I’m looking at taking a USRA Mikado (HO scale) and adding some C&O details to it to make it an K-8 class, and I’m wondering what a certain thing on the front of the locomotive is. This isn’t a picture of a K-8, but this detail is on almost all of the C&O Mikes I’ve seen pictures of.
I have it circled with arrows in this picture:
Here is the original link if anyone can make it out better without the circles:
Flags!, Instead of real flags they used metal ones that can be seen easier as they don’t droop down without wind to push them out. They are white to designate they are an extra train. Uses flags during the day rather than the marker lamps. The flags are stamped metal with holes in them to let the wind through.
Rick
They are what are called “Extra Flags”. Under the older rules trains were provided with operating authority in one of two ways. The Employee’s Timetable might show a variety of scheduled passenger and freight trains of various classes. If the train was running to a listed schedule it would not need to display flags. But often a train would be created by train order as an “Extra Train”. It would display white flags to indicate that it was not a scheduled train. Some roads, obviously including C&O, used perforated metal instead of cloth for the “flags”. I don’t know if they were painted; I have seen some that were bare metal.
A couple of further comments. If a scheduled train was being run in sections, the first section() would carry green flags to denote that there was more to come. Only the last section would have no flag. So if a freight was in the siding waiting for No.16 to pass, when they saw green flags they would know to wait. The train carrying green flags would draw attention to the fact by a whistle signal, and the waiting train was required to acknowledge with another whistle signal. In CTC territory often all freights were run as “extras” since the signals themselves gave the operating authority. The need to display flags might be eliminated, as long as the entire subdivision was CTC.
After dark, as well as flags, class lights would be displayed if necessary, rotated to show the appropriate color (dark if no flags). You can see the class lights just to the outside of the flag brackets.
John
Well, I didn’t know that they were something so simple[:)]. I thought they looked like flags, but I didn’t even think that’s what they actually were since they are made of metal with holes in them. Funny almost all of the C&O Mikes I’ve seen pictures of have them… perhaps most of those engines by this time (50’s) were just pulling less important trains.
Thanks for the quick response guys.
Being an “extra” doesn’t mean the train isn’t important, just means it isn’t on the regular schedule like a passenger train or a scheduled express freight might be. Most trains are/were extras.
Flags can also indicate other things, like that a passenger train is running in more than one section. Some trains like the Twentieth Century Limited or Empire Builder would have sometimes seven or eight “sections”, each one a separate train running on the train’s schedule (but spaced a few minutes apart of course).
Be kinda fun to time-travel back with the video camera to WW2 and set up someplace and shoot six or seven steam powered Empire Builders rolling by - all in less than an hour !!
There are two types of schedules, the timetable schedule that authorizes movement and the service schedule that the railroad uses to operate trains but carries no authority to occupy the main track. Just because a train doesn’t have a regular schedule, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a service schedule. Virtually ALL freight trains now operate with just a service schedule. Many railroads in the 1950’s operated with just service schedules. That doesn’t mean the trains weren’t hot or didn’t have priority, it just means they may need orders to operate on the main track.
By the way, has anyone seen any of these steel flags offered as a detail part anywhere? It doesn’t seem that Bowser/Cary has anything like it.
A piece of styrene and a #80 or so drill ought to do the trick
I wrote about how I model classification flags (you can also do green ones for running scheduled trains in sections) with shim brass and wire in my column, “The Operators,” in the July 2007 MR. I don’t model the metal flags, but my friend Jack Ozanich does, and he drills no. 80 holes in his shim brass flags. You can see photos of engines carrying his flags in the 2005 edition of Great Model Railroads, pages 48-57.
Merry Christmas,
Andy
One other detail to point out on the Mikado, especially if you have mostly engineer’s-side views to work from, is that the vertical shield on the right side of the pilot beam protects a compressor. This was common on the Mikados the C&O got from the Pere Marquette as part of the merger in 1947.
A picture of the fireman’s side of similar PM Mikado #1050 can be found at http://www.pmhistsoc.org/cgi-bin/gallery.pl?f=locos-1050-110737
I have noticed that, but I really can’t make out what it is. I haven’t been able to find any Cary or Cal-Scale “Compressors”, nor similar looking shields.
Hello,
You can get Cal-Scale Westinghouse cross-compound compressors from Bowser, maker of the Cal-Scale parts line, at www.bowser-trains.com. I don’t know of a casting to match the single pump shield, but with its angular shape it shouldn’t be hard to make from brass or even styrene sheet. Detailing steam locomotive models often takes some ingenuity.
Merry Christmas,
Andy
Thank you for your information, as well as everyone else. I am not an expert of Steam Locomotive parts… I had no idea what it was. I have done some research, and I can identify a few things, such as knowing the difference between the different valve gears types for example. Now that I know what type of compressor it is, I guess I will figure out how to make the shield myself sometime.