Chuck, are you referring to the “Leader”? I always thought that the concept was sound, but like many of Ollie’s projects, it was let down by the details. Scrub round the sleeve valves, chain drive, and Briggs-type boiler, and you’d have the makings of a good loco.
IIRC, it was only a six-cylinder engine, three per bogie, with a crew of two. I think the fireman’s lot was worse than the driver’s, just quietly.
(I must admit , I’ve always been partial to the beast. If the Central London Railway 1903 MU stock had grown up to be steam engines, they’d have looked like the “Leader”!)
Absolutely. But don’t take my word for it either, do a bit of your own research. You’ll soon see that many of the designs featured at LOCOLOCO were quite successful.
It wasn’t our resident “historian” CNJ831, was it? [}:)]
It depends, I think. There were some locos built in very small numbers because that’s all that was required, but they were no less successful than those built by the thousands.
A steam loco is by it’s nature mechanically complex, and the trade-off between efficiency and maintenance has always been a big factor in their design. Look at certain French engines as an example - fiendishly complex and buggers to maintain, but also very efficient. The French railways were prepared to wear that, because they had a maintenance regime optimised for such locos.
There you go, the “eye of the beholder” again. I like the “krokodils”, I reckon they look like they mean business. I also rate the metre-gauge Rhätische locos as well - nicely proportioned and incredibly durable. I have a Bemo model of one in HOm, just for display.
Cheers,
Mark.
EDIT: I didn’t see Andre’s responseuntil just now, but I’m glad that someone else appreciates these E-loks. Good on yer, Andre! [:)]
You’re not wrong, Andre. I don’t think there’s an Garratt in Africa I don’t find appealing. But GMAMs are definitely high on the list. Also NGG16s - and they’re just the right size for a backyard railway!
Mate, they certainly are that. And they ran as well they looked, and they were a beautiful engine to work on. I’d buy one of the Eureka AD60s myself, but the proprietor of Eureka Models is my old boss, and I’d hate to make his retirement more comfortable than it already is! [:D]
Mate, please don’t post things like that when I’m drinking coffee. It’s taken me ten minutes to clean up the mess I made when I laughed out loud - good one! [:D]
I thought as much. Your tastes are far too catholic not to appreciate an engine like that.
They’re a big, handsom ebrute of an engine, I like 'em too. There’s a Romanian copy that’s been put back into traffic recently, too.
Nice! Not an engine I’d seen before either, thanks for the links. You can tell from that photo it snows a lot in Norway, eh?
Yes, I’d have to agree, although the Camel has a certain Heath-Robinson charm about it.
EDIT: I didn’t see Andre’s responseuntil just now, but I’m glad that someone else appreciates these E-loks. Good on yer, Andre!
Thanks, Mark. I’ve got an SBB Ce6/8 in the brown livery from ROCO as well as the 1189 (orange livery) of the OeBB. The problem with the RhB Krokodil is that if I bought one, I’d want to model the RhB. It’s just too appealing. http://www.albulabahn.ch/index_e.html
Couple of nice videos to watch there
BTW, what do you do to get the umlauts over a, u, o?
Hmmm… he was talking about craftsmanship in the hobby dying out… gee, do ya think? [:O]
I thought they were just a motor, worm, and a couple of gears? Oh yeah, and occasionally a flywheel. [swg]
I agree that one’s exposure to the prototype plays the biggest role in the development of your personal aesthetic. The Crocs still look odd to me, but they’re interesting at the same time, and I’m sure I would love them if I’d had more exposure. I like almost anything with siderods anyway.
But nothing can make the face of a Niagara attractive. Yuck. [xx(]
Mate, please don’t post things like that when I’m drinking coffee. It’s taken me ten minutes to clean up the mess I made when I laughed out loud - good one!
I thought I might elicit a chuckle out of you and any Pennsy fan with a sense of humor about his chosen prototype. No, make that just you. The probability of finding such a Pennsy fan is probably on a par with finding a unicorn…a mauve unicorn…that’s fluent in 7 languages. [swg]
I thought as much. Your tastes are far too catholic not to appreciate an engine like that.
