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Man. A tinplate articulated.
Looking closely at it, I would wager that this is a homemade thing made by splicing two locomotives together. The domes in particular are repetitious, duplicating each other.
However, thinking about it more, I donât believe that itâs a true articulated because those two locomotives are certainly joined rigidly together and canât possibly make it around any kind of tinplate track curve at all.
It is a terribly imaginative creation, though. I like it.
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Iâd guess so. Itâs not actually tinplate, thoughâlikely plastic. The base locomotives appear to have both been Marx 490s. I donât know the origin of the front truck; the rear one appears to be Lionel MPC, though it may be early K-Line. The two motors are probably from both the 490s.
Always thought âtinplateâ referred to the track. I am corrected
Actually, this is an area of confusion and debate. Tinplate refers Extremely Generally to any model train which is not a perfectly exact model (three rail included, no matter how close to scale it is), Very Generally to semiscale model trains, Generally to model trains which are made out of stamped steel, and Specifically to model trains which are made out of stamped steel which has then been plated with tin. I do not much like the first two definitions, as they lose the origin of the wordâstamped steel plated with tin. Technically, you are not wrong in your usage, itâs just that my brain immediately rebels against that application of the terminology. 
And tubular track can be tinplateâin that it is stamped metal. Most, however, is zinc-plated.
The definition I thought was correct was the first one. Not being involved in toy train collecting I did not know about the fine variations. All good to know. Thanks.
No matter what the definition, I find this particular item to be extremely interesting and fascinating. One can always wonder what drew some individual to create it.
Youâre welcome! And I do find this to be an interesting contraption. To be honest, if I could jigger a hinge in the center sort of like some of those really oddball Santa Fe locomotives, I would not mind doing a similar project. Articulated steamers are noticeably lacking in the cheap O Gauge market.
You could do it with that one, making a âbellowsâ exactly the way Henderson proposed. The problem is that for the bellows to be strong enough not to pull apart in handling, it might be too stiff to allow good curving.
The trick might be to arrange a gimbaled drawbar between the two âenginesâ, with the bellows only as a gap filler.
The other alternative might be like the âscaleâ T1 I designed for Thomas/Skaneateles style wood track: use elastic foam with a printed âskinâ between the constructed segments. (I confess I got the idea from the execrable scenes in the Polar Express movie where the boiler bends around sharp curvesâŚ)
Bashing engines into other types of engines was very common in the 1920s-30s. Lionelâs O gauge 2-4-2 got turned into a large variety of engines by some enterprising builders, including a 2-10-0 IIRC.
BTW in the engine in the OPâs pictures, I wonder if what at first appears to be a faulty joint between the two boilers (note how it sags a bit) is actually some sort of flexible material, designed to allow the engine to snake around curves?
Yâknow, I think that a drawbar would be perfect. Then some nice, fine materialâmaybe 3D printedâand itâd be ready to roll! HmmâI oughta get myself some junked-out 2-4-2s.
Ummm⌠somebody REALLY wanted an articulated locomotive! Thatâs two Marx 450âs merged into one! Without really wide radius curves I donât think all of those flanged drive wheels will operate unless the boiler has some kind of diaphragm.
PS, I recall a photo appearing in CTT years ago where someone took a 400E boiler and installed two 6 drivered O gauge locomotive drive cassisâ under it and created a 2-6-6-2. MTH liked the idea so much that they tried to steal it and cataloged one. They were never made likely because either the modeler who came up with the idea blocked them or because nobody wanted to order a locomotive that gave no credit to the guy who came up with the idea.
I saw someone on Facebook created a 2-12-2 using 2 2026 boilers.
This reminds me of a potential âreverse engineeringâ scenario. In the postwar period, ATSF apparently gave serious consideration to adapting a N&W Y-class boiler to use on a 4-8-4 chassis (probably 3776 class when the alloy-steel cracking problem became so pervasive. You could easily go the other way for a 2-8-8-2 sized locomotive with the usual both-drive-units-pivoted approach under a suitably large or long boiler shellâŚ
Love to see a pic of the whole underside.
I wonder if somebody had a supply of 072 curves . . . .
Kitbashing tinplate to make something more prototypical has a long history - this from the September 1937 Model Railroader
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HuhâŚ
I know Gary Anderson has made some big Marx articulated steam locomotives, but mhudmanâs example doesnât look like Garyâs work.
Here is a Youtube video of some of Garyâs big engines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G9Q9RqnXOU
James
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Iâve made a couple of Marx windup articulated steam locomotives using the âflexible boilerâ method.
This older video shows a test run of my Marx 1203 Triplex - kitbashed from two Marx 401 windup locomotives and a plastic tender - pulling a 29 car train on an early version of my windup layout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U96L1YcuI4o
My homely Cab-Forward - kitbashed from two 833 shells - can be seen at 2:15 on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZKASWidrIw
I would like to see a video of mhudmanâs loco running!
JP
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