The Home Machinist!

Finally after many years and close to 14000hrs things are starting to go together for the last time hopefully .
You would have to have rocks in your head to do or attempt working smokestack hoods , they were a tight fit on the full size engine so scaling them down makes them very close fits and will test the best of us to get them to work smoothly (my head hurts )
But the end results - not sure if it was worth it but here it is .

But do they work horizontally?

Mountaineer

(Worth it!!)

And a couple more

Wonderful detail Chris!

Congratulations. I'm not familiar with these. What is the purpose on the prototype?

Impressive!
RusssN

Very beautiful detail.
Greg the Union Pacific used the hoods to redirect the exhaust flow over the top of the locomotive when operating in tunnels. The following link gives a full history of the different types and more details on the need for them.
https://utahrails.net/up/steam-smoke-deflectors.php

Thanks, UPsteamfan. I can't imagine being in the cab through a mile-long tunnel at 25 mph, hood notwithstanding. Yuk.

Over the years I have heard many reasons for the smoke hoods but that is the first time I have seen an actual explanation .
They are quite simple to operate in principal but would of been a train crew and maintenance night mare .
Train crews would of been very reluctant to use them I would think as if they go up they may not come down due to the serve environment they were working under ( gravity/weight forced them down no positive force ) - the force and exhaust waste hitting the underside of the hoods must of been huge .
Also on the challengers etc these were quite large items at around 8ft long by 2 or 3 ft wide - 3 each per side , I had enough issues to get mine to function and I've got perfect conditions.

Good Lord.
I'm going back to my paper dolls.....

Much too nice to put in an exhaust stream and have it get hot and stuck.

Moral. .stay out of mile long tunnels

Know that I no longer have patience to even think about attempting what you have done...let alone making it work