0-8-0 as road power for locals

[markpierce]

Finally found it. Here is a photo of Bay Point & Cowell RR’s 0-6-0 #1 at the head of an excursion train at the Cowell cement plant.

[Texas_Zephyr]

I’m looking at picking up a Walthers Heritage 0-8-0 in N scale for use on my protolanced branch line layout. Were these classes of locos ever uses as road power for local freights?

It is interesting that one time we needed a short run extra from the main yard out to the first town to snag a car that had been missed by the local freighter. Since I had been using the 0-8-0 in the yard I just threw a caboose on the back and headed out. Even the model 0-8-0 (Proto Heritage from the first run in HO) waddled like a lame duck when I got it out on the main. I had to limp along at very slow speeds. I can only imagine how much worse it would be in the prototype. I quickly determined it would have been better to dig a 2-6-0 or 4-6-0 or even a 4-4-0 out of the round house rather than take the 0-8-0 out on the main again.

I wonder what a NYC 0-8-8-0 would be like? Any extra stability due to the second set of drivers?

[DSO17]

interesting photo. thanks for posting it…may be just my perception but don’t the drivers look larger than those you would normally find under a yard engine?

grizlump

I wonder if the 1419 was rebuilt from a 2-8-0? That would explain the larger drivers. If the RDG could use 2-8-0s to make 4-8-4s they shouldn’t have had any trouble converting a 2-8-0 into an 0-8-0. IIRC the B&O rebuilt quite a few 2-8-0s into 0-8-0s.

[wjstix]

Using an 0-6-0 or 0-8-0 on a branchline freight would be fairly rare on the prototype, but pretty common on model railroads, so if you want to use an 0-8-0 that way I’d go ahead and do it.

BTW, one reason that road diesels (RS-3, GP-7) were so popular in the early fifties was that one engine was usually powerful enough to run on a branchline plus you didn’t have to turn the engine at the end of the branch. Yes you can run a steam engine backwards but most branchlines unless they were very short had a small turntable at the end to turn the engine for the return trip. So it wouldn’t be unusual to see a new diesel in 1951 operating on a branchline, while the mainline was still primarily running big steam.

Actually the GP7 was indeed design as a brachline locomotive.

According to Dick Dilworth:

"In planning the GP7,“I had two dreams. The first was to make a locomotive so ugly in appearance that no railroad would want it on the main line or anywhere near headquarters, but would keep it out as far as possible in the back country, where it could do really useful work. My second dream was to make it so simple in construction and so devoid of Christmas-tree ornaments and other whimsy that the price would be materially below our standard main-line freight locomotives.”

Quoted from GM’s Geeps: The General Purpose Diesels (Classic Trains/Kalmbach).

GM’s “BL” series was intended to be branchline engines (BL= Branch Line I guess?) by putting an F-units guts in a road-switcher body, but it didn’t work out too well. The GP came along a couple of years later and did it right.

[wjstix]

interesting photo. thanks for posting it…may be just my perception but don’t the drivers look larger than those you would normally find under a yard engine?

grizlump

I wonder if the 1419 was rebuilt from a 2-8-0? That would explain the larger drivers. If the RDG could use 2-8-0s to make 4-8-4s they shouldn’t have had any trouble converting a 2-8-0 into an 0-8-0. IIRC the B&O rebuilt quite a few 2-8-0s into 0-8-0s.

From what I’ve read, in general railroads in the late nineteenth century didn’t bother to buy “switcher” engines per se, but would just take old 2-6-0 or 2-8-0 engines and remove the front truck to make it an 0-6-0 or 0-8-0. Freight cars were much lighter then and it wasn’t hard for the engines to do the work.

Of course by World War 1 switcher production must have been up, since the USRA saw the need to design both a light and heavy USRA switcher (0-6-0 and 0-8-0 respectively)…or the design was so good it inspired railroads to order the engines (or copies later) to use in moving the increasingly heavier cars in use then??

[BRAKIE]

Stix wrote;

GM’s “BL” series was intended to be branchline engines (BL= Branch Line I guess?) by putting an F-units guts in a road-switcher body, but it didn’t work out too well. The GP came along a couple of years later and did it right.

---

Correct it was EMD’s failed attempt at entering the road switcher market…

The BL2 has a sad story…It was a redheaded orphan nobody liked.You see EMD’s designing engineers didn’t like it,the sales department didn’t like it and the railroads didn’t like it because the engineer couldn’t see the switchmen riding the steps and it had poor visibility on reverse moves which made Alcos RS1 and RS2 superior locomotives for switching…

Did you know the GP7 number boards(called number boxes by EMD’s designers) was added as a afterthought after somebody ask Mr.Dilworth about number boxes?

For some interesting history I highly recommend 2 things GM’s Geeps: The General Purpose Diesels(Classic Trains/Kalmach paper back) and GMs Geeps in Action video(Classic Trains/Kalmbach).

[tstage]

The NYC had 350+ 0-6-0s and 787 0-8-0s. Although the 0-8-0s could pull a reasonable number of cars at a time, none of them (from what I’ve read) were ever used as road switchers.

Tom