Imaginary Locomotives

[Traintresta]

Looks like that 4th driving axle is almost in the tender. Would. Lord Nelson boiler not be more appropriate?

[Corbs]

Yeah it’s right under the cab.

Matthew Cousins painted this some time ago using the LN boiler. I think it’s much nicer proportionally.

[Nick_Burman]

On 08/05/2010 at 10:11, Oldddudders said:

US modellers have been at this sort of thing for years. Given the enormous number of railroads that have operated in that continent, adding one of your own devising is hardly likely to cause disturbances. Thus a number of the most feted and successful of US model empires have featured imagined companies. Two that come to mind are W.Allen McClelland's Virginian & Ohio, and Tony Koester's Allegheny Midland. Each identified very closely with a particular area of the US, reflecting topography and traffic from that region, and was scenicked accordingly. Locomotive liveries - steam and diesel - were intended to be "typical" in design, reflecting the era of the model's assumed prototype. Freight cars were - just as would be the case in the UK - a mixture of "fictional home road" lettered cars, and faithful models of actual prototypes from surrounding railroads, the ones with which the fictional road "would" interchange traffic.

 

Unquestionably this is tougher to do in the UK, although the proliferation of TOCs has helped a little. Tougher still in the steam era. Needs some careful thinking through, perhaps.

 

I've been slowly ploughing through this topic with interest. However I would like to point out that the Allegheny Midland was hardly "typical" - it was the Nickel Plate Road (NKP) brought into Appalachia. Tony grew up in a small town in Indiana located along one of the NKP's main lines, some of his earliest memories are of NKP USRA 2-8-2s on local trains dropping and picking up cars at his father's brickyard and of their celebrated 2-8-4's roaring through town with 100+ car time freights in tow, at speeds sometime going over 60mph. And of staying up in bed late at night listening to the nightly through passenger train, hauled by a 4-6-4 (and later by ALCO PA-1s), whistling for the crossings in town. So when time came to build his basement empire he chose to imagine a free-lance company to extend the NKP into the Appalachians - mainly because it was easier to convincingly model mountain territory than flatland Indiana. Initially he went diesel and late 1960's to be in line with the Virginian & Ohio; later he backdated to the late 1940's and returned to steam traction as more good-running, plastic and affordable steam power became available (one of the reasons he went diesel in the first place was the fact that he did not want to take out a mortgage to supply the funds for the number of brass locos he would need and that he did not want to spend long hours tweaking them into reliable runners). However the steam era AM was a near copy of NKP practice - USRA 2-8-2s with "doghouse" tenders, 2-8-4's, "Water Buffalo" 4-8-2s and even a PA on the passenger trains. The articulateds were the only concession to non-NKP power, being models of Chesapeake & Ohio machines (a railroad which, incidentally, shared a commonality of financial control with the NKP for a while). Even the font chosen to decal his locomotives and rolling stock was the same as used by the NKP. Eventually nostalgia won and now he is modelling the same NKP mainline he grew along - complete with his home town and his father's brickyard.

 

Cheers Nicholas

Edited March 4, 2020 by Nick_Burman

[Northmoor]

6 minutes ago, Nick_Burman said:

 

I've been slowly ploughing through this topic with interest. However I would like to point out that the Allegheny Midland was hardly "typical" - it was the Nickel Plate Road (NKP) brought into Appalachia. Tony grew up in a small town in Indiana located along one of the NKP's main lines, some of his earliest memories are of NKP USRA 2-8-2s on local trains dropping and picking up cars at his father's brickyard and of their celebrated 2-8-4's roaring through town with 100+ car time freights in tow, at speeds sometime going over 60mph. And of staying up in bed late at night listening to the nightly through passenger train, hauled by a 4-6-4 (and later by ALCO PA-1s), whistling for the crossings in town. So when time came to build the empire he chose to imagine a free-lance company to extend the NKP into the Appalachians - mainly because it was easier to convincingly model mountain territory than flatland Indiana. Initially he went diesel and late 1960's to be in line with the Virginian & Ohio; later he backdated to the late 1940's and returned to steam traction as more good-running, plastic and affordable steam power became available (one of the reasons he went diesel in the first place was the fact that he did not want to take out a mortgage to supply the funds for the number of brass locos he would need and that he did not want to spend long hours tweaking them into reliable runners). However the steam era AM was a copy of NKP practice - 2-8-2s with "doghouse" tenders, 2-8-4's, "Water Buffalo" 4-8-2s and even a PA on the passenger trains. The articulated were the only concession to non-NKP power, being models of Chesapeake & Ohio machines (a railroad which, incidentally, shared a commonality of financial control with the NKP for a while). Even the font chosen to decal his locomotives and rolling stock was the same as used by the NKP. Eventually nostalgia won and now he is modelling the same NKP mainline he grew along - complete with his home town and his father's brickyard.

 

Cheers Nicholas

There's an Imaginary Railways thread as well, worth trawling.

