My Father's H.O. Scale Trains.

[MrNewportCustom]

Family was over today, and we went through our father's H.O. scale trains and brass engines. After it was all over, I realized I hadn't chosen any unpainted brass engines, but I'm very happy with the three that I chose.

This one was my first choice, because "Crystal Mountain Line" or "CML" was my father's layout. I have no regrets for having passed several unpainted brass engines, because this was the only one out with his CML on it.

Baldwin 70 ton Logging Mikado 2-8-2 with piston valves - 44" drivers (N.W.S.L.)​

I just liked this one. Note the brass visible through the windows on both. My father had a serious dislike for the jerky take-offs of model trains, so he'd install these massive (by H.O. standards) flywheels. With them, he could creep his trains along at scale speed.

Maryland and Pennsylvania Modern 2-8-0 No. 43 (United)​

I like the unpainted rails and the way the boiler arches length-wise over the top. Otherwise, I can't think of any other reason I'd've chosen this one. Doesn't it, though, remind you of the animated engine at the beginning of the old 1970s SOUL TRAIN dance show on TV?

2-8-8-2 "USRA" Mallet 5090-D N&W (AHM)

Crystal Mountain Lines #34 from the front. I think it's safe to assume that's my father's finger print on the stack.​

This matchbook was in with the Baldwin, as was a brochure for the actual skunk trains.

I have pictures of more of his trains. I'll shrink the images down to a reasonable size and add them shortly.


Lee
____________________________

All aboard!

 

[$ally]

Aw, what fond memories for you. My Dad had a whole HO city in the basement. I have video footage of it.

 

[CharlieH.]

Wowee, great stuff sir! Can't wait to see the rest.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

More Trains

This time I'm showing the brass, too, along with others. I can't identify all of them,and this is by no means all of them. Enjoy.

Lee

 

[MrNewportCustom]

A Few More

This one was my first choice, but my older brother got it. I'm glad he did, though, because I got the Crystal Mountain Line Baldwin pictured in the first post.

You'll see another of these later (#1). I like the pushrods, universal joints and drive shafts. The red you see is deteriorating foam padding.

This one is just beautiful to look at.

These two are a set and reside in the same box.

I know absolutely nothing about this one. It's kinda "plain Jane", but still beautiful. Kind of the "girl next door" of trains.

A kit-bash, with father's hand-written notes. Note the extended nose. The train is so long that it wouldn't round the curves on his layout. So, my father disassembled it, removed the cow catcher and attached it to the trucks so that it turns independent of the engine, sliding out from under the body on curves. He made a modern diesel, too, that he titled, "The Challenger." The front and rear (of four) trucks on that one slide out from under the body to accomodate the curves. If this one is thirteen inches long, the Challenger is a good sixteen inches long.

Lee

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Another CML. Note the push rods, universal joints and drive shafts just below the cabin. There's another one in an above post. Somehow, I'd missed that this was a second CML labeled locomotive.

My father had four of these, all with different 2400 numbers, and pictures of three real ones, also with different numbers, and no numbers matching those on the models.

The 2-8-8-2 Mallet that I chose is at the bottom. That's an identical one at the top - even the same number, 2197. I didn't notice the identical numbers until I started editing these photos.

A box of odds and ends, probably an incomplete model. We still have tons of parts in plastic and brass, many still in their packaging, stored in the garage.

There were a number of photos amongst the trains. Photos of, what else? . . . trains! By the way, that's me in the green-and-white shirt and blue jeans, standing on the yard engine (#2106). That's my yonger brother next to me. My hair has faded to more of a light brown, now, but my brother's hair still blends in with the engine's red. He surpassed me in height many, many moons ago. lol

Lee

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Funny ....one of my -very- few vacations as a child was to Ft. Brag and we rode the Skunk train...hehe....I still remember it.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Speaking of Skunks.

The Skunks brochure

Skunks in their preferred habitat.

Lee

 

[CharlieH.]

Well, that's certainly a swell collection! Any plans for it?

 

[Dominic]

I can help you ID some of them on your second picture post;

1. The brass loco is a 2-8-0 Consolidation

2. The second brass loco is harder as I can't see if there's a leading truck. I assume there is so it would make the loco a 2-6-0 Mogul (which preceded the Consolidation).

3. The black loco with the number 1955 looks like another 2-8-0 Consolidation and is identified A.T. & S. F. (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe).

4. Another 2-8-0 Consolidation with low-drivers.

5. Brass loco is a Climax. That loco, along the Shay and the Heisler, was a geared locomotive for high-grade hills.

6. The layout of the wheels, 2-6-2, and the absence of a tender makes me believe it might be a switcher (or short-distance passenger loco) with a saddle-tank.

7. The little black one (upside down) is a 0-4-0 switcher. Can't say for the diesel right under it, looks like a C-Liner but I could be mistaking.

8. Brass one is another 2-8-0 Consolidation.

9. Same locomotive as #7

Third picture post:

1. A 2-10-0 Decapod. Those locos were used for heavy hauling but the lack of a trailing truck made reverse operations risky. The 2-10-2 Santa Fe is the direct evolution of the 2-10-0.

2. It's a Shay geared locomotive. Used mainly for transport of lumber in camps in the mountains.

3. A 2-6-0 Mogul.

4. Another 2-8-0 Consolidation with the tender.

5. The "plain Jane" diesel locomotive looks like an early ALCO switcher. the fact that it's labeled "ALCO" makes me think it's a reproduction of a demonstrator unit.

