If you want to see some fine O Scale Civil War modeling, visit HERE.
Rusty
Lionel made the Medal of Honor General set for the 150 anniversary of the Andrews raid (Great Locomotive Chase) in 2013, still sets on the shelves. Last of the Conventional Control Generals, with 4 chuff per rotation rail sounds. The engine is liveried for the USMRR, as are the cars.
The locomotive has no number, I think this is unique among the Generals. The boiler nameplate is "Andrews" with "USMRR" on the cab where the numbers usually go. A very nice looking engine.
Some photos taken at the B & O Museum a few years ago that had a display of WWII stuff. Also is a model of Civil War ambulance transport railcar.
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The blog that Rustyy mentioned is amazing. That same guy wrote a book on model RRs at war but it does have a few errors here and there...
One thing I'd love to see someday in any scale is a really goodscale set of the two locomotives at Promontory Utah that met for the Golden spike to be driven (oddly, the transcontinental RR wasn't complete at that point, there was at least 2 gaps in the over line still at that point, I didn't learn that until recently).
There are, of course the two replica locomotives at the National Park. It's in the middle of nowhere now, I can't imagine how remote it must have seemed at the time... I was lucky enough to see these under steam in 2012 on our cross-country trip:
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
Leaping lizards, those are great but my wife would kill me outright if she even saw me looking at the listing!
Originally Posted by p51:
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
Leaping lizards, those are great but my wife would kill me outright if she even saw me looking at the listing!
Yes, and that does not exactly look like a set to run a lot, either, which is what I would like to do with a nice civil-war era train.
For scale Civil War era cannons, go to www.kramerproducts.com
They make a nice product. I have purchased a couple of them to place on an SMR flat that I have. Check out Kramer Products.
Norm
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
Yes, the PSC golden spike set - usually runs from $3-4k. Beautiful to look at, very delicate to handle, has a few things not quite right (should not be a surprise to anyone), and I've never heard of anyone every actually running them - display items under glass, or just kept in the closet in the very nice wood box in the dark until it's time to clear out the estate.
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
...and, in an attempt to help get this thread back on "track", as was noted SMR has turned out some great Civil War locomotives and rolling stock.
Yes. Several very nice engines, a good listing of freight cars, and some veryh nice passenger equipment. Not for the budget of many, but then SMR is also very limited production numbers to a niche market that fully appreciates these products. Takes a year or 3 for Dave to turn out a product so unless this event is already on his calendar, probably not happening from SMR.
And as noted on the SMR web site, they do not revisit or re-issue past products.
Thanks for the tip!
I looked at the site and found the cannons. It's really hard to tell from the pics, but they look too small to be 57"-wheeled guns. At the price, that's $84 for a battery ($56 if you can live with a 4-gun battery), but we're still wanting an equal number of caissons, double the number of limbers (+2 for the battery forge and the articifer's wagon, not to mention those pieces, too) along with a 100+ troops and nearly as many horses. 
Hence my comment about the rarity and the expense. . . .
What I did before I decided to give up 2-rail O/ACW was to scratchbash what I needed and only did a section of guns: 2 guns, 2 caissons, 4 limbers. Then I needed about three dozen horses for the stockcars, etc. Still a pretty big list.
It has been justly said that the captain in command of an artillery company/battery had about the same responsibility as the colonel in command of an infantry regiment, fewer men but many more horses and MUCH more equipment.
But all of this is 'way more than the average guy who wants to change up the show on his 3-rail layout wants to deal with! 
Originally Posted by Norm:
For scale Civil War era cannons, go to www.kramerproducts.com
They make a nice product. I have purchased a couple of them to place on an SMR flat that I have. Check out Kramer Products.
Norm
I would like a civil war engine that is close to scale sized with acceptable detail, not fine detail. I also think a price of $400-$600 would be nice. Command control would be a plus.
SMR are beautiful locomotives but out of my price range.
