The Hooterville Cannonball

The Hooterville Water Tower built by Frank Knautz for his RR, lives now on the Bellevue and Schenectady RR. and the ladies swim on!!!!

FutureRail Productions posted:

Actually the Williams version would need a lot of modifying in order to make it look like Sierra #3. Plus the bell and the sand dome are in the wrong place, so you would need to cut them off and replace them. If you want to go cheaper, I would recommend getting the American Circus Train Ten-Wheeler by MTH. It has the right shape and design as the Cannonball and it has a mural on the lamp, so you don't need to make the mural from the show. It already has number 3 on it's number plate on the smokebox door and the steam dome like in the show. Really the only thing that would need to be done is adding the green and gold paint, painting the boiler black, and the decals for Hooterville Cannonball and C & FW Railroad. I picked one up, and it works and sound beautiful.

It still boils down to the Railking 4-6-0 is close to Sierra #3 in wheel arrangement only. 

Extending the smokebox and changing the cab to a steel one on the Railking model would help some, but the boiler is borderline close and changing the driver spacing would require major work.  Headlights and stacks are changed on the real #3 to suit it's movie/TV roles, so it's almost anything goes in that department.

Rusty

Yeah, but that's only if you want it to be true to scale. I just want an engine that looks close to it. For me it doesn't have to be scale. Heck, I have a couple Transformers(The robots, not electric transformers.) that are way bigger in vehicle form then the actual real life cars. It's all about what the modeler wants. But if you want a good starting model I recommend the Railking 4-6-0. 

dk122trains posted:

The Hooterville Water Tower built by Frank Knautz for his RR, lives now on the Bellevue and Schenectady RR. and the ladies swim on!!!!

Possibly some over exposure in this photo?  

Maybe it's just the angle of the sun...or would that be the moon? 

That could go over on the caboose thread.

The Williams by Bachmann Baldwin 4-6-0 just feels more like Rogers Sierra No. 3 than the RailKing 4-6-0. You be the judge  

MTH's habit of filling out the area below the boiler detracts from too many of its RailKing steamers.

But none of the existing O gauge models really match the Hooverville Cannonball. The driver spacing, smokestack and domes shape and position are just too distinct. I wonder why no one has pursued this idea over the years. Licensing issues, perhaps?

I'm sure Lionel would have considered it in the 1960s if it were a healthy company with confidence in the future of the toy train market at that time. But it wasn't. 

If you wanted to make Sierra #3, I would go with the Williams one just because it's closer to the real engine. You'd have to modify a bunch because the steam dome, sand dome, bell and dynamo are all in the wrong place and that means more money to spend. The hobby has gotten more expensive over the years. But if you're a fan of the Cannonball, and don't care about scale and you care about the locations for each item of a steam locomotive I mentioned and don't want to cut apart a perfectly good engine, then I'd go with the MTH version. I did, and I made the right choice. The circus version has most of the Cannonball likeness, and doesn't need much repainting, therefore making the repaint job cheaper. The sounds are amazing. I am a little nitpicky with the PFA as it's circus related and not Petticoat Junction related, but other then that I'm extremely happy with it. I suppose with slight modification you could give it a straight smokestack and make Sierra #3.

Also is just me or are the girls in the water tower wearing heels?