Hello All
I have an MTH Berk and also a Mikado in HO
The Mikado is noticeably smaller than the Berk.
How much smaller was the Prototype Light Mikado Vs Berkshire?
Thanks
A USRA light Mike is a much smaller loco than the NKP Berkshire. I asure you the models are both correctly proportioned.
A quick comparison:
Year designed/built: Mike - 1918, Berk - 1934
Loco weight: Mike - 290,000 lbs, Berk - 429,000 lbs
Driver size: Mike - 63", Berk - 69"
Tractive Effort: Mike - 54,700 lbs, Berk - 64,000 lbs.
Also in any direct comparison the Berk would have been faster both in top speed and in its ablity to pull its rated tonage at speed.
BUT, to your previous post, they would have been double headed together with no problem if needed.
The Berk is a “Super Power” loco, a designation I will not explain right now, but simply put it was much more modern and more efficent than the Mike. That Mike was a good design, copied for years after the USRA production, but the Berk represents 15 year of advancements over the Mike.
There where other Mikes, built later, that used the same advancements found in the NKP/PM/C&O Berkshire. Look up GN O-8 and the DT&I 800 class.
Sheldon
And the Berks would have most likely a bigger, longer tender. However, I believe the NKP did retrofit some longer tenders on thier USRA Mikes. I recall when I helped restore NKP 765, I could not get over how big that tender was. It was about the length of a box car!
IIRC, it held 22,000 gallons of water and 22 tons of coal.
Thanks,
And Sheldon I see you can read my mind [:)]
Yes the Berks had much bigger tenders. In fact the Berks built for the C&O had enormous tenders, as large as some articulated locos - 21,000 gals and 30 tons of coal.
As a general rule on US roads, tenders got larger on each new improvement/adavancement in design. Not just because consumption increased, but because as speed and power increased, railroad desired to run longer distances without stopping to refuel.
Sheldon
You are most welcome. I run my BLI Heavy Mikes (no sound or DCC, now fitted with Spectrum long tenders), Spectrum Heavy Mountains and my Bachmann 2-8-2’s (converted from Berks) all together in various combinations for double or triple heading with no problem and that is on DC.
Here is a photo of one of my 2-8-2’s made from a Berk:
This picture was taken before it went to the paint shop for its ATLANTIC CENTRAL lettering. Our shops are busy converting a total of 5 of these.
The Great Northern O-8 Mikes were actually every bit as big and as heavy as the NKP Berks and the DT&I Mikes, while a little smaller and lighter, were superpower locos that look almost identical to the Berk.
So my freelance model combines both of those facts into a plausable loco that LIMA could have built if someone had asked.
Sheldon