Milwaukee Road Hiawatha and passenger cars

This is a very good set. Well researched and nicely painted. Price is very reasonable.

1934 version with beaver tail obs.

great set. very prototypical.  price is very reasonable.  just note some of the striping on cars, etc.. some is peeling.  but that is noted in the text and in pics.  again for the price, i have thought about "pulling the trigger" on this  set, especially during the "sale".

Coming from the 3 rail camp, my concern now would be the process of adding sound and smoke to the engine and tender especially with the gears that have been added to the tender.  Never saw anything like this before.  Actually wish the engine was the F7, Hudson type, Hiawatha but may not be prototypical with the associated passenger cars???

 

Really don' want to run any train with out sound; especially steam.

 

All of my G scale  brass steam engines either had sound and smoke or it has been added.

 

 

Thank you for the responses; great looking set.

 

The Overland Models are excellent representations of the first Hi. The extra tap car doesn't do any good, but it would appear that the locomotive and tender have a Jerry White / Rod Miller drive, which is really, really cool.

bob3 --I agree with you that the drive looks like work by Jerry White/Rod Miller. Rod marks his gearboxes with RM and a serial number, so my guess is that this one was done by Jerry White. If so, then the odd-looking arrangement of Delrin chains and gears on the tender should work just fine.

B Smith, Thanks for the added detail, a Jerry White drive it is.

Thanx to everyone for their responses.  Do you think this chain drive set up would preclude the addition of DCC, sound and or smoke.

 

Excuse my ignorance but is this an ac or dc system?

 

Also why this type of set up (chain drive)? 

 

Coming from the 3 rail camp

Likely DC.  There is no mention of DCC in the description.

 

as far as the supplemental tender drive, the locomotive by itself likely isn't powerful enough to operate the set on a layout.  Drive systems in tenders and baggage cars can help get the train over the road.  I'm thinking my Atlas Zephyr set might need such a drive in the baggage car, though I hope three powered F units will be enough!

My most impressive puller is an Atlantic type - it has 84" cast iron drivers, and can pull ten heavy Kasiners no sweat.  I have seen Hudsons with plated drivers slip with four such cars.

Bob2

 

Do you credit that outstanding pulling with the driver material? or the fact that the weight is concentrated at only four points?  

I have a set of Atlas Rio Grande F-3s that were repowered by Lou Houlemard (new owner of CLW) using his milled brass chassis, new horizontal drive with Pittman motors, and steel wheels in new OCS trucks from P&D Hobby -- the

unplated steel drive wheels have excellent adhesion and two powered units in the A-B-B-A set can pull all the cars I own. 

Glad to see that CLW is back, do they have a website yet?  The Hiawatha set looked like plated drivers, so a lot of slippage was likely.  Just speculating of course.

CLW came and went.  I think his kits cost more to produce than he could sell them for - probably planning to make it up in volume.  Too bad - Lou and his wife were really nice folks.

 

John - I think it was the iron.  One side was Meehanite, the other machined iron pipe.  Both have a grabby surface.  Steel is ok, and it goes downhill from there.  Nickel and chrome plate have the worst adhesion.

Lou did the new drive for me on the Atlas units a little more than a year ago, and I think

he may still doing some custom work even though the CLW line of kits was not sustainable. 

Too bad that CLW didn't make it.  Seems like most people want RTR or nothing.  

I guess it reflects a basic change in the hobby. I've built a lot of Bob Smith's original CLW kits (ALCo passenger, E7s, and F7s) and I always enjoyed transforming the pile of parts into a finished locomotive.