My way of a Civil War era engine, taking in consideration that they are available in HO and N, (not sure about Z) scales. They won't need a powerful motor since they didn't pull the large number of cars we expect in modern trains. Must have sound, and yes, I'll run smoke on one of these. Auto couplers, realistic tenders and good realistic details. Also keep the engineer, fireman talking sound out. Yes, these are smaller engine then most of us are used to seeing, but that means bigger looking layouts in smaller spaces, and for some, even a round house, or at least a turntable.
From reading and seeing number of post here, seems a decent priced, up to date release, would garnish interest and sales. Possible opening oportunities for sales in structures, cars, and scenery. Much of which could be incorporated into existing layouts, and not just period. Personally, I would purchase 3 or 4 engines to use on a layout with cars, passengers and freight.
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
So....in summary we want a scale Civil War engine with perfect attention to scale and detail which can be thrown against a brick wall and not suffer any damage and which will retail for something less than $200. .
Originally Posted by mwb:
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
So....in summary we want a scale Civil War engine with perfect attention to scale and detail which can be thrown against a brick wall and not suffer any damage and which will retail for something less than $200. .
I don't believe there was a single "we" that made that statement, nor expected that. But keep posting quotes out of contents, and manufacturers that see and then believe its whats expected, they'll never make one.
Originally Posted by palallin:
Thanks for the tip!
I looked at the site and found the cannons. It's really hard to tell from the pics, but they look too small to be 57"-wheeled guns. At the price, that's $84 for a battery ($56 if you can live with a 4-gun battery), but we're still wanting an equal number of caissons, double the number of limbers (+2 for the battery forge and the articifer's wagon, not to mention those pieces, too) along with a 100+ troops and nearly as many horses.
Hence my comment about the rarity and the expense. . . .
This has been the dilemma for ALL people making dioramas, particularly in 1/35 scale. With some exceptions, the major manufacturers of toy soldiers make cannons in that scale. The problem is that they don't make the limbers, caissons, and stationary horses to pose with them. That forces the diorama maker to place the artillery on the edge of the platform display so that one imagines that the caissons and limbers are off the board. Anyone who is familiar with Civil War ordnance knows that behind every cannon in the field was its limber to which was tethered a team of 6 horses, and behind the limber was another limber/caisson combination pulled by 6 horses. The expense of producing those added conveyances and horses for just a battery of 4 guns would be cost prohibitive in a limited market. The same would probably not be so in 0 gauge which is smaller but it is still expensive.
Originally Posted by mwb:
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
Yes, the PSC golden spike set - usually runs from $3-4k. Beautiful to look at, very delicate to handle, has a few things not quite right (should not be a surprise to anyone), and I've never heard of anyone every actually running them - display items under glass, or just kept in the closet in the very nice wood box in the dark until it's time to clear out the estate.
There is always the problem of authenticity vs. practicality. In 0 gauge scale the most accurate parts of the engine would be small and, of necessity, fragile. That would preclude running the engine on a track for fear of damaging them. I would no more buy an engine at that price and run it on a track as I would buy a Civil War reenactor's hand sewn Charlie Child's sack coat and roll around in the mud with it (although there ARE, believe it or not, those who would do so for the sake of authenticity). So how much detail does one want in those engines for the price one is willing to pay?????
I'll try to get a photo of my SMR engine,flats with cannon and box car. You will see that these cannon are a perfect fit on that 3 car train. I really can't speak for the caissons,cannon balls and rammers. As far as expense,everything costs in this hobby.
The cannon may look small because of the size of the scale of the SMR trains. Put one up against the Lionel trains of that era and you will see;put one of these scale cannons next to a cannon that is sold with the Lionel train and you'll see the real difference in scale and the artistry of the SMR products. With the small number of SMR products out there I would venture to guess that there are not many scale cannons on a flat car like mine. Trust me.
Norm
Norm.
Originally Posted by Robert S. Butler:
josef may I recommend that, in the future, before taking offense, you take note of the "" and take the time to learn what these little icons mean. - If I had been serious or if I had decided to offer some kind of sneering put down - trust me - I know how to do these things and my post would have read quite differently.
