In my plan for a freelance N scale RR I decided that the RR went with early Alco diesels because they had Alco steamers. After thinking about it and looking throught the Walthers '08 N catalogue I realized that no one made a steamer that was specifically described as Alco built.
Is there someone out there that makes N scale Alco steamers? Is there a brand steamer that is close enough to be kit bashed to resemble an Alco built loke?
Curves would be 11" rad so bigger lokes would work fine. I remember an Alco 4-8-2 steamer talked about, but I was also looking for 6 wheelers, like 2-6-0’s (yes I know thats a mogul) or 4-6-2’s. I’m trying to plan it in the 50’s as a transition period. The RR got off to a bit of a slow start going to diesel, but it also depends alot on vehicle availability. I’ve seen plenty of mid and late 50’s vehicles in N, but very little 40’s and early 50’s vehicles. Diesels would be RS3’s, with a PA1 for some passenger running.
ALCO was made up of several early locomotive manufacturers such as Rogers and Schenectady, together with other locomotive firms united to form the American Locmotive Company. It was Baldwin’s chief competitor as far as mass-produced locomotives, with LIma coming in a distant third, at least early in manufacturing history.
One way to tell an ALCO steamer from a Baldwin is that Baldwin had a small circular sheild on the smokebox of their locos, whereas the ALCO sheild was rectangular.
Both locomotive companies built steamers to specific railroad specifications, so unless you’re familiar with the history of the particular railroad, it’s hard to discern them from one another.
There wasn’t a distinctive “Alco” look anymore than there was a distinctive “Baldwin” or “Lima” look. There was, however, a distinctive “Railroad” look to almost every railroad that ran steam, and whatever company was chosen for their locmotives relegated itself to designing locmotives for that particular ‘look.’ Thus you get the NYC and UP ‘look’ (primarily Alco) just as you get the Pennsy, Great Northern and Santa Fe ‘look’ (primarily Baldwin), but no matter WHO the locomotive builder, it was built to the specifications of that particualr railroad. Thus, if you get a railroad like, say, Southern Pacific, which spread out its locomotive purchases between Alco and Baldwin (and later,Lima) and its own Sacramento Shops, you get locomotives that have a particular “SP” look to them, not any particular mfgr.
So the best bet, if you’re an Alco fan, is to check the railroad steam rosters and find out which railroad bought primarily from the company. As I’ve said, many of them bought from all three (plus homebuilt). It’s very different from today when power is relegated to two companies, and both are distinictive. These days, the mfgr lets the railroad know what the d
What wheel sets did Alco make? I think I remember a 4-8-2 listed but I’m looking at 8 wheelers and 6 wheelers in particular. No switchers need apply, all staging is hidden or off-layout with cassettes.
Alco made 2-8-0’s, 2-8-2’s, 2-8-4’s , 2-10-2’s, 2-8-8-0’s, 2-8-8-2’s and at least one 2-8-8-4. They also made 4-6-0’s, 4-6-2’s, 4-6-4’s (most famously for the NYC) 4-10–2’s, (UP and SP) 4-12-2’s (exclusively for UP) 4-6-6-4’s and 4-8-8-4’s (again, exclusively for Union Pacific). But except for 4-12-2’s and 4-8-8-4’s, so did Baldwin.
Lima made the only 2-6-6-6 wheel arrangement.
It’s not a particular wheel arrangement that Alco produced, but as I said in my earlier post, a wheel arrangement for a particular RAILROAD. You have to check RR steam rosters, not steam wheel arrangements to find out who bought Alco and who didn’t.
NKP’s first 15 Berks were Alco engines and there’s nothing that really visually distinguishes the S’s from the later S-1, S-2 and S-3 classes. All 3 builders built USRA designed engines. You can kill 2 birds with one stone by using USRA designs as your core fleet. Just say the engines came from ALCO. The USRA family resemblance will give your core roster a family look. USRA engines in N scale are available from Walthers/LL, Bachmann Spectrum and Model Power. Con-cor also produces a USRA heavy 2-10-2. Even though the Spectrum 2-8-0 is called a Baldwin, it’s actually based on a Harriman Standard design which could have been built by any builder.
Answer this question and you will have a running start on suitable steam locomotives:
What geographical area are you modeling, and which Class 1(s) did your freelanced road interchange with?
The interchanges don’t need to be modeled. They can be in, “The rest of the railroad” (aka hidden storage.)
Many second-tier railroads acquired gently used[(-D] locomotives from their Class 1 connections, or piggybacked their one-unit order on the Class 1’s order for 50 or so. That degree of commonality would result in a lower first cost (the Class 1 already paid for the design work) and a greater probability that repair parts would be available if needed (from the Class 1 if not the builder.)
Another possibility is to use USRA designs, and just make sure they have rectangular builder’s plates (or add your own) Many railroads (SOU most famously) never owned anything more modern than USRA power, possibly ‘modernized’ with an Elesco feedwater heater, a front-end throttle or an extra compressor.