It wasn’t always thus. I happened upon a copy of “Spotters Guide To British Railway Locomotives” (at least I think it was the title) back around 1960 and bought it. I was in my teens at the time. My first reaction was that except for some of the Pacifics and the Standard 9F’s, the locos were ugly as a mud fence. And then they started grow on me. Everything else followed from that. I had the good fortune to meet Alan Pegler and see “Flying Scotsman” up close when she was on display in San Francisco around 1971. About a quarter century later, I got a chance to ride a Crewe-Holyhead excursion behind FS.
Trips behind steam in several countries (New Zealand, Canada, UK, Germany, Austria and Spain) just convinced me that well designed steam could look rather different from country to country and still be esthetically pleasing. Let’s face it. All steam locomotives are beautiful. It’s just that some are more beautiful than others.
EDIT: I sometimes wonder why North American railroads didn’t give Garratts a decent try. What with the boiler slung between two engines, you can get a big boiler with a lower center of gravity and an unobstructed firebox of large volume. I may be wrong, but I think a 4-8-4+4-8-4 could have been built for use in North America that would have produced in the neighborho
What I was referring to was the, “First,” in Andre’s long Franco-Crosti link. Wheel arrangement C-1+1-B-1-B-1+1-C, with the preheaters stuck on the ends of the double-firebox boiler…[:O]
Another entry, Kiso Forest Railway #11, 0-4-2T - combines all the ‘best’ features of a C12 (tapered-front side tanks,) an Illinois Central rebuild (square sand box and steam dome cover,) a HUGE wood bunker, boiler set WAY low and a REALLY UGLY industrial cyclone stack, all on 762MM gauge, with 660mm drivers. Did I mention link-and-pin couplers, on a locomotive built after WWII? Looks rather like a mechanical duck…[#dots]
An earlier Kiso aberration, confined to the stack - a turnip with an industrial cyclone top and two fly ash boxes piped to its lower end, riding the upper curves of the smokebox like saddlebags. Makes the front end look like a recently-fed gerbil…[%-)] Apparently the entire roster was fitted with these ‘things’ for a time.[:-^]
Of course, they beat the pants off dragging logs out of a totally roadless forest…[swg]
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - possibly with some of the above)
The Teletubbies have always kind of freaked me out, they’re kind of creepy ! It’s amazing what a paint scheme can do, the blue with the white trim on the DB-3 makes the engine look quite refined, while the camo obviously serves a purpose,… now the purple [xx(] !!!
I’m not the guy from CM, I’m lucky they let me post here, never lone be published !! LOL
Apart from the hefty price tag of the AD60, they’re definitely my favorite model ( pending the release of the 38s ) and have the best sound of any steam, due to the speakers being in the boiler. Maybe you need to buy through a third party to maintain anonymity !!!
From previous posts I know of your history with 3801, what will you do when old mate releases the 38s[?], they are going to be a must have item ( I need 3, 3801, 3813 & 3820, I was on the last triple header, [:(] day ). Just trying to work out which bank to rob to be able to afford em !!! LOL
The T1 ugly? HA! I se to thee. The T1 was designed of the most graceful and elegant lines of the time by Mr. Lowey. They are in the same beauty category as the NYC streamlined Hudson’s and SP’s Northern’s in Daylight colors, although that has to do more with the paint than design. I suppose next someone will claim the Hiawatha Atlantic locos were ‘ugly’.
I wonder what a full-bodied streamlined Challenger would look like…
Nah! That thing isn’t that much ugly, at least they tried and you can feel it… even if in the end, they failed!!! They’re quite “nice” in the big blue sky scheme… BTW, the other chinese freight steamer by Bachmann is quite an interesting engine…
I think there’s two kind of uglinest. The first is plain ugly, don’t try to undestand it, not
The PRR T-1 Duplex and Centipedes are two of my favorites, therefore they can’t be ugly!
In all seriousness though the lines of the T-1 are just beautiful, I don’t know how that can be considered ugly? The 'pedes do have a rather ugly ‘only a mother can love’ face to them, but that’s part of the appeal. You have a giant brute of mechanical hell clad in soft baby face lines, the contrast is stunning.
The sharks carried the styling over from the T-1, so by definition, they are beautiful too Uniqueness doesn’t mean ugly.
Uniqueness doesn’t mean ugly.