My error and mistake.
With regard to size, here are a few shots I took years ago of my SMR General next to a Lionel General and a scale boxcar:
Andy
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Originally Posted by p51:
It annoys me how little people know of history now, but in all fairness, history has rarely been something your average person cares much about. Just like most school kids couldn't name certain common scientific principles or literature. And there's nothing new there. My parents, who were schooled in the 40s and 50s, have confirmed people were no more interested then in the subject than they are now. You could argue that people do care more for history than ever before, as historical re-enacting has been a pretty big spectator hobby in the US since the 1970s (there were some re-enactments in the 60s for the Centenial but they died out after 1965. The current re-enactment hobby really picked up in the mid 1970s. I know, I was there to see it as a kid, as I grew up being a Civil War re-enactor, my family crewed Dad's M1841 field gun at events).
P51 - I generally agree, but would add a qualifier to your statement - I've found that kids in the US know and care little about history. However, I've traveled all over Europe, South America, the Mid-East, Asia/Oceania for my job and people outside the U.S. (even kids) know a lot about history. And not just their own. And they also know a lot about politics.
Oh, and much of my family is in the South (although I grew up in NYC). Having spent most summers in the Deep South, for years I couldn't understand why my NY school teachers kept referring to the War of Northern Aggression as the Civil War.
Originally Posted by PJB:
Originally Posted by p51:
P51 - I generally agree, but would add a qualifier to your statement - I've found that kids in the US know and care little about history. However, I've traveled all over Europe, South America, the Mid-East, Asia/Oceania for my job and people outside the U.S. (even kids) know a lot about history. And not just their own. And they also know a lot about politics.
It is a cultural thing in the West. Our society has traditionally been a forward-looking one, willing to throw off the old in place of the new--pragmatists rather than traditionalists. We destroy iconic buildings and destroy scenic and historic places with shopping malls and other commercial and industrial enterprises--all in the name of progress. If it wasn't for the preservationists, much of the old things would be gone. Teddy Roosevelt saw this in the beginning of the 20th century. The Dept.of the Interior was established to counter this. In Europe, for example, there is respect for tradition which is rooted into the mindset of its citizens. That is why old buildings in Sienna, Italy, as an example, still stand. You can go to Florence, Rome, the entire Tuscany region and see antiquity. The people are proud of those traditions and venerate them. That is why many of the people there know their history simply because it is a part of that tradition. I just wonder as the older countries become more and more westernized, commercialized, and capitalized, whether their mindset will be more like ours where respect and tradition becomes irrelevant in their world view. If that happens, they will be like us and forget about the past. As far as politics is concerned, younger people here have divorced themselves from politics, seeing the futility of it all as seemingly democratic institutions become vehicles for graft, corruption, and conflicts of interest. But younger people in foreign countries have a more philosophical basis for politics, having seen various governments in close proximity to their nation and how they function. In many ways, their view of politics is less "political" and more "philosophical" which is a more intellectualized view. They are less concerned about the factors that can win an election strategically for any one candidate (ie. like gerrymandering, electoral vote counting as in the U.S.) as opposed to how the candidates can and will govern from a philosophical basis.
Originally Posted by Andy Hummell:
With regard to size, here are a few shots I took years ago of my SMR General next to a Lionel General and a scale boxcar:
Andy
Hey, I've got that car! That is one small locomotive!!!
Gilly
Originally Posted by Gilly@N&W:
Originally Posted by Andy Hummell:
With regard to size, here are a few shots I took years ago of my SMR General next to a Lionel General and a scale boxcar:
Andy
Hey, I've got that car! That is one small locomotive!!!
Gilly
Civil War engines and cars were smaller than engines and cars today.
It's not that the stuff isn't taught in school. These things *ARE* taught, but only remembered long enough to pass the test.
