Seems like most docksiders, saddle tanks and 0-4-0’s seem like they have all the character, why, who knows…Seems like all the big engines were kept in stock condition, where as the smaller ones got home jobs, with duct tape and super glue…
I have always liked the looks of a 4-8-4 exploding past, but once put into a model layout, that seams lost to me for some reason.
I have gone several times to the Huntsville and Lake of Bays Railway, commonly known now as the Portage Flyer. I have long loved the look of there 0-4-0s both built in 42 inch gauge by the Montreal locomotive works. I love the cute appearance of the locos, but I’m not good at prototype modeling, as there isn’t much info online, and I prefer to freelance, as I can build the buildings I want,along with the scenery.
So, I was wondering what you guys would say, would it be plausible to have a shoreline that uses only 0-4-0 tank engines. How far might they travel? And how much might they pull?
I have a Varney Docksider, so I know what you mean about their appeal. I first saw one on the cover of Model Railroader for Earl Smallshaw’s Middletown and Mystic Mines Railroad.
There’s two factors that limit a saddle tanker’s range. Limited water capacity doesn’t allow for very long distances and the rocking back and forth would affect tracking, so it couldn’t travel at a high speed.
They are great for switching a few cars in tight radii. If you were to do a short line of only a few miles or a former trolley line with sharp curves, then this is an adequate locomotive.
I could swear I’ve seen a picture of this being done on the prototype.
Those little 0-4-0’s were surprisingly powerful, just not fast. Especially when the water tank was full, all that weight on the drivers. Passenger cars tend to be lighter than loaded freight cars, so an 0-4-0 can eaily haul a couple of cars, again, just not very fast. When the size and weight of freight cars increased, railroads switched to 0-6-0 switchers for more tractive effort, and in some cases even 0-8-0. There were 0-6-0 tank locos, I’ve never seen an 0-8-0 tank but if there was I’m sure someone will produce a photo shortly.
The poor thing is all foamed up and stuff. I’ve got one tucked away that I customized years ago. Pretty decent little loco. I think I should add that I put on a lead and trailing truck to make it a logging loco. I do both doubt and wonder if there was a North American 0-8-0T.
And then there’s one of my favorite non-articulated tank engines (Sugar Pine Lumber 2-10-2T):
The Marion River Carry Railroad was located in the Adirondacks, in New York state. It was less than a half mile long and used an 0-4-0T with 3 open sided trolley cars. It served 2 steamboat landings on lakes, had a car float and served a large hotel and sawmill. It could be approximated with a Bachmann 0-6-0T and their excursion cars in HO. Here is a map from S Berliner III’s website
Not you, a large locomotive is like fine artwork it needs its white space to show its stuff. Most model layouts don’t have long stretches of track where one is focused only on the train moving past.
I always had that in the back of my mind because growing up in Brooklyn NY the only trains I was exposed to besides subways was the BEDT which had a small fleet of saddletankers and Docksider type engines until replaced by Alco switchers in early 60s.All switching and carfloats.
Character (large): any 2-6-6-6, UP 4-12-2, most SP cab-forwards, T&P 2-10-4, Santa Fe 4-4-6-2, PRR S-1, GN N-3 2-8-8-0, GN 2-6-8-0, Erie Triplex, Virginian 2-10-10-2, big N&W steam, Union/DM&IR 0-10-2, and just about any logging articulateds…
And those are just some of the cheap shots.
I will, however, agree there wasn’t a lot of homemade customizing of these locos.
Actually, the original Dockside (not Docksider) originally manufactured by Varney, and still available in much-butchered form from Life-Like, was de-tanked and run with a short slope-back tender. More accurately, two of the four built for the B&O in 1912 were. The other two soldiered on under their saddle tanks until the end of B&O steam.
Ed, that NWSL import WAS a Baldwin, class of (18)97, but it was also a 1:80 scale model of an Imperial Government Railways class 4020 loco built to 1067mm (3’6") gauge. In later years, some were given four-wheel water canteens. My model, bought as a kit in Japan, was originally fitted with buffers. I modified it with a one-lung compressor (left side of smokebox) and air tanks (inboard edges of the side tanks,) with the cooling coils alongside the tanks. The turbogenerator was fitted behind the stack. That gave it the ‘look’ of an antique that had been modernized to still be operational in 1964 on a Japanese private railway. I later had a ‘brass collector’ who was very unhappy with me for, “Ruining the model I need to complete my collection.” (I don’t think that being told that I had bought the kit to provide me with a colliery loco, not to resell to some collector, made him any happier!)
Japanese private railways, most of which were short, were big users of four and six coupled tank locos. Not ot be outdone, the JNR rostered some beauties in 2-6-2T and 2-6-4T wheel arrangeme
Well there’s Thomas as an 0-6-0 tank loco, or there’s always the Porter that the working Thomas that Strasburg has was made from. Or Reading shop switcher #1251 which is also at Strasburg.
How can you barf at the sight of Thomas, think of all the little kids he’s gotten into trains (maybe this belongs in the “is the hobby dieing” thread). Plus every loco in the Rev. Awdry’s stories was based on a real loco. Perhaps there have been some liberties taken with the newest episodes (I haven’t seen it in ages), but besides the bright colors and faces, all the ones previously shown were all actual locomotives that ran on various lines.
Well, Thomas used to be my favourite show for a long time, but I have been for ever ridiculed over it. So it is still a living nightmare for me. And yes kids get interested in the hobby, until they get harassed by there ‘friends’. And the old version of the show had it’s charm, but now it is animated (very poorly, mind you) and it isn’t the same at all. Now there are engine that don’t exist, there are faces that move, not just the eyes, and it is horrible compared to the old one. I watched it with my younger cousins, who should have the user name, minitrainobsessed, and I was appalled by how they could like the show. And it’s so boring…I probably sound like a Thomas nut, so don’t judge me, but it is so different compered to the old Thomas, and Rev Awdry was good at writing the stories, but know instead of stuff like THE GHOST ENGINE, they have A NEW WHISTLE FOR TOBY. Boring! My reasons. Go look it up on youtube, new Thomas the tank engine episodes. Even now i am teased over it, 7 year ago since I stopped watching it, but then again, I’ve always been made fun of over anything I’ve ever liked, wether it is Star Wars, Tractors, Forming, of Model Railroading, my interest bites me in the but when at that creul awful school.
Wow, that’s really a shame. Is it still the same people? The originals were done fromt he original Awdry stories, and the trains were all actual models that ran (with radio control eyes and interchangable ‘faces’ for different expressions). Turning it into a cartoon, and making stuff up with whatever gang of writers they can find for cheap, so wrong. Mostly I just watched the train segments, the in between stuff was just too borign for words, although Ringo and George Carlin in their stints as Mr Conductor were entertaining. Both of my boys were heavily into it, sadly neither is much interested in my model railroad these days, although the younger one did have some fun solving a switchign puzzle I set up for him. Too in to video games - when I pulled out a second throttle he was like “hey, a 2 player game” - then I showed him my third throttle and the fact that each could control 2 trains - a 6 player game. [(-D]
!(http://www.railwaypages.com/imgs/upload/Nos 1 and 2 at North Portage Q Nels MacF.jpg)!(http://www.muskokaheritageplace.org/en/inc/resources/Jack Engineer2.jpg)
