Favorite Odd-ball train

Compressed air engine for use in coal mines

 

You're welcome. Also I think this train would be the most likely to slip...

 

Here is an electric snowplow.

 

 

and here is a cool non-conventional Steam engine. 

Some more odd-balls.

 In the  "Oddball, but currently operating on a daily basis category":

 

          (35 degree incline on a curve = FUN!)

 

Original "Cogger": (looks like a dragster to me)

 

 

... and in the "Not a train, but certainly oddball" category:

 

 

... they say it's the fastest way down Mt. Washington!

          (subtitled "Brakes? we don't need no stinking brakes!")

 

Ed

A GG 1/2? Half a GG1 used as an ice melter and switcher

 

How about the severely harsh lines of the Southern Railway's Q1?

 

 

 

Lately, Ive been thinking real hard about my band saw while eyeballing my Williams dummy GG1. When I get up the nerve, Ill try to let you know.(Its really just a matter of timing, the seed is planted, so it will happen eventually).

Ill see your odd Q-1, and raise you one.

(Lots of strange "Q" locos. Did Q stand for queer or something)

 

Adriatic:  Has anyone modeled that Pennsy 4-6-6-4 commercially, since they have many

Pa. oddballs..T-1, etc.?  And K-Line did one of those commuter 4-6-4 tank engines similar to that Reading pictured.  (I researched where I could use one of the K-Line

versions, wondering if any went to logging or industrial applications after their lives

in the big city?)

The PRR Q-1 duplex above is a 4-6-4-4, with rear facing pistons on the rear drivers(4). I have no clue if either has been made as a model. I just noticed over time, Q locomotives on almost any road, seem to be weird.  

Maybe Q stands for "quirky"!  I wouldn't say "questionable" because they weren't all total flops.

The Southern Railway Q1 was a very successful locomotive class, and popular with crews too. Despite their rather bare looks, which were chiefly a result of wartime austerity measures, they were the most powerful 0-6-0 locomotives in Britain. They were also designed to be cleaned using carriage washers, thereby saving a lot of time and money.

I just hope this thread continues, for sooner or later, somebody is gonna put something

on here I will want a model of.....

 

Sounds like a good way to get a scale GG1 on smaller radius curved tracks...

I believe it was GG1 4866. When I saw the title of favorite odd ball this is the only one I could think of!! Someone beat me too it! I would love to see this as a model. Can't imagine it being that popular as it was kit-bashed from the start and rather crude even when it was created. But I'd love to see this in someone's yard or siding



You can see here a downward facing duct? Perhaps what they used to blow snow. Can't see it being that effective. Wonder what blew the air?





Looks like the bay window is only on the right side?

Sorry It was rebuilt as amtrak 4846

I bet is wasn't a duct, just a crude cattle guard/deflector to keep anything found on the tracks from getting under the carriage.  as the bay window, it's been stated it was for switching.  This allows the engineer to "stick" his head "out" to see.

Ive read GG1s had blowers to cool the electrical boards, and that its "exhaust" was re-routed for melting ice on the yard rails, not blowing snow. Those are the first photos Ive seen of the right side with the bay window, thanks. Any more info you find on this one would be appreciated!  

This PP&L fireless locomotive I saw when I visited the Pa RR Museum before York:

 

 

Oh, that's definitely a duct. Any kind of a pilot certainly wouldn't be flat across the front, and wouldn't need to extend into the body of the unit.

looky looky looky

 

 

That's a beauty Popi!

Most of what Ive read suggested mostly ice detail, but the last two articles I found referred to it as a yard switcher, one didn't even mention the de-icing. They did take time to add the new coupler, so I imagine it was at least a switching back up, or something that could lend a quick push without waiting for a full warm up.

 

Interesting....http://youtu.be/iajwyx02Hqw

Yep - 3rd Rail made it back in 2003.

http://www.3rdrail.com/images/q1b.pdf

At last!  A scale GG-1 you can have for 0-27 (as long as you make the center wheels

bland on the large truck!

 

Uh, blind, not bland....

Actually, it should be known as a "G1" since "G" referred to a 4-6-0 wheel arrangement. "GG" meant two such wheel arrangements connected together.

Since the PRR already had G1 - G5s (4-6-0 steam engines), this critter would probably get the next number and be a G6.  Although they were known to give one of a kind and odd ball engines numbers in the 20s or 30s (e.g., J28, K28, K29, etc.), so it could be a G28.

I'll buy that!

How about an Eg1, or E1g? Better decide quick, I made the band saw cut on the semi-scale dummy!(Madison told me to, it's his thread, so all his fault).  It was a tough choice, cut prototypically, and have one(still not 100%proto), or cut it exactly at the half, and fill a bit in plastic and/or brass to get two semi-scale representations. Harder, but Ive chosen to build two.

 Right now, the frame can swing too much. I think Im going to lock one of the trucks down, or at least limit turning travel. The front if I can, to eliminate the notorious forward overhang.

The cut is square&plumb, its looking "off" is an optical illusion...a bad photo shot.

Time to give this semi-hijacking up too. After today Ill continue showing this build by rekindling this  https://ogrforum.com/t...motive-today-?page=2

 

 

 

I thought this a bit odd. No rear coupler, that I see, "nice axels" under the tender, and the boiler looks like maybe its a sphere.  

 

Edit: link attempt

This is a cog locomotive, designed to push the cars up a steep grade.  This is what it looks like from the side.

Thanks Sinclair, I can see now the "sphere" was another optical illusion.

That Mt. Washington loco bring up a few questions...and they would apply to the steamers that used to run up Pike's Peak, which I rode in front of in the 1950's:

(1) Did the grade have to be kept the same, or within close tolerances to keep the

boiler fairly level, since it is at an angle to do so...wonder how much leeway you had?

(2) On this Mt. Washington loco pictured above, the stack is vertical, but the steam

whistle in front of the cab is not?

Of course, there is no coupler on the rear as the loco always pushed up and pulled

down cars, for safety reasons, to prevent a runaway.  Those thin tender wheels and

axles really do look toy-like.

I think there have been toy rack railroads made, and I bet somebody on here has one.

The grades on the Mt. Washington Cog Railroad are as steep as 36%. The pilot of a locomotive 100 feet long on that grade would be 36 feet higher than the bottom of the rear end. The front flue sheet in a normal horizontal boiler would be mostly dry.

 

To avoid that, the first Mt. Washington cog locomotives had vertical boilers - mounted at an angle to compensate for the steep grades. Later, larger horizontal boilers were also mounted at an angle. Some had smokeboxes in line with the boiler, as in the photograph above. Others had smokeboxes parallel to the frame. Stacks extended straight up from both smokeboxes to promote free flow of exhausts and draft for the firebox.