Is anyone old enough to name the engine in the drawing?
(Hint: the designer and head of the company had been partners with his brother-in-law, John Tyler, in Mantua Metal Products, designed all their pre-war locomotive kits. He went off on his own after WWII, producing a line of kits under his own name. This was the second locomotive he designed in a larger scale, the first being an 0-4-0 switcher with slope-back tender, after a popular prototype.)
Frederick. His tender is named Julius and the caboose assigned to this train was Elinor. His engineer is Bobby and the fireman, Kurt, was fired himself shortly after the drawing was done.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! “Give that man a SEE-gar!” I bought the 1950 through 1961 Model Railroader bound volumes–one of the smartest things I’ve ever done–and was captivated by this engine, which apparently was one of John Page’s favorite iron horses. I tried to order one from my favorite hobby shop in the early '60s, but all we ever got was flyers, no Consol. I managed to buy no less than three of them in the '90s(one is all-original, so I’m going to put it on permanent display, with a Thomas bobber and a Thomas single-dome tank car), with enough mechanism parts to build two more.
(I liked the looks of that chunky little freight hog so much that I built an HO model of it over an MDC/Roundhouse “Old-timer” Consol mechanism!)
Was “Thomas” the name of the builder, i.e. “Rogers”, or the name for this type of loco, i.e. “Mogul”, or the name of this particular loco, i.e. “The General”?
Thanks for your help, ST. The “Isle of Sodor” has confused the Thomas situation a bit! By the way, one of the three complete locos I bought had been coverted into a Great Northern F8, complete with Belpaire firebox, so it looks an awful lot like John Page’s, the one he covered in “An Adventure in Freelancing,” in the November, '51 MR! I’ve always found that article to be quite inspiring for its atmosphere, particularly the first few paragraphs; sums up my mood in November’s gloomier days.
The original drawing had a large “PCP” on the tender, in a sort of circus font and a big #5 under the cab windows, but I wanted it for the letterhead of my “prototype-freelanced” Mineral Point & Northern, where the “Heavies” are numbered 15 through 18, so I just stuck bits of gummed label over the letters and numbers. I couldn’t letter it for my MP&N Dream RR, due to the slight angle, and even if I could, I don’t think the road would’ve wanted the number on it anyway. Besides, all four of mine will lack the rear sand dome, replaced by an auxilliary dome for pops and whistle, so I thought, Leave it stock Thomas.
(By the way, was that Daffy Duck being mauled by that oafish character?)
Daffy and Marvin both. They toook turns with the abomible snowman. Daffy and bugs were up north, Marvin had taken him for an experiment and he wanted a rabbit friend. Though I think the personality was around somewhere else.