Since you’re modeling the end of the transition era, your steam ‘fleet’ might consist of two 2-8-2s that spend most of their time on radial tracks off the turntable, only steaming up to handle traffic surges or to cover for an ailing diesel - or one, stuffed and mounted, on a short length of track on the street side of the passenger station.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - the beginning of the transition period in Japan)
Sure there was. It’s subtle, however. A steam locomotive doesn’t contain an engine…it IS an engine, so its appearance is (elegantly) dictated by function. Furthermore, as people have posted here, the builders did follow railroad specs or standard designs.
Still, the builders had their own designs as well, which they often built for small railroads or industrial customers, and when they did this, the details often did vary by builder. Baldwin frequently used distinctively shaped domes, which flared at the base to a larger diameter before the fillet. Alco used cylindrical domes, rounded at the top and filleted at the bottom (Baldwin did too, when requested, but I can’t think of any Alco locos that used the Baldwin style.)
It seems to me that Alco preferred more rounded cab corners and a more flared smokestack than Baldwin used. I’m sure somebody who really knew his steam would be able to add plenty, and point out distinctive builders’ touches on even railroad orders. I don’t know enough to do this, though.
The N scale Model Power 2-6-0 has an Alco look to it.
Ya you have to remember steam engine building was the opposite of diesels. Buying a diesel is like going to a clothing store and buying a suit off the rack. Steam engines were like going to a tailor and having a suit made specifically for you.
Or to put it another way diesels were built like automobiles - here’s what we make, pick the one(s) that work for your railroad’s needs.
With steam, the railroads went to a builder and worked (sometimes for months and months) with their design team to create an engine that would be unique to that railroad. So an ALCO built 4-6-2 for say the Pennsylvania might look nothing like one they’d build for say the Chicago & NorthWestern. Each RR would have it’s own needs as to driver size, tender, cab, accessories (feedwater heaters, stokers etc.) so each order resulted in a custom-made engine. In some cases, a railroad might go to say Alco for an order of engines, and if it liked them, go back for a second order. If Alco was too busy, they’d take their plans to Baldwin and have them build the engines, which might end up looking almost identical to the original Alco built engines.
That’s one of the reason the USRA engine types were developed - to try to simply building and maintaining engines, so that even engines of different wheel arrangements had many interchangeable parts…and of course it’s one reason USRA engines are manna from heaven for us free-lancers, since so many USRA engines (and even more USRA copies) were made, that any railroad might have them on the roster.
It’s also why early diesel rosters often look so unorganized. Railroads were used to having engines built to their specifications by any one of the major builders, so when they began buying diesels often bought a mix of EMD, Alco, Baldwin and FM engines without realizing they all used different parts etc. so they had to maintain a much larger parts store than they would if they had
Well to help with geographical location I will just say that the people who started showing off pics of Big Boys should have asked that question first. My freelance RR idea would be to small for something that big, hence why I was asking about 8 wheelers and 6 wheelers, not…hold on lemme count my fingers…16 wheelers. Sorry, had to take my shoes off to count my toes [X-)]. As for location, it would be going from Green Bay to Escanaba. The particular line I think used to be MILW but at any rate it’s been ran by Escanaba & Lake Superior for some time now. Except for MILW I don’t know what ‘class’ the local RR’s would be. In the Wisconsin portion it could directly link to GB&W and MILW with it’s own tracks or with trackage rights, on the Michigan end I just know SOO line for sure. Possible something like the Ishmepig or whatever it is.
As for the MR&T idea, well I’m still not done with that. After reading all the other posts I agreed with a common piece of advice, that I should go with N scale. Then after looking into it I realized about 80% of the industries would have to be scratch built, and the ones that I could by as kits I would still have to kitbash with other scratch built parts. Then there was a commont about a forum post of someone specifically asking idea’s about making a small scenic shelf layout, and there were a few layouts posted that I really liked. They looked to be very good 50’s design with first gen diesels, and that made me think well I could easily back date that to throw in a few steamers. Well after looking around into N scale steamers I realized I could do a very late steam layout and toss in a diesel or too, and that’s where I am now. I’ve always liked the diesels, but when looking into the steam I realized just how much I like the look of some of the steamers, like 4-8-2’s, 2-8-2’s, 4-6-2’s, 2-6-0’s.
It’s still unclear if and/or how long me and the miss’ will continue to live where we do. Staying here I hav
Here’s a link to the a map. It would more or less follow this route from where mpaquest’s line turns East at Abrams the MILW track I had in mind keeps going north. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to imagine some track was put down on the high lighted route.