6. The last one is the famous 4-8-8-4 Big Boy. It is seen here with a "caterpillar" tender. The real ones measured 132 feet long and weighed a colossal 1,208,750 lb (540 t) with the tender.

Fourth picture post:

1. Another logging locomotive, the Shay.

2. Alco C415. (Both the 2400 and 2405 units)

3. Yep, it's a 2-8-8-2 Mallet locomotive but were known as the Y6. The one in the pic is the Y6B model used almost exclusively by the Norfolk & Western. These locos were amazingly powerful as more than 90% of the engine's weight rested on the drivers. It boasted an amazing 175,000 lbs of tractive effort (the real loco, not the model one ).

There you go.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Wow, Dominic! You're a veritable encyclopedia of locomotive information! You'd've given my father a run for the money, had you two been in a train spotting contest.

Upon looking back, I see that I'd posted the one that gave you trouble (picture number two in the second post) a second time, but in a different picture: this time it's number three in the third post. By your identification, a 2-6-0- Mogul.

Also, from your description (and from what my brother has been reading in our father's notes, the Bg Boy is not a kit-bash. Is that correct?

Thank you very much,
Lee

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Well, that's certainly a swell collection! Any plans for it?

His seven children are dividing it amongst themselves. So, they're staying in the family. That's what we did today. We're all old enough to know their value and delicate nature, so we're choosing the ones we each want and keeping them in his memory. We have all agreed that, if one needs cash and it comes down to selling any of them, they offer them to family first.

So, the collection is being split up, but it's still in the family. And from there, they'll be passed along to later generations.


Lee

 

[CharlieH.]

Good to know they'll stay in good hands.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Very nice collection. Glad they're staying in the family.

I recognize this one: it's an HOn3 model of Denver & Rio Grande Western C-16 #268, which now resides at the museum in Gunnison, Colorado.

Some history on the prototype, if you're interested.

Brad

These two are a set and reside in the same box.

 

[Dominic]

The real Big Boys were articulated. This means that the first set of drivers could swivel left and right and the leading truck could also swivel. This allowed the big guy to negociate curves that a Duplex engine could not since they weren't articulated. So from what I could gather, your father did in fact, perform a kit bash.

Originally posted by MrNewportCustom
Wow, Dominic! You're a veritable encyclopedia of locomotive information! You'd've given my father a run for the money, had you two been in a train spotting contest.

Well, my secret is that I'm a volunteer guide at the Canadian Railway Museum and my specialty is the steam locomotive. I never worked in the railway business and everything I know is self-taught along much information gathered from old railmen.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Thank you, Brad. I hadn't realized the 268 prototype was from that far back. Thank you for the article. That's one of the things I like about the Fedora Lounge: There's always someone with new information regardig just about any topic.

My father was also self-taught, Dominic. Same with his other hobbies: microscopy, astronomy, photography (he even had a darkroom in a large, wood case mounted over the bath tub. You dropped the door down onto slats in the walls and used it as a table), electronics, and cooking (with some help from Uncle Sam). He never volunteered at a museum, though, but I'm sure he'd thought of it. Although, with seven kids to feed, when he wasn't at work he needed to spend as much time as possible at home.

I have a friend, Bob Gallegos, who worked at the railroad museum in Riverside, Ca. He now lives in Madison, Wis., and writes for a couple of the railroad magazines. It's been a while, so I don't know which ones, but he also does most of the photogrphy for his articles.


Lee

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Some nice models ya got there. Reminds me of my HO model building exploits. It's a bit of work, but also fun and rewarding.
So now you are obligated to build a layout for your trains.

 

[Diamondback]

Post 2, photo 7 (quoted above): SP 9103 is a Krauss-Maffei ML4000 diesel-hydraulic. Very rare, very temperamental engines. German built, 4000-horsepower. 18 imported for SP and 3 for D&RGW. IIRC, went over about as well as the German-made Maybach Mech-Hydro powerplants built for the NYC and New Haven's 3 Baldwin RP-210H "Train X" engines.

The ML was massive, but overpowered for its size, and had major wheelslip problems; CSRM in Sacramento has the sole survivor in storage.

Further reading on the KM's:
http://espee.railfan.net/spml4000.html

Was there anything from the New York Central there by any chance? I have a good collection of NYC references, and would be willing to try to answer any questions on 'em and put you in touch with further references.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

DB. If those are diesel, and my father has some, then they'd be in the garage and haven't been sorted through, yet. Today's lot was less than half of my father's collection, but almost all of his brass locomotives. There are probably about fifty plastic model kits, most of them diesel, and a few of them like the ML4000 above. And of those, I'd have to say that, from memory, very few, if any, had anything to do with any New York lines, that I know of. My father was mostly into SP and UP.

In fact, we have a couple of the glass signs that were set into the wall above the office doors of Union Station in Los Angeles when it was remodeled a few decades back. My father was given this one and one from Union Pacific. He asked if he could have some of the brass lettering, but was told they were reserved for the "Big Brass" of the respective railroads. He built the light box himself, lighting the sign from below, just as they had been in Union Station.

Lee

 

[Diamondback]

And did a nice job on the build, too, from the look of it. I'm starting to look at getting back into model railroading again myself... (I'm a plastic-only guy, and availability on accurate model passenger cars is finally headed where I need it to be--thinking about Walthers' '51 Super Chief and '55 Empire Builder collections and Broadway Limited's California Zephyr as a start, and to encourage them to keep it up.)