Odd-balls you like...

"Odd-balls you Like..."

Let's see.....Allan comes to mind and Dave Allen.

Hey-  I resemble that remark!

Always like the C&O Yellowbelly. Maybe it is because I've seen the surviving one countless times...

The BL-2. Don't have one (yet - there's always been something else to buy first), but I've wanted one since seeing an ad for the C&O railroad from the 50's. It featured a Christmas morning scene of a toy train on 3-rail track: a C&O Blue BL-2 pulling a streamlined passenger train. Thought for sure back then that Lionel was going to make one. One of these days at York I'll buy one before something else catches my eye (and money).

 

 

The question is: Is this the locomotive or the box it came in?

 

Rusty

The two I immediately thought of were already mentioned:

 

The C&O Yellowbelly Hudson

 

The EMD BL-2.

 

I have not acquired either, but the BL-2 in either the Demonstrator or C&O livary would fit the bill just nicely for my next motive power acquisition.

Here on the Bellevue and Schenectady RR are oddfellow is an early generation Hybrid Locomotive, a JP-1, designed by Professor Policastro of the Policastro Locomotive Works in Mott Haven, NY. originally built for the Central New York RR. The CNYRR Envriomental Improvement Program was discontinued do to lack of funds or interest I forget which and the JP-1 was purchased by the BSRR as part of its environmental safety plan as an experimental engine along with GE's Hybrid engines. It runs on Diesel or electric(Cantenary or inside third rail pending operating district). It has been delegated to move the locals around the RR. It is a good puller, runs thru TMCC control.

 

 

 

I like all the oddballs shown.  Does that say something about me?  And the pictures on the layouts are not odd at all.  I'd say outstanding!

Don't forget the DD-1 by MTH,

an Electric with side rods.

Each unit is a 4-4-0

dual motors, PS-2 nice unit...

 

 

 

 

You beat me to it. I have one and love it. I just got the parts to convert it to Kadees.

 

As to other favorite odd balls.

• GP30
• EMC Gas-Electric Motor Coaches AKA "Doodlebugs."
• RDC 1's
• United Aircraft TurboTrain.

ETS tinplate in general, and the Garratt in particular.

 

The shays are fun, so are my Lionel BB1 electrics.

 

Please rusty, who makes that C&NW machine?  Thanks

 

I would guess MTH

Jake, you are the winner. Your right as rain. Don

That Alco/GE/IR switcher was offered by MTH with PS-2 and one truck powered.  With the smaller PS-3 electronics now in production it is a prime candidate for having a mechanical upgrade to all powered axles, a more powerful speaker and operating scale couplers.

 

I have no idea what will be in the next catalog.  But I'll be hoping for a -2 Alco/GE/IR switcher.

 

Matt, Please enlighten me.  Why is a GP30 an oddball?

The MTH 0-4-0 dockside switcher.  I wish Lionel would make the same locomotive but without the knurled wheels.  Oddball only because not many made in O gauge but many made in HO and N gauge.

 

TEX

Steve

Two of my favorites: The Alco C415 switcher, and GE's P30CH made for Amtrak. Neither type of engine has been made in O scale yet, it would be cool if they were sometime!

My MTH  C&O steam Turbine Chessie loco.....BIG, loud colors Deco style......

Oddballs I like?

Hmm-Uncle Fester, the old gypsy woman in the wolfman movies, my wife..., and all the guys who like trains!  Cool thread

It's the only one with the extra cowling behind the cab extending to the dynamic brake blister. The GP60B also falls into that category.

It has to be offered since I just got the parts and figured out how to make the surgical modifications to put Kadees on mine. Murphy's law dictates this must be the case.

If you really want an oddball, SP's truly unique Alco DH643 experimental diesel-hydralics have to rank up near the top of the list.

http://espee.railfan.net/nonin...c643-bob_dengler.jpg

So odd and ugly, yet huge, powerful, utilitarian, and imposing.  I like it! 

Someone has mentioned "doodlebugs", AKA gas electrics.  There were a wide variety

of these critters, from model T school buses on flanged wheels to Unit-Stanley, Alco,

and Baldwin steam coaches (these last of which I would love to see modeled).  The

now delayed or abandoned MTH McKeen car was just one of these interesting

machines that once rode the rails.  HO has always had a number of these available,

in brass or kit form, so it has long annoyed me that O three rail, with its large population of people with money to spend have never had much of a choice.  I got into HO in my preteens, in the 1950's, so doodlebugs have not been an unknown and have always been of interest to me.  Besides the MTH version offered a few years ago, in O scale there can be found the Walthers C&NW kit, and the Amercian Standard

Car Co. Brill (I think) kit. These two kits can be powered with three rail trucks, and Walthers made a three rail power truck that can be found with the kit.  The ASC Brill, if it is a Brill, ran on a lot of railroads as did many other makes.  AB and AC Mack railbusses were offered in several brass versions in Ho...none for three railers.

