these items look good,
you can proceed with
making the cable
opening in the tender.
Figures 1 and 2 show
examples of the holes
cut for a four-pin
cable.
To make the opening,
I drill two or three
small 1/16” holes
first and then enlarge
them into one big
hole with a Dremel Moto-tool using a #113 engraving bit;
final shaping and smoothing is done with small files.
You must file the opening smooth with rounded edges so
they cannot snag or cut into the cable! I normally cut/drill the
four-pin Miniatronics cable opening at least 5/8” to ¾” wide
and about 1/4” high for the cable to feed through.
The TCS six-wire cable has much smaller wire so it is more flex-
ible and will not need as large an opening. With some engines,
there is plenty of open space under the cab, and running the
cable will be a simple matter, but others will require a hole in
the cab apron or even the frame. (While maybe easier, it looks
tacky for cables to be run on top of the cab and tender floor.)
Test-fit the cable with the engine and tender coupled, the cable
ends plugged together, and inserted into the holes you made. To
verify that the holes are large enough, you must be able to move
the tender up, down and sideways 1/2” independently of the
2: Cable cutout
in cab apron and
cable.
2