Even though you’re in the area you’re modelling, I would still do as much research as possible, pick up any books or videos you can find of the railroads that served that area back in the steam age. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that since things are this way in 2009, they were the same in 1949. Railroad operations were different, many more industries were served by rail and passenger trains were more plentiful. Stop signs were yellow back then, not red. Heck, the the Green Bay Packers didn’t wear green jerseys until the fifties!! [:O]
Yeah but the Acme Packers di…no wait, they didn’t. They wore their Sunday worse. I think I’m just gonna go total freelance, make up my own RR, make up my own towns. I’m getting to the point now where I just want something, I don’t care how real it seems. Well, sorta, I mean I would still operate it prototypically and still run prototypical lokes. I found a real nice 4-8-2 Mountain that I like for 8 wheelers, and Model Power makes some nice 4-6-2’s, although they have them backwards. I like the normal 4-6-2 looks over the semi-streamliner, but I don’t like the Vanderbuilt tender. Also found a nice looking 2-8-2. I know I can find more, like 2-8-0’s 2-6-2’s and 2-6-0’s but the ones I have links to are all USRA designs, something I know I can say Alco built and no one can argue with me. There was a 2-10-2 USRA design model but I figured this would be too big. I’m thinking maybe a 4-8-2 for transfer runs or through freights, a 4-6-2 for passenger, and 1 or 2 RS2’s for way freights. The layout won’t be too big, but I plan to stretch it out as much as possible. Get some long runs between towns and hidden track.
You could run a really plausible small model RR with a 2-8-2 Mikado and a couple of boiler-equipped RS2’s. Put the RS’s on the passenger runs and say your railroad retired the passenger steam ( [:(] ). Let the Mike handle the way-freights. Or get a Mike and a Pacific, or just a Mike.
(Can somebody please resize the photos so it stops mangling the thread?)
If you don’t know what you want, you might just put down an oval with a passing track and a few spurs on a minimum-effort flat table, glue down some plastic kit structures and flatland scenery, then run trains. I think you’re thinking big, but it’s better to start small. Just get a single RS and have some fun switching local freights in a small town, which seems to be something you like. You want something, well, GET something. [:)] You can always use it on your next layout,or sell it off.
Don’t think you need to know exactly what you want. Sometimes you just want little trains. Sometimes you won’t know more until you’ve got that. I don’t think 1 in 100 model railroaders gets it perfect the first time.
This is like engineering. You analyze a little, then you build a prototype and test it. THAT is when you really start figuring things out. Don’t throw too much investment into the prototype, but don’t be paralyzed with overanalysis, either.
Thanks for the advice AP. Looking at it more carefully, I could honestly fit it all onto the venerable average sized hollow door, I was more or less looking at it (with out realizing) that I was basically putting a town here at the end of the room and another small town here towards the middle of the run for some long running. Unfortunetly the way the door opens into the room, and the design of it, I could only go with a 3x8 foot if I went with typical plywood. That would leave about 30 inches to walk around the layout and about the same from the doorway to the layout. Still trying to get everything into perspective.
One thing to avoid is getting too much too soon. Why I advised reading about the prototypes first is that even if you’re freelancing, seeing what the real railroads did in your area will give you an idea what would have been the most likely engines used on your railroad. In your area, I’d check out the CNW, Milwaukee, LS&I and maybe GB&W.
BTW a 4-8-2 would be unlikely for a transfer drag, a freight engine or switcher would be more likely. Mountains were generally passenger / fast freight engines. The key is the drivers: generally passenger / fast engines have large drivers (69" or more diameter), freight engines have smaller drivers (say around 63" d.), and switchers had very small drivers (51" was common).
USRA engines were 2-8-2, heavy and light, 2-10-2, heavy and light, 4-6-2 heavy and light, 4-8-2 heavy and light. There were two switchers, the light was an 0-6-0, the heavy an 0-8-0. There were two Mallets, the heavy was a 2-8-8-2, the light was a 2-6-6-2. Many copies were made, up thru some 0-8-0’s built by Norfolk and Western in 1953!!
Well, go with what fits, whether it’s on a shelf or a door or in a desk drawer. I was just saying that sometimes it helps to get something running. Even the worst layout tells you what not to do (and even the best one does that at times). Just keep it cheap, like Wj. says, and have fun.
(I tell you, I’m one of the worst people I know for analysis-paralysis.)
The nice thing about N is that you can design a table with full turnback curves and push it against a wall with no reach problem at all. That would give you more room to walk.
I will end up probably just running diesels. I like the look of the 4-6-2’s but appearently they were used for passenger and not much else. But then again I am possibly freelancing. Looking at that steam website that was given it seems that a 4-6-2 could be built to have as much tractive effort as something like a 2-8-2 or 2-8-0. It kinda stinks because trainland is running a special on the Model Power 4-6-2’s for 50 bucks. [sigh] I wish I had the extra cash.
You give up too easily. SP commonly used Pacifics on freights (and there’s a pic ot P-1 2408 in Tehachapi freight helper service in Signor’s "Tehachapi);
The later P-8’s and P-10’s commonly pulled freights in the San Joaquin Valley as late as 1956.
SP even rated A-3 Atlantics for freight in the San Joaquin Valley.
Santa Fe often used 1226 class Pacifics down the San Joaquin Valley on freights in the 30’s.
There was a whole subclass of Pacifics on the Atlantic Coast Line that were designed to be used on freight. These were USRA lights with 69" drivers instead of 73" (very hard to tell the difference in N scale).
There’s nothing inherently unprototypical about a Pacific on a freight (especially after a shopping, when locomotives were commonly assigned to local freights on break-in runs).
Or this?