While I have little interest in diesels, the one odd ball I might buy is the Rock Island

cab-windowed B unit that broke off the Colorado Springs section from Chicago while the A and other standard units took the Denver section on from Limon.  Another odd ball diesel was that CNJ? unit that looked like two A units butted up back to back with a cab on each end.  I, in those early teen years, kitbashed a Marx #21 pair, with tinsnips, into a crude model of that.  I think those double-cabbed diesels are common in Europe and Australia.

Other oddballs not found in "tinplate" are drover, combine, and side door cabooses.

There was a TREMENDOUS variety of these on assorted and obscure branch lines around the country, as well as on Class 1 railroads, such as the Missouri Pacific which had a great many different types.  The Santa Fe (one of theirs sits by the Rhyolite ghost town station in Death Valley National Park) and UP also used them widely.  Bobby Hall in Texas inported a few brass ones in O scale , T&P and Santa Fe, that can be three railed and I have scratch built several, models and freelance.  Bob Peare Train Craft had a side door caboose in an O scale kit that shows up on eBay.  Mine is on Lionel arch bar trucks.

And there,  are inspection engines, those weird combinations of a steam boiler

front end and cab joined to a passenger coach. The one I'd love to model is on a photo over your head in the station in Shelburn Historical Park in Vermont.  That one

looks like it might have run, like a gas electric, as a revenue earning critter.

I guess you could say oddballs are my favorite railroad rolling stock.

 

I encountered the Galloping Geese on an Elk hunting trip to Colorado. Upon return I just had to get the MTH PS2 version that had been sitting at my LHS. When we setup our modular club layout, I like to use it for track-checks. There is one member in particular that just can't stand this little guy taking it's time just putting around the layout.

 

Gilly

I would nominate the "wind splitter" interurbans that closely resemble the McKeen cars and the story of their design is interesting inasmuch as they were developed by taking a flatcar outfitting it with gauges and pushing it at high speed with various shapes to test wind resistance..a wind tunnel before there were wind tunnels. Of course none of them operated in real life at the speed need to take advantage of the design. The McKeen cars would be ( I would think) in this same category.

 

Surprised nobody's mentioned... Farmer Bill!

 

Pete

I wish MTH did't cancel the McKeen Railcar! That's a model I would like

Also I am anticipating the UA turbotrain

I would like to see:

Rohr Turboliner [sucessor to the turbotrain]

the C39-8

ACE 3000

EMD e3 Demostrator unit

EMD Model 60 Boxcab unit #465 

EMD Gas Electric

Brill Gas electric

Alco C636

We rode a McKeen car during the TCA Convention last year.

I'm not certain if this qualifies but this little scene in the California Railroad Museum caught our fancy.

ACE-3000 I hope one of the manufacturers catalogs it, someday.

Santa Fe Speeder- Is this cool or what!   

Lionel has a selection of command control speeders in its new 2012Signature catalog, but not in SF colors.

 

It makes me wonder if anyone has painted their van, truck, or automobile in their favorite fallen flag railroad colors?

 

 

I've always been fond of the Alaska RR switcher with the two large air tanks on its top deck and the Heinz pickle car. While I never thought that the prototypes of these existed I found out that they in fact did.The space age Lionel train cars are also very odd but popular with collectors.

 When I was younger I also loved the Marx crossing gate bell w cross bucks for its sound but geeze is that thing odd. My dad brought it home one day and he paid $2 for it. Quite a buy for a noisemaker.

Other notable oddities include the Aquarium car, Fort Knox bullion car but my nomination for the oddest item ever made was the K-Line Desert Storm car where a figure of president Bush chased Sadam Hussain around. 

There're two oddballs that I like. One I gave an honorable mention in my thread on five favorite diesels which is EMD GP-30. It really reminds me of a buffalo with its massive looking front half and small rear half. The second oddball that I like is any and all box cabs. Talk about form being based purely on function!

Where is the surving one?

Ha ha, I take that as a compliment. My wife fully agrees.

The New York State Railways "Oneida Third Rail" operated between Utica and Syracuse on the West Shore. NYSR was a subsidary of the New York Central.

These Bad Boys were BIG and Ugly, a perfect combo.