudson so there’s a large boiler to fill. The C62 is equipped with a large tender pump – I think this one is the same as on the Allegheny. It takes plenty of strokes to fill her and the tender is relatively small so you’ll top up the tender two or three times before you finish filling the boiler. The detail on the boiler is extensive, and there is no provision for filling at the boiler, so the pump is all you’ve got.

Some of the more adventurous souls may wish to use one of the model airplane “turkey baster” fueling devices and attach its filler hose to the blow down fitting, loosen the blow down valve screw and SQUEEZE. This may be a quicker way to fill the boiler but it means another bulky tool in your tool box. Over several runs, I learned that the boiler seems happiest when you fill it such that the water glass reads about 3/16’s of an inch below the top of the glass. This is a locomotive type boiler and makes much of its steam at the crown sheet, so it appears the locomotive steams more freely with the gauge glass nearly reading “full”. 

With everything topped off, it was time to boil water. In a first for my experience with gas-fired engines, the instructions recommended the use of a blower on the stack to assist with steaming up – like you would do with coal and alcohol burners. Since you light the burner by opening the firebox door, having the blower attached and running protects against flashback fires. By the way, I encourage any C62 buyers to get some welding rod and make themselves an 8-inch long hook to use in opening and closing the firebox door – it’s safer for the fingers! Once the blower was attached and running, the gas burner lit off quietly, smoothly and SAFELY.

I should remind readers that this engine is equipped with a new plate style burner and this burner has eliminated much of the noise pollution experienced with poker burners. Setting the burner gas flow is still a bit touchy though it is far less sensitive than earlier models like the C&S Mogul; but even the C62 could benefit from one of Kevin O’Connor’s gas valves. Nevertheless, it was possible to get a smooth fire going after some experimentation. Over three day’s worth of runs, I have subsequently learned that the burner can be turned up a lot without making too much noise and it never squeals.

Burner blowouts were few and normally resulted from my failure to open the steam blower as soon as I brought the engine to a halt. The proper fire level is with the flames detaching from the back of the burner plate but still touching the front of the burner. It’s a pretty tall flame pattern and hard to describe. If you hear pulsing from the burner, it is telling you it needs more air. This is not experienced when the start-up blower is used but it was common out on the mainline, and the application of a little steam blower was all that was needed to smooth it out. 

The Aster manual said that it should take only about 5-7 minutes to a full head of steam. My initial steam-up took almost 13 minutes but I was a bit too easy on the burner the first time around. With pressure up to 4 bars, I opened the drain cocks to clear the condensate. These work well and help avoid the “water fountain” exhibition one frequently witnesses with the Mikados, but the cocks use lots of steam – especially if you try to get the engine moving while the cocks are open. The cocks cleared quickly and the engine smoothly moved out of the steaming bays. I was immediately impressed at how slowly and smoothly the engine ran even without the benefit of a stationary track break-in run. Incidentally, unlike my Southern Mike, the C62 does not seem prone to further hydraulic lock after the initial start-up.  

As I mentioned in the first part of this review, the C62 throttle is different from many former Aster models. It has no needle valve so its operation is very smooth and no force is required to really close the throttle. I found that the throttle worked much like those on the full scale types. To get things moving, you swing the throttle way open about 80-90 degrees (it only opens a total of 120 degrees) and after a very short delay, you back it off to keep the wheels from spinning. This procedure made for very prototypical starts every time. The locomotive would start slow and had plenty of pulling power. 

I made several trips “light” around Jim’s backyard track and everything operated smoothly and quietly with pressure holding at 4 bars. Once under the load of five Aster JNR coaches, the C62 still ran smoothly but boiler pressure dropped to 2 bars. My first thought was that the burner was not up to the job. However in the course of that first day's running, I discovered that the problem was not the burner nor the locomotive. It was I! The manual did not give any guidance for proper burner settings. In fact, there were only two pages devoted to firing and running the engine, and these pages were riddled with errors. But this engine was made with experienced modelers in mind, so I instead had to learn from doing rather than reading. As I was to confirm from the later initial runs of my own completed kit a week later, the burner is fully capable of holding 4 bars of pressure even when pulling a load of 21 MDC cars up a 1 percent grade. You just need the flame turned up per the description two paragraphs ago!

To give you an idea of how stable the gas burner can be, in a run with my C62 on a track with extended 1 percent up and downgrades I was able to run the engine for 3/4ths of a mile (12 laps) without touching the burner. My only adjustment throughout that run was to the axle pump bypass valve to maintain water levels. Now I must admit that getting just the right combination of gas and water is important, but once the burner was set then I could leave it alone. In start and stop types of operation, the engine functions very much like an alcohol burner. As soon as motion stops, you need to crack the steam blower to keep the fire from starving for oxygen. This is probably a function of the locomotive style boiler and its tight-fitting coal ash pan.

The engine will tell you when it needs more air because the burner will make pulsing sounds – not very loud but noticeable. Open the blower a bit and the burner smoothes back out. Start the engine back in motion and it’s time to close the blower. I should mention that the C62 has a controllable ash pan door that can be left open to admit additional air to the firebox area, but I found it ineffective as compared to the steam blower.  

My first timed run with Jim’s C62 was 45 minutes from light up. We had a number of other hoggers there, so I did not feel it appropriate to test the limits of the gas tank capacity. But 45 minutes of burner operation without a gas top-up is plenty. Now my initial “easy on the gas” burner operation no doubt contributed to that extended run, but subsequent “full-burner” runs with both Jim’s factory built and my kit-built C62 gave very satisfying runs too. When the gas gets low, the engine lets you know as the muted burner sound gets even quieter and further opening of the control valve accomp