I learned how to do a "Wronskian" in Advanced Calculus 4 back in college, and I was good at it. Don't ask me to do one now. It just has no application in my everyday life so the knowledge faded.
Knowing who the first President was, or anything about the Civil War, has no practical use in everyday life, so most people are not going to put a priority on retaining that knowledge.
You will find people of any age, race, creed, color, and religion that don't know the answers to those questions. More older people might tend to know, but they also didn't have the sheer volume of distractions to fill up short term memory and prevent things from getting into long term memory.
Originally Posted by Matt Kirsch:
It's not that the stuff isn't taught in school. These things *ARE* taught, but only remembered long enough to pass the test.
I learned how to do a "Wronskian" in Advanced Calculus 4 back in college, and I was good at it. Don't ask me to do one now. It just has no application in my everyday life so the knowledge faded.
Knowing who the first President was, or anything about the Civil War, has no practical use in everyday life, so most people are not going to put a priority on retaining that knowledge.
You will find people of any age, race, creed, color, and religion that don't know the answers to those questions. More older people might tend to know, but they also didn't have the sheer volume of distractions to fill up short term memory and prevent things from getting into long term memory.
We had a Civil War?
Originally Posted by Matt Kirsch:
It's not that the stuff isn't taught in school. These things *ARE* taught, but only remembered long enough to pass the test.
I learned how to do a "Wronskian" in Advanced Calculus 4 back in college, and I was good at it. Don't ask me to do one now. It just has no application in my everyday life so the knowledge faded.
Knowing who the first President was, or anything about the Civil War, has no practical use in everyday life, so most people are not going to put a priority on retaining that knowledge.
You will find people of any age, race, creed, color, and religion that don't know the answers to those questions. More older people might tend to know, but they also didn't have the sheer volume of distractions to fill up short term memory and prevent things from getting into long term memory.
Years ago, there was a book about cultural literacy that contended that we cannot truly comprehend reading unless we have some familiarity with the context of the words we read. For example, if somewhat were to write: "The theory of the capitalistic model is basically Darwinian in nature." In order to fully comprehend that sentence, one would already need to know what is meant by Darwinism as a biological/sociological theory. That comes through exposure to a diverse body of knowledge that one draws on for comprehension--Cultural literacy. In today's world, the older generation might be culturally illiterate in terms of such words as "apps" "sim cards" etc. that are more in the lexicon of younger people. It is certainly true that one need not retain specific memory of dates in historical eras in order to understand the significance of those eras. But it seems that there is an a priori decision made by the schools that those things, like studying Shakespeare, is irrelevant and that there is nothing to be derived by studying it. In a fast-paced world, there is no longer an ephemeral culture that lasts for longer than a few months or year before it is quickly forgotten. We use the term "The Great Depression" to conjure up images of all that period entails--we understand its meaning. We use "9-ll" in the same way. Both of those events impacted our society greatly and were pervasive. But I wonder if within the children born today, they will know the significance of "9-11" and retain it in their storehouse of cultural literacy. I don't think so. It will fade in memory a lot faster than what the Great Depression meant to the prior generations. A faster-paced life, of necessity, requires us to throw off immediately the things that are no longer relevant to prepare ourselves for the new. Music, technology, clothing trends, car styles, hair styles--everything changes far more rapidly today. Whether or not it's for the better is a qualitative judgment that really is not the point. The mere fact of constant and quick change is. Alvin Toffler in his book "Future Shock" discussed whether our human psyche is capable of handling all the rapid changes with which we will be confronted in the future. His position is that the human psyche has not evolved quick enough to absorb, internalize, and cope with the effects of that rapid change. We shall see...
Originally Posted by Matt Kirsch:
I learned how to do a "Wronskian" in Advanced Calculus 4 back in college, and I was good at it. Don't ask me to do one now. It just has no application in my everyday life so the knowledge faded.
