Have you ever seen an HO 2-8-0 camelback?

Hi everyone,

I am looking for an HO scale model of a 2-8-0 camelback, similar to the ones used by the Lehigh & Hudson River.

Does anyone know of an HO 2-8-0 camelback model? Brass or plastic, it doesn’t matter. Anybody know of any good models that exist?

Thanks,

  • Matt

The most common camelback 2-8-0 models you see around are a Gem RDG I-4, various models of RDG I-8 and a LIRR 2-8-0. They are all brass made in the 1960’s and 1970’s. They run in the $300-800 range. The LIRR engine has the cab well forward of the firebox.

On You Tube search for “Anthracite Modeler”, he does some amazing kitbashes of camelback engines.

Model Power made a camelback 2-6-0 that is based on the NYO&W engine. It is a very squat engine and probably not what you want.

I think you’ll have to compromise and use a stand-in. Like using a Reading I10s for the L&HR’s class 90.If that bothers you, assume that the L&HR leased it (RDG was one of the line’s owners). I wanted a model of CNJ’s 0-B-0 Whitcomb #1001 that replaced the famous #1000 in the Bronx. No one has ever made one. So I found an ancient Penn Line Davenport 0-B-0 “Midget” and painted and decaled it for the ficticious #1002. and #1002 prior to decaling Here’s an illustrated steam roster of the L&HRLehigh Hudson River Roster - NE Rails (railfan.net)R and the results of a search for “HO Canmlback 2-8-0” ho camelback 2-8-0 - Search (bing.com) Compare the two and see what model comes closes to what you want. Once you;ve decided what you want, Ebay is your friend. If oiu don’t find what you wan today, check back periodically to see if one turns up. Advice, if it does, pull the trigger NOW - it may be gone when you get back. Good luck!

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yes (see google search)

Mantua made one. Hard to find though.

Simon

A local shop had a couple of the Mantua Camelbacks still new in the box, one was a 2-8-2, not sure about the other one. Called Tolin’s KnK. No connection but always up for helping someone find a hard to locate older model.

I believe the Mantua 2-8-0 Camelback was basically the same engine as their 2-8-2 Camelback, but with a part added where the trailing truck was on the Mikado. So if you find a 2-8-2 Camelback for a decent price, it could be the starting point of a moderate ‘kitbash’ to a 2-8-0.

The Mantua model is a repreentation of a LV class N-1 and the Mantua 4-6-2 is a class K-1. As the Valley was a part owner of the L&HR, you could leave lettered and numbered as is and assume they are leased. A Pacific on the Bridge Line? Leased for a brief period, yes. "From October 1912 until January 1916, the L&HR hosted the PRR’s Federal Express passenger trains on the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route between Phillipsburg and Maybrook. With the completion of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City on September 9, 1917, the Federal Express re

Can you imagine working on a Camelback?.. the engineer’s on the righthand side of the boiler, entering a curve to the left and unable to see what might be ahead. On a regular loco, the fireman can look out the left window and holler across the cab to the engineer that there’s a derailment ahead.

Can you imagine being the fireman on a Camelback?..one workboot on the narrow shelf just aft of the firebox, the other boot on the bouncing footplate of the tender, all the while trying to shovel culm into the two firebox doors, protected from the weather by an outhouse-size roof.
If the poor bugger had time to look out his left-side window, he might see the derailment ahead, but not have much of a way to relay the message to the hogger. At least he’d be able to vacate his post before the crash.

Wayne

My maternal great uncles immigrated to this country in the first decade of the last century (they then saved their money and paid to bring their baby sister - my grandmother - to this country). Her brothers had become coal miners around Shamokin, Pennsylavania. Imagine the conditions in a coal minel in 1910. Oh, you were expected to pay for the oil in your lamp and the dynamite you used. But you never heard a peep of complaint from them. Compared to the old country, working in an Amerrican coal mine was, if not paradise, such a step up in working and living conditions, that they were grateful for the oppportunity. And there were millions like them. It was a hard age and workers, including railroad men, had to be, and were expected to be, tough. They would be amazed at at the thought that sitting in a comfortable chair, typing on a keyboard would be considered “work”. To them, work was when you were operating a shovel or pickaxe or were pushing a “blue Uke” (Which is what coal crackers like them called a wheel barrow)

In the early 1890s the fastest locomotives in the world were probably Camelbacks (on the Atlantic City Railroad).

https://digital.hagley.org/AVD_1969092_01A_001

P&R engines in this service were no slouches, either… and if I remember, one of the early classes of 4-4-2, in fact class E1, on the PRR (and later, LIRR) was a Camelback design (although not with a Wootten firebox).

Most of the railroads with these big 2-8-0s had most of the engine weight balanced over the eight drivers, leaving what looks like a colossal overhang at the rear (see the PRR I1s for the same general philosophy on ten drivers). Any weight not needed for reasonable tracking at drag-freight or coal-=train speeds was wasted adhesion… this might make one of those three-cylinder U-4 switchers at least a candidate.

And you could always reverse-kitbash a Reading T1 back into a 2-8-0; just take the course back out of the boiler and use an old underframe… [D)]

Not really in this thread, but since we’re discussing Mantua: the exact opposite of long visual overhang was visible on their Camelback Pacific. That had about as much trailing-truck room as a N&W Y-class 2-8-8-2… that is to say, not nearly enough to justify having it in preference to a good 4-6-0 of similar size. A Pacific benefits from having a deep firebox… and doesn’t need a rear pilot truck for backing up very often.

I found this one on ebay:

mantua HO 2-8-0 camelback | eBay

Looks like it might be a modified 2-8-2. It seems there should be something under the firebox. I have one of those and it would be easy to remove the trailing truck. I don’t know how important prototype fidelity is to you but that is an option.

the T-1 boiler seems longer than the I-10 or I-8

Reading T-1

Reading I-10 (blueprint)

Reading I-8

Mantua camelback

The PRR Class E1, complete with its English style rigid 6 wheel tender. Data from “Atlantic Type Locomotive–Class E-1, No. 698”, Railroad Gazette, Volume XXX1, No. 27 (7 July 1899), pp. 487-488; “Atlantic Locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad”, Railway and Engineering Review, Volume XXXIX [39], No 34 (26 August 1899), pp. 474; and “Atlantic Type Fast Passenger Locomotives-E1-Pennsylvania”, American Engineer and Railroad Journal, Volume 74, No 1 (January 1900), pp. 22-23. See also Paul T Warner, “The Development of the Anthracite-Burning Locomotive”, Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, Volume 52, pp. 11-28, as archived on []

Not really, the T-1 is derived from the class I-10 boiler which is a much larger diameter than any camelback ever was.

It would be easier to take a Roundhouse 2-8-0 and add a Wooten firebox and make a P&R/RDG class I-1,I-2, or I-4 class camelback.

Here’s how I did that: (1) Kitbashed Camelback 2-8-0 - YouTube

My recollection is that they added a course to the boiler to get the additional length. (The extra course on a model would come out cleanly much the same way.)

Not a prototype Reading camelback. But in partial defense, few of the alternatives are, either… [:)]

Very nicely-done, Dave.[bow][bow]

Wayne