I have been looking for some time for 3 certian locomotives that want to run on my layout.They are all themepark trains from busch gardens in willamsburg.They dont have to be exact but i prefer them to be close replicas i will be painting them like the real ones.
Well the first one appears to be a fairly typical US “American” type with a diamond stack and a big snowplow. The Spectrum On30 4-4-0 might be pretty close for starters, especially since these three engines are apparently 30" gauge trains.
The captions on two of the photos indicate that the engines are 36 inch gauge and were made by Crown Metal Products. In case anyone is interested, I found a website about crown Metal, http://www.infinitevillage.com/html/crown/index.html.
They have a section on catalogs with the catalog pages scanned. The first catalog has information on how the locos are constructed and might make interesting reading.
i have never thought of using on30 i have honestly never messed with that scale.Do you know of anyone who makes the snow plows or is that something im going to have to make?
The other 2 if i could find something close would be nice i know its going to be hard to find but…
I have been on that site about crown that actually made some really intresting locos.
Anybody else have ideas on the last 2?
I have been on eurorailhobbies which has a big selection but nothing really close or anything i can afford lol
Balmoral Castle (ie the Queen’s home in Scotland). What you found there a Great Western Castle Class 4-6.0.
The 4-4-0 the park has looks like it might.be based on a Caledonian Railway 4-4-0 Dunalastair.
But if you just want to get a rough similarity in HO or OO scale, the 4-6-0 you found there is a good looking engine.
Another possible start would be a Hornby Southern Railway T9 class:
Smokestack, dome, cab, boiler and wheel arrangement seems to be a closer fit to your desired engine. Possible that you would want to add a little plating along the boiler over the second axle - hard to see from your Busch Gardens picture.
I’d check with the Bachmann website, seems to me some of their engines have an option for a snowplow but I can’t recall right now if it’s On30 or Fn3 (i.e. the BIG trains). Otherwise, check Walthers or advertisers in Narrow Gauge & ShortLine Gazette. O narrow gauge trains are fairly popular, I imagine someone makes snowplows for On30 or On3 engines similar to the one in your picture.
If the engines in the pics are 36" gauge, the Spectrum On30 equipment can pretty easily be adjusted to 36" gauge. (In 1:48 scale it’s only 1/8" difference.) 3’ gauge was much more common for narrow gauge in the US than 30" gauge, but On30 is popular because you can use HO scale track to run the O scale trains on. Nice if you’re just getting started, you can get Atlas, Kato or Bachmann HO “click track” and get running quickly.
Im not really to concerned about getting the exact just close because they will not be run on the layout all the time mainly for when we have kids or company over.
Hope to start my benchwork for my layout within in the next month got a few other projects i got to finsh up before i can start on another.
The “German” engine seems pretty similar in outline to Balmoral Castle, including the belpaire firebox. Looks like they were probably made by the same company, just decorated differently and with some different details.
