Sunset Docksider

You should be able to go with a very tight radius. I suspect that this engine may be able to handle 24" 2 rails radius if not less.

Yves

I suspect you'd be able to get away with 24" radius as the locomotive is very short and a 40-foot car with body mounted couplers can pull off that radius. The bolster-to-bolster distance on a 40-foot car is around seven inches a I recall, which implies it can get through a bare minimum 21" radius with body-mounted couplers. The absolute best way would be to bend a section of flex to about 21" radius and see if a 40-foot car can run through it coupled to the locomotive.

Thanks for the info guys.  I'm a rubber-gauger and this is just one of several projects (in multiple scales) that I'm considering, but it's good to know that I could likely get away with somewhere in the 21-24" range.

The locomotive by itself will go around 6 inch radius

I am with Jim.  There is no locomotive in O Scale or O-27 tinplate that will go around sharper corners than this one.

I have some interest in that model - I had HO until I was about ten years old, and it is still here.  I have duplicated everything in O or 17/64 except for the Dockside, an EJ&E boxcar, and the Ulrich drop-bottoms.  Lemme see if I can post a photo:

Here you go - 17/64 scale

[URL=http://s667.photobucket.com/user/bobturner_trains/media/Steam%20Locomotives/Mantua001.jpg.html][IMG]http://i667.photobucket.com/al...otives/Mantua001.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Too bad - photobucket used to work.

17/64?  I've never heard of that before.

I had no idea that the engine by itself could handle a 6" radius curve - I might need to build an O scale pizza-style micro layout  ;-)   Maybe park a B&O boxcar in the middle . . . or support it on two or three boxcars . . .

Rivarossi made an "early" HO model that had much better valve gear than all the later versions that simplified it.  The early Bachmann versions were also better, and were likely produced by Rivarossi or some other European manufacturer of the era.  Here are some photos:  hopefully they will be in the order of Bachmann 1970, Bachmann 1978, Rivarossi very clean, and Rivarossi detailed and weathered.  None of them have the proto triangular notch just in front of the cab on the engineer's side - last photo.

bob2 posted:

Too bad - photobucket used to work.

Still does, Bob.  Here's your photo from Photobucket.

bob2 posted:

I am with Jim.  There is no locomotive in O Scale or O-27 tinplate that will go around sharper corners than this one.

Not sure if that's true.  The Gem Reading 0-4-0 camelback can take some very tight curves that on my layout are only accessible to it and to trolleys.

What a great layout concept! Hours of fun!

The Gem has a tender.  I seriously doubt it will do as well as the B&O, unless you do away with the drawbar and tie it on with a string.

bob2 posted:

The Gem has a tender.  I seriously doubt it will do as well as the B&O, unless you do away with the drawbar and tie it on with a string.

True, but the drawbar is not rigid and swivels on both ends.  And, if that little tender won't go around tight curves behind an 0-4-0, then a 36' boxcar won't either.

No video?  ;-)

Yeah - I was thinking something like that would need to be handlaid.

Regarding the B&O Switcher..to my knowledge, it was not operated in Fells Point but along Pratt Street at night, coming out of Mount Clare yard and switching industries along Pratt Street as far down as President Street.  The photo above shows it switching a boxcar of newsprint into the old News Post (News American) plant on Pratt Street.  In later years a diesel switcher out of Riverside yard near Locust Point came down Key Highway and Light Street to Service the large McCormick Spice Company and the News American.

I remember some of the sidings going into several buildings along Pratt Street and seeing boxcars as late as the 1970s sticking out of the buildings.  The curves going into those buildings were extremely sharp for a "steam railroad".

I do not know the year that they stopped running a train coming out of Mount Clare yard.  Perhaps once the customers West of Light Street went away it was easier to come from Riverside down Light Street following the tracks East on Pratt Street.  I watched this train one summer evening toting some cars and a B&O I-5 wooden caboose.  Very neat!

The B&O kept a rubber tired tractor in Fells point to switch some isolated industries in that area as did the PRR.

Joe Foehrkolb

Joe -

I spent maybe a half year in the winter and spring of 1966 at Fort Holabird, but having lived there you clearly know Baltimore a lot better than I ever did.  I only knew that there were several areas - I believe close to the harbor, with industries, street trackage, and extremely tight turns.  I seem to recall an article in Model Railroader long ago.  I'm checking with the B&O historical society to see if I can get copies of the two issues of Sentinel containing an article on Pratt Street operations.

Charles

Jim Scorse posted:

That is simply amazing. Talk about a tight radius. The track is beautifully laid, too.

The problem will be to hook cars behind that docksider.

Yves

All of this talk about the Gem camelback and attached box cars - the original comment:

The locomotive by itself will go around 6 inch radius

I am with Jim - this thing without tender or box car will go around a tighter radius than anything else in O Scale - that is,  unless there is another 0-4-0T available in O Scale.

Yves posted:

That is simply amazing. Talk about a tight radius. The track is beautifully laid, too.

The problem will be to hook cars behind that docksider.

 

Yves

That's why there are poling pockets on the pilot beam and rear corners.

I've never seen anyone use poling in model railroad operations - do you?