Somebody out there MUST know who built the prototype of the ATSF 0-4-0 Dockside locomotive by Life Like. My research has yielded nothing. I am able to find pictures of 0-4-0s but no references in any literature available to me.
I am indebted,
Ron
Ron,
I’ve been wrong before, or so my wife tells me, but I believe that the protoype of the Dockside 0-4-0 was a class on the B&O, and Life-Like just took the liberty of putting it in ATSF livery to increase sales. Read this recent thread from the General Discussion forum:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15757
and you may find some of the information you seek.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543
Bob,
You’re right on target. The prototype or the Life Like (and Varney, Bowser, Model Power, Rivarossi, brass…) Docksider is a four-engine class of 0-4-0T’s built for the B&O, for use around the piers of Baltimore. Two of the engines were layer converted to oil burners, and all four were scrapped in the 1950s.
The model is of a specific prototype, and only the brass versions and the Bowser version WITH the valve gear kit are really correct, and only for the B&O. However, 0-4-0T engines were built in very large numbers, for all sorts of industrial uses. Many looked very close to the Docksider. The Ohio Central has an 0-4-0T up and running that looks a LOT like the Docksider (check the OC’s website for pictures). I highly doubt the Santa Fe had anything close, however.
Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail lists 5 0-4-0T locos in 4 classes. One had a pillar crane mounted, I believe straddling the smokestack, for use in picking up parts in a shop. There was a photo of this this once in one of the model mags, 30 years ago or so.
I went to www.walthers.com to hunt up a picture of the Lifelike 0-4-0T Docksider, and compared it to prototype photos in Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail. The Lifelife Docksider bears the most resemblence to Gulf Coast and Santa Fe #2296 and 2997, built in 1924 and scrapped 1944. Worked in the rock crusher at Brownwood, Texas. The Lifelike model is close enough as is (except the paint and lettering) to look like something that reasonably might have been used on the Santa Fe. Nit-pickers might want to mount the bell in FRONT of the smokestack, change the domes, change the cab windows. Don’t know whether the mechanism would allow cutting off the extension in back of the cab. Could be made into a fairly close representation of a real engine.
Looks like a doable project, either with a little paint, or with a more ambitious rebuild. I would definitely repaint though. None of the Santa Fe 0-4-0Ts (or 0-6-0Ts for that matter) are shown with a Santa Fe cross and circle herald, just AT&SF or GC&SF white lettering on black and a number.