What is this locomotive? Is there a prototype or is this just a bad kit-bash?
YES and NO!
Yes it is a bad kitbash and No I doubt if you can find a prototype.
If you look at both sides of the model, you will notice the lack of any engine to power the wheels. They probably powered the tender.
I looked at the prototype pictures and still cannot see any way to power the engine.
Yes, contrary to the previous post, there are prototypes for such a loco. In New Zealand, there were logging locos built by A.& G. Price, Davidson, and Johnston & Co. that had cab-mounted engines on the centerline of the loco, driving a central shaft. Their appearance was similar to this model. One of the British builders - Hunslet or Fowler, I can’t recall which - offered something similar in a steam or diesel version. Cheers, Mark.
I noticed the prototype has a steam dome, which the model is missing. The model only has a sand dome and a hump where the firebox is.
The drive system is still a mystery at least to me.
After reading about the mechanical design, it seems the actual engine is located in the cab. The drive system is still not visable but a steam boiler must have a steam dome to produce usable steam ( Dry Pipe) without water being sucked into the steam pipe.
Wierd locomotive.
This is true, but you must concider that these locomotives were very much a hand built custom order type design. It’s a little like the custom coach built cars of the teens and twenties. The main building plans weren’t much more then a strong suggestion when they built these things. A customer could change spec’s, and therefore the features, virtually at will. That means that there are probably very few “identical” Dunkirks out there. Also, don’t forget that the design evolved over time. We don’t know if these two might represent an early and a late model.
It’s obviously not a Shay, because there are no line shafts on the right side driving the wheels.
The Heisler had side rods to transmit power from the inner wheel set to the outer wheel set.
It looks like a crude attempt to model a mid-term Class A Climax. See http://climaxlocomotives.com/history/index.php for a brief history and some photos of the Climax. Very early Climaxes had vertical boilers (which this does not) with the engine mounted in the cab driving the wheel through a center mounted drive shaft underneath. Climax then produced an intermediate verison with T-boilers (which this model appears to have) and engines inside the “cab”. Later on, Climax used normal horizontal boilers with cylinders mounted high on each side (Class B and C). The cylinders drove a cross-wise shaft which was geared to center drive shaft.
This looks like an attempt to sort of look like an T-boiler Climax (actually the old Roundhouse Climax looks more like some of the pictures than this does). Typically, these models existing diesel trucks and drive system, with a sort of Climax-looking superstructure fitted over top. This particular model simulates a truss rod frame, which along with the T boiler sort of dates the loco to the 1890s. Obvious problems are the trucks look way too modern, and there is not enough room in the cab for the engine. Round water tanks were the norm, but square tanks could be special ordered, and became standard on later classes.
Dunkirks were a lot rarer, but were not all that different in appearance from contemporay Climax locos.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
I don’t know why y’all are saying “bad kitbash;” it looks pretty good to me.
The description says that it is an old HO kit. So, depending on how old it is, it may not have any visible drive gear for ease of kit construction. Every single little detail wasn’t so important back then as it seems to be today. This may have been the best economical way to give the impression of a geared logging locomotive.
Most of us didn’t say it was bad (in fact, only one did). You’re exactly right, it’ old, and unusual. I think that last part is what makes it look like it might not have a real heritage, but I think we’ve settled that. It could be one of several types of loco’s, all with plenty of history.
Whatever it is, it sold for $178!
[:O] You’re kidding!!! [:O]
Dunkirk
Cylinders were in a V-shape like a Heisler only they were inside the cab behind the backhead with the seats on top, made for a warm and noisy ride to say the least. Drive shafts were centered just like a Heisler.
Neat loco, not many were ever built.
Looks surprisingly like a Shaymaxfeisler to me!!!
I know that most of my answers and/or questions here on the forum reflect a high measure of stupidity - I have been informed that I am stupid, mainly about model railroading, so many times recently that for awhile I thought that I was back in the Air Force where my supervisors, for twenty years, went out of their way to inform me just how stupid I actually was. So here comes one of them stupid questions. What makes that protuberance on the top of the boiler a sand dome instead of a steam dome??? Somewhere or another in the last forty-five years I seem to have missed something. I have always been under the impression that steam locomotives required a steam dome to function but that they didn’t necessarily have to have a sand dome.
R. T. POTEET,
Don’t worry, you’re not stupid.
This “model” has a sand dome and not a steam dome.
It shound be the other way around.
Northeast Narrow Gauge in Wiscasset, Maine makes a G-scale 1:20.3 model in kit form of this locomotive – it’s a Class B Dunkirk, which had a drive shaft running down the center of the frame, similar to a Heisler.
http://www.nemodel.com/shop/agora.cgi?cart_id=8561518.26001*yG8I52&p_id=2127&xm=on&ppinc=search2
That depends entirely on the design of the boiler - there were many locos built throughout the world that didn’t have steam domes - the US included.
If you look closely at the original photograph, I think it does have a steam dome, but it’s a square, box shaped dome right in front of the cab. There appears to be a whistle mounted on top of it. The dome in the center of the boiler is a sand dome.
The Northeast Narrow Gauge model has a large dome that serves as both steam and sand, but they may be taking a few design liberties with their model.
Look again. The “square, box shaped dome” you refer to is the firebox, there is no steam dome. The model has a representation of a tee-boiler. The steam space above the firebox crown in a tee-boiler serves the same purpose as a dome in a conventional loco boiler.