 

You make a fair point that freelance railways are difficult to justify in the UK, especially between about 1923 and 1995.  Grouping led to almost every railway company being absorbed into just four, there were only a very few exceptions.  Nationalisation turned that four into one, again, with very few exceptions; the Derwent Valley is the only one that leaps to mind.

[PhilJ W]

15 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

There's an Imaginary Railways thread as well, worth trawling.

 

You make a fair point that freelance railways are difficult to justify in the UK, especially between about 1923 and 1995.  Grouping led to almost every railway company being absorbed into just four, there were only a very few exceptions.  Nationalisation turned that four into one, again, with very few exceptions; the Derwent Valley is the only one that leaps to mind.

Plenty of private (and nationalised) industrial lines though.

[Niels]

5 hours ago, Corbs said:

Yeah it’s right under the cab.

Matthew Cousins painted this some time ago using the LN boiler. I think it’s much nicer proportionally.

 

The Lord Howe had a boiler of same diameter as 9F,not those ugly corners over firebox, and wheelbase was almost the same as a 9F.

Lord Howe with four driver sets from 9F, a boggie and three cylinders from a B16 and would that not be a nice british locomotive?

[Corbs]

Inspired by Matthew Cousins' painting, I tried the same thing out in photoshop with the same restraints as the Caprosti 5MT - all images from Wikimedia Commons, done in 1 sitting etc.

 

Here's the video of how it was done!

 

 

 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I like that a lot, Corbs.  It has a little something of the BESA designs for India about it.  

[Traintresta]

23 hours ago, Corbs said:

Inspired by Matthew Cousins' painting, I tried the same thing out in photoshop with the same restraints as the Caprosti 5MT - all images from Wikimedia Commons, done in 1 sitting etc.

 

Here's the video of how it was done!

 

 

 

This looks really good, and very plausible. It’s a shame this proposal never came to reality, nor the Bulleid and Fowler 2-8-2’s b

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Interesting:

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Dr Gerbil-Fritters

[PhilJ W]

One point, on most Garratt locomotives, as in the model the cylinders were at the outer ends. This was because it was found that with the cylinders at the inner ends with one set beneath the cab the cab got very hot. Having moved the cabs to the outer ends of the locomotive perhaps it would have been better to have the cylinders at the inner ends.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

The model 2-8-2+2-8-2 has them outboard, the 4-6-4+4-6-4 has them inboard...

[Ben Alder]

With regard to 4-8-0's, is it my imagination, or wishful thinking, that a look has been taken on here about a BR Standard 4-8-0? I have done a search but can't find anything.....

 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

This thread is now so vast it could do with a picture only gallery...

[Nile]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

One point, on most Garratt locomotives, as in the model the cylinders were at the outer ends. This was because it was found that with the cylinders at the inner ends with one set beneath the cab the cab got very hot. Having moved the cabs to the outer ends of the locomotive perhaps it would have been better to have the cylinders at the inner ends.

There may also be clearance issues with the centre section, but you raise a good point.

[RLBH]

2 hours ago, Ben Alder said:

With regard to 4-8-0's, is it my imagination, or wishful thinking, that a look has been taken on here about a BR Standard 4-8-0? I have done a search but can't find anything.....

 

Just a few pages ago!

 

 

A very odd machine, not really a BR Standard at all and arguably not even a 4-8-0....

[Ben Alder]

Thanks - ideas are bubbling away here. Whether they come to fruition or are sidetracked remains to be seen....

 

[Corbs]

One of these days I'll get around to finishing this 4-8-0 compound based around a 'King' boiler, something akin to a British 240P hopefully.

[LNWR18901910]

On 02/03/2020 at 17:25, Corbs said:

Very nice!

 

I was pontificating this Southern heavy freight loco using the same boiler and cylinders as an S15...

 

 

 

 

That's the locomotive I have been attempting to make myself.

[The Johnster]

Can’t see why that wouldn’t have been a perfectly successful heavy freight loco; unfortunately the Southern never needed one until the D-Day buildup in 1944. 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

How about an S15 boiler on a G16 undergubbins?  Or just a G16 without sidetanks towing an eight wheel tender?

Edited March 12, 2020 by Dr Gerbil-Fritters

[rodent279]

On 04/03/2020 at 14:21, Corbs said:

Inspired by Matthew Cousins' painting, I tried the same thing out in photoshop with the same restraints as the Caprosti 5MT - all images from Wikimedia Commons, done in 1 sitting etc.

 

Here's the video of how it was done!

 

 

 

Caprosti 5MT-now there's an interesting neverwazzer, a Caprotti 5MT with a Crosti boiler!

[92220]

8 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Caprosti 5MT-now there's an interesting neverwazzer, a Caprotti 5MT with a Crosti boiler!

I posted photos of this a bit earlier in the thread but I can’t find the post immediately, so here they are again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Tony Wright’s photo of it on Little Bytham.

 

 

Iain

 

[rodent279]

That somehow looks a lot more convincing than the real Crosti 9Fs.

[The Johnster]

wheeeee!