First mainline steam purchase - suggestions

[Bremner]

an Athern 4-6-6-4 could work, the D&H and Clinchfield used Challengers.

[wazzou]

How much? 

If you decide on the Bachmann 2-8-0, I have an undecorated one w/DCC that I don't need. 


Jason

[SkipGear]

If your point is to pull a passenger excursion, then the Ten Wheeler, Pacific or Mountain would be the correct choices. Mikado's and Consolidations were not intended for passenger service generally. Not saying they were not used but it was not their intended purpose. A loco doesn't have to be big to be a main line loco. Pacifics were used as main line passenger steam from day one.

[Dave V]

If your point is to pull a passenger excursion, then the Ten Wheeler, Pacific or Mountain would be the correct choices. Mikado's and Consolidations were not intended for passenger service generally. Not saying they were not used but it was not their intended purpose. A loco doesn't have to be big to be a main line loco. Pacifics were used as main line passenger steam from day one.

True, but witness Strasburg's 2-10-0 number 90 and 0-6-0 #31 along what NS is doing with 2-8-0 #630...  The trick with steam excursions is that the novelty of steam trumps what the loco was designed for.  Honestly a 2-8-0 seems a much more likely candidate for modern-day steam excursion service simply because so many were built, and so are more likely to have been preserved than, say, a Mountain, Hudson, or Pacific