It is certainly true that, practically speaking, you do not utilize Wronskian in your everyday life. But it was something that is part of your cultural literacy (like your vocabulary)--you understand what it means, its significance, and the fact that you worked through it on a practical level at some point in your life which probably helped you in developing your mathematical skills. Most people who do not retain 100% of the things that they have experienced, especially on a practical level, still have residual effects of that experience that affects their attitudes and outlook on things as they grow and evolve as human beings. They may be able to call upon those facts as much as they call upon the words that they have in their vocabulary to express themselves. As far as history is concerned, there isn't a single person here who is not interested in some type of history of trains to evaluate the products they buy--because that is what they are interested in. It is relevant to them. But a young person in school cannot make that same assessment of what is relevant to him/her as an individual--hence, the role of a "liberal" education in which math majors study 19th century U.S. history and English majors take a non-lab chemistry course as part of the curriculum.
Originally Posted by Lee Willis:
We had a Civil War?
Those who forget history are bound to repeat it....
"ReadingFan" your photo of the "York" running in the snow is one of the most spectacular RR pictures I have ever seen!
Don't know about the Civil War, (twern't nuthin' civil about it...)but it appears ol' Abe
was a man of action:
Quite a romancer, too:
And apparently an effective vampire hunter:
Rusty
Originally Posted by Rusty Traque:
Don't know about the Civil War, (twern't nuthin' civil about it...)but it appears ol' Abe
was a man of action:
Quite a romancer, too:
And apparently an effective vampire hunter:
Rusty
Don't be surprised if the succeeding generation may view Lincoln in that light as depicted in the videos. For some people there is no distinction between serious history and pop culture.
Originally Posted by GG-1fan:
Don't be surprised if the succeeding generation may view Lincoln in that light as depicted in the videos. For some people there is no distinction between serious history and pop culture.
Considering there are some folks on this forum who have no concern about railroad history, how locomotives function or prototype operations and get upset when informed about the way things were done...
Rusty
Originally Posted by Norm:
I'll try to get a photo of my SMR engine,flats with cannon and box car. You will see that these cannon are a perfect fit on that 3 car train.
Here's a shot of Norm's train:
The cannon do look appropriate.
Andy
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They need to re-release the two Civil War sets from a few years back--they have held their value.
Scott Smith
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The Civil War means more today in the South or North?
In Illinois, the northern part of the state was with the North and way Southern Illinois was sort of with the confederacy. I don't think that either part today has any reverence for the Civil War.
So celebrating the CW with a toy train seems a waste. to me.
Originally Posted by AlanRail:
The Civil War means more today in the South or North?
In Illinois, the northern part of the state was with the North and way Southern Illinois was sort of with the confederacy. I don't think that either part today has any reverence for the Civil War.
So celebrating the CW with a toy train seems a waste. to me.
I understand, but I think its a matter of semantics or interpretation, at least for me. I don't view having a civil-war train as celebrating the civil war, any more than i would view a "Victorian era" train set as celebrating the Victorian era. To me, its just a convenient way of indicating the time period. Clearly some of those civil war sets like pictured above did celebrate, but for me, I just want to have have a couple of locos and some passenger and freight cars from the 1860-1870 timeframe
Originally Posted by AlanRail:
So celebrating the CW with a toy train seems a waste. to me.
Actually, Civil War reenactors, for example, do not "celebrate" the Civil War--they commemorate it. Many train buffs who have an historic bent also like the style of the locos and cars just like some guys prefer to collect old muskets and rifles of that era. At the same time it represented a time when the railroad industry had expanded in scope across the country and became an industry in its own right. Regardless of your preferences-North or South- trains had a long history and a place in our economic and social development. Hence, the fascination with such models today.
If you are looking for O scale cannons, Alkem Scale Models has them. They are precise O scale (1/48th) scale models. They include cast wheels, barrels, laser cut wood parts and photo etched brass details. See Civil War Artillery
No, they don't. If you look at the link to the Alkem site posted above (thanks, Bernard!), you'll see why.
Originally Posted by Andy Hummell:
The cannon do look appropriate.
