Hi I would need a 1950-60’s switcher for my railyard. The plan is to modell the PRR so any sugestions on engines used during that era would be highly apreciated.
Magnus
Hi
Why don’t you try this book from www.internethobbies.com:
http://www.internethobbies.com/peravo9alges.html
That should list some switchers for you.
HTH
magnus,
The only switch engines available that are model of engines built after 1960 would be the the Athearm SW1000, SW1500, & MP15AC. The Con Cor MP15 and Atlas MP15DC also were built after 1960.
The Athearn SW7 and S-12 would be appropriate. The Atlas or P2K S1 - S4 would be good, as would the P2K EMD SW1200 or SW8. Bowser/Stewart have some nice Baldwin switchers as well. Walthers have imported some nice SW1 and FM switchers about 10 years ago, as well as the Kato NW2. BLI has a NW2/SW7 with DCC/Sound if you need to have sound equipped engines. Most switch engines were built in the 40’s and 50’s. The prototype just uses a road engine many times now for swicthing.
Jim
The Pennsy had a large fleetof s-1’s and sw-1’s among others, also baldwins,so if you check some internet stores you should be able to find an s-1 fairly inexpensive(p2k or atlas) and stewart has the baldwins, as for sw-1’s , walthers made them a few years ago, you may find one on e-bay, personally I hope now that walthers owns lifelike they would bring out another sw-1…
Lillen,
I own several Proto 2000 Alco S1 switcher locomotives and those are very nice. Great detail, runs very well, and has good low-speed gearing which gives it a good crawl at low throttle, and does not go very fast at full throttle, just like the real thing. It is also easy to convert to DCC-- All you need to do is electrically isolate the motor from the frame, and plug in a standard 8-pin DCC Decoder.
The P2K S1 in the Pennsylvania paint scheme is very good-looking.
Here in the United States the P2K S1 is very cheap… I purchased mine for $30USD. It might be more expensive over there in Europe though.
Good luck!
The PRR was such a vast system that they had an example of just about everything., with the exceptions of the SW1000, SW1500, and MP15s. In the beginning, the Pennsy was partial to Balwins and Alcos. So the Athearn S12 and Stewart VOs are a good bet. As are Atlas and P2K S1s and S2s. Later they went to EMD, for NWs and SWs.
In the early 1950s, PRR still rostered large numbers of 0-6-0, 0-8-0, and possibly some 2-8-0 steam switchers, in addition to the B6 (I think) electric switchers.
Also, by 1960, some GP7 and 9s and RS3s could be found in yard service, as they were bumped by higher horsepower units.
Nick
That’s a mighty big question with several answers.[:)] As mention PRRhad just about every type of switcher made…However…PRR was not above using SD7/9s to H24-66s for yard engines and from RS-1 to RSD15s! Add GP7/9s as well.
Get the PRR locomotive use picture? [:)]
Now,the EMD NW2-SW1200 was the most use followed by the Alco switchers.
May I suggest a Stewart Baldwin switcher as your yard engine? These have great detail and very smooth runners.
You can’t go wrong with a P2K S1. This was one of my first DCC conversions, and it went flawlessly. I did swap the wimpy grain-of-wheat bulbs for LEDs, and I mounted the cab-end LED in the headlight socket, instead of running it through the silly plastic “light tube” which gave a very weak light.
If you are using Kadee magnetic uncoupling ramps, you will find that the S1 will “run aground” on them of they are mounted per the Kadee spec. I had to grind down the ties and mount the ramps flush with the railheads so that this engine would clear them. Uncoupling works just fine mounted this way.
I really like this little engine. It will really “crawl” along at a very low speed, and it’s totally reliable. Full 8-wheel pickup and nice detailing to boot.
I really like the Stewart Hobbies Baldwin switchers, they really preform well and have good details, that and the VO1000 is just a beautiful engine. The Baldwin switchers seemed to stay farther east on the line, most common around New Jersey and Pennsylvania proper. The nice part about modeling the Pennsy is that just about anything works, if it was made in the 50s or 60s Pennsy probably had at least a couple of them when it came to freight power. Cheers! ~METRO