When I re-entered this hobby I started accumulating steam engines and rolling stock for my yet to be built railroad. I acquired a number of steam engines as well as a few first generation diesel engines.
I now have the benchwork finished, my layout is more or less designed and I have actually laid track and the basic layout up is now up and running. Scenery, etc. still to come.
I now realize that my existing layout will not lend itself to my larger steam engines ( I mean anything larger than a Mikado) The larger engines have now been packed away for now and should see daylight again when I build my second level which will cater to large steam primarily.
Other than steam switchers there certainly is not a lot of small steam available today. I remember when I first got into the hobby I had quite a collection of MDC steam engines, 4-4-2’s, 2-6-0’s, 2-6-2’s and 2-8-0’s were readily available.
I wonder if any of the manufactures, with the exception of Bachmann with their Spectrum steamers are contemplating releasing the small steam engines? If you give a thought to how many small steam engines have been released in the last few years there have been few in comparison to large steamers, also considering the quality of these engines.
I suspect that there are several manufacturers who have small steam in kit form who would be happy to give you a ‘fix’ - assuming that you are not kit-assembly-averse. Bowser comes to mind.
All of my steam is small - a 2-8-2 is big power. But then, Japanese steam was small. The most powerful loco in the land was a 2-10-4T, built with a boiler common to a class of 2-8-2’s but with smaller drivers.
I find that running smaller locos has advantages. Even with rather short trains, pushers or doubleheaders are necessary, not merely cosmetic. And nobody will ever look at something with more wheels than the following train has cars and ask, “Is that all that big locomotive can pull?”
Well, look at recent history. A manufacturer announces a monster steam locomotive, even if it was only prototypical for 1-3 roads, and people go gaga. Let’s see recent examples: Big-boy (Trix, Athearn, PCI, Lionel), UP challenger, Erie Triplex, SP cab forward, 2-10-2.
On the other hand Bachmann announces the 4-4-0 and one hears virtually nothing about it. If I’m the manufacturers, I go with the ones that make people gaga and talk alot.
I’m an O Scaler with space restrictions and hope that some outfit would come out with small steam power similar to Bachman’s Ten Wheeler. Atlas’ 0-6-0 is a good start but some small road power like a Ten Wheeler is useful in freight and passenger. There is Weaver’s Consolidation which is a good runner.
Roundhouse sells a 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 2-8-0 all RTR, Bachmann sells a 4-4-0, 4-6-0 and a 2-8-0. Model Power sells an 0-6-0, 0-6-0 camelback, 4-6-0, 2-8-0. IHC sells a 2-6-0 camelback, 4-4-0, 2-6-0. You can still find Mantua engines on E-Bay.
Boswer sells kits for 0-6-0, 4-4-2, 4-6-0 and 2-8-0.
my theory is that the manufacturers of large steam locos choose them because it’s easy to install an impressive sound system in their large tenders . not so easy to install in a 2-6-0 or other small loco .
IHC used to make nice running 4-4-0s and 2-6-0s (same basic chassis) but I don’t see them on their web site any longer. Perhaps you can find some used?
I’ve got one of the BLI Hudsons, which is a 4-6-4. With the tender attached in the “wide” configuration, it will take 18-inch curves. That’s about as big a steam engine as I’ll ever have on my 5x12 foot HO layout, but it’s appropriate to the size of my pike. My Proto 0-6-0, on the other hand, is a fine small steamer. If you see (and hear) one of these, it’s hard not to become a big fan of small steam.
OK, I am definately NOT a Pennsy expert. Can anyone explain the their resoning for using lots of smaller steam versus large mallets or atrucultedes. The had a few, but not many.
Virtually every one of these smaller locomotives is “old” (many very old!) in the sense of the hobby’s history, not of any recent issue dates. The fact is that a large and perhaps increasing percentage of hobbyists today are simply collectors and not truly model railroaders at all, in the sense of buying equipment to operate on an existing layout of a size that justifies large motive power. This is quite apparent from the dialogue one sees in so many posts here that concern the issuing of a new, large, steamer and the numbers they are being purchased in. The manufacturers obviously appreciate that they can sell 10-20 Big Boys for every “small” road locomotive and thus the lack of any new smaller engines in our limited market. Don’t look for the situation to alter much in the near future.
I agree with this. To your list, I would add Mikes and Pacifics.
There were tons of 2-8-2s and 4-6-2s, and nearly every sizable railroad had them. If you look at photos from the late prewar steam era, before the diseasels started appearing in large numbers, you probably see a dozen Mikes to every 4-8-4, and even that’s probably less than the ratio should be, because the big, modern power was photogenic. One of our retirees at work used to talk all the time about how his dad, who worked for the Erie, would “run those heavy Ma-kah-dos”.
There is small steam, some old and some new, although it doesn’t make the big news. At the same time, the models seem to remain available for a long time, instead of being super-limited runs.
If you liked the MDC kits, take a look at the Bowser line. I’ve done both, and the Bowsers aren’t any more difficult, though they do take a little more time, and are also more fun. They have more parts. They have excellent and powerful motors, run very well if you’re reasonably careful (like your MDC locos) and are very inexpensive for what you get. The superdetailed kits have great detail. Someone posted a B6 thread here recently, and it was a fantastic loco. That and the A5 were introduced pretty recently.
ig: The PRR didn’t actually use small steam. Their steam was usually pretty big. The I1 was a monster. The E6 was bigger than a lot of Pacifics. They did use relatively simple steam. The reasoning, I think, was that overall economy should be considered. Coal savings at the cost of increased maintenance did nobody any good.
The PRR also didn’t really buy into the “superpower” theory, at least not early on, but had a more traditional emphasis on tractive effort.
While I agree most of these are “old school” (Roundhouse MDC doesnt even exist anymore) many may be upgradeable with new motors and gearboxes, contact NWSL for remotoring kits, I suspect many of these could be made to run very well.
I also love small steam, as my signature pic shows, its one of the reasons I chose large scale, I could get terrific running 0-4-0 Porters that would run like absolute carp in HO, yet we in large scale are also surprisingly limited when it comes to “small steam” many of us would love to see ANY small steam engine like 0-6-0’s 2-6-0’s or 2-8-0’s in standard gauge get released but HO isnt the only scale to be suffering from the "Bigger is Better&qu
Roundhouse 4-4-0 - first produced about 5 years ago.
Roundhouse 2-6-0 - old model but has has been updated with better drivers, better motor, DCC ready or equipped within the last 5 years.
Roundhouse 2-8-0 - old model but has has been updated with better drivers, better motor., DCC ready or equipped within the last 10 years.
Bachmann 4-4-0 - first produced less than 5 years ago.
Bachmann 4-6-0 - first produced less than 10 years ago.
Bachmann 2-8-0 - first produced less than 10 years ago.
Model Power 0-6-0 camelback - based on Mantua model but with completely new drive, DCC connections, tender trucks, etc within the last 5 years.
So yes, some of them are older (Bowser kits) but the vast majority have been on the market less than 10 years or have been radically updated within the last 10 years. Trust me a modern Roundhouse engine is not the same engine produced in 1980. I have both and the modern ones operate waaaaaaay better.
The really sad thing is that the vast majority of modelers would do much better with smaller steam than larger steam. A 4-6-0 will look better on a 18" radius curve pulling 10 cars than a 4-8-8-4 will on an 18" radius curve pulling 10 cars. Smaller engines (2-8-0 and smaller) were the predominate engines except for the last 10-20 years of steam’s life (1935-1955). On most roads they had way more “small” engines that “superpower”
I think your response here may have hit the nail smack-dab on the head: BIG STEAM IS IMPRESSIVE AND IT SELLS WELL!
I haven’t seen one in the last little while but the introduction of a Big Boy almost immediately prompts a fusillade of “Will my Big Boy operate on 18” radius curves" or similiar inquiries. I have always said that the (model) manufacturer may well have engineered it to negotiate those sharp curves but they are going to look like h. e. double hockey sticks doing it; a modeler who can afford no more than 18" radius curves should think smaller than a Big Boy.
Nevertheless, Big Boys sell well and I’m sure that that is a significant factor in a manufacturers decision t
It costs about the same to produce a small steam engine as it does to produce a large steam engine but the consumer does not want to pay almost the same for a 4-6-0 as a 2-10-0. So manufacturers build what they can make the most money on. This was the same in the brass market in the 60’s and 70’s where the amount of work to make a tank car was the same as an engine and the only difference was the motor in the engine, but the consumer did not want to pay the same price for a tank car as an engine.
The PRR did not use articulateds because they were the equivelanet of two steam engines without the flexability of two engines. When one of the drives had a problem both were laid up while it was fixed. The opposite side of that coin is it took two crews to operate the PRR way. Couple that with the only substantial grade on the PRR was the east slope of the alleghenies for fifteen miles or so around horseshoe curve. From there it was all down hill to Pittsburgh so an articulated would have been overkill. The CC1 0-8-8-0’s and the five y3s they bought from N&W were the only articulateds they ever owned. They just didn’t fit the topography or the type of service the RPR had.
I’d be very interested in a better selection of ‘smaller’ steam locos, even though my MR is geared toward large-wheelbased locos for the most part.
What I’d really like to see is Horizon re-introduce the old MDC “Harriman” style steamers with perhaps newer, more detailed tooling and (of course) up-graded drive trains. They were very handsome for their day, and quite popular among the ‘screwdriver’ assembly crowd (which includes me). And they came in a good variety of smaller wheel arrangements: 0-6-0, 4-6-0, 2-6-2, 4-4-2 and 2-8-0. They were nice in their day–I still have an SP-style 4-6-0 that I run fairly frequently. And with improved tooling, I think they would become fairly popular today.
I agree with the other posters who say that even if a Big Boy can handle an 18" radius curve, it looks pretty silly doing so.
I run small SP steam from the early 1900’s on my home layout. I also enjoy large SP steam and reefer blocks. I have an SP AC-12 and I have an SP AC-5 on order. I run this along with other members AC’s on our local modular club which can handle trains well above 100 cars in length. So, I am lucky enough to do both.