Dave,
Since I’m a wee bit short of the 1937 issues, and since I’ve corrected my mis-measure just above, could you possibly take some measurement off the plan? Say, the three dimensions I noted.
Ed
!(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt63/Tanglewood49/Forum Pix/042TMaryland.jpg)
Hokey Smokes, Bullwinkle! That is a linebacker of a tank engine. That thing above the domes has just got to be an intravenous steroid drip-reservoir.
Fortunately, there is an Athearn ad-photo from very much the same angle (but with a different focal-length lens which changes the perspective).
!(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt63/Tanglewood49/Forum Pix/0-4-2-Actual-vs-Athearn.gif)
They do look mighty similar. I’m still inclined to think the Maryland engine has a heavier boiler, but now I can see that much of its “beefy” quality is because its tank is wider - all the way to the cab sides. Also, the model loses some of it’s sense of visual power, because Athearn gave it small, straight-sided, flat-topped domes which are not typical of Vulcans (tapered, rounded domes) and just look wimpy.
All right; all right. You pushed me to move out of the recliner. I searched through the pile of Carol’s bead-jewelry tools and materials, and recovered my MR DVD set. I found the 1939 drawing (I would have sworn it was in the Fifties, but by then Westcott wasn’t jockeying a T-square any more, so I should have known). I brought it into a vector-drawing program gridded off in eighths. And started measuring. Let’s see if Kalmbach lets me get away with this:
!(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt63/Tanglewood49/Forum Pix/Vulcan-drawing.gif)
(Copyright, trademark and the rest of it, M
If memory serves Athearn took liberties with their steam locos – wasn’t the Boston & Maine 4-6-2 off by a number of key measurements so that the mechanism would fit? And of course for years their EMD Geeps had bodies that were wider than prototype to accomodate the motors. So I would not get too hung up on measurement comparisons.
Dave Nelson
D.
Thanks for doin’ the work!
The missing width for the Athearn is 11’-6" over the cylinders, and about 10’-10" over the cab–a good bit wider there.
I note that the Athearn matches the photo better than the drawing with respect to the cab sides. Athearn didn’t NECESSARILY use Westcott’s drawing, as many of us have been assuming. Anyway, I’m inclined now to believe that the Athearn isn’t that far off.
Your layout idea sounds like fun. I do hope you pick up the Suydam Day and Night Water Heater company (interior and lights, please). That was one of my faves from the old days. Lemme see now, for buildings there was Suydam, Alexander, Mainline (I built their station), and Ayers. Oh, yeah, and Revell and Atlas. Of course, a lot of that stuff was stations and other railroad related buildings. I look forward to someday seeing what you decide to put together.
Ed
Poor runners was an understatement. I had two when they were new. Both internally different. The frames and drivers will not interchange. One had small axles, small slots in the frames. The other had big rotating bits on the axles, which fit into larger frames. The insulators were different, too. I have bits of both left.
Had a hankering for one after I found a Hustler for my brother, so now I have another 0-4-2T, plus an 0-6-0…and parts of a Pacific, just for show.
Irv continually tried, from what I’ve read and heard over the decades, to make the steamers reliable…finally gave up.
If I recall again, the cylinders had plastic bushing inserts for the piston rods so the wheels wouldn’t short across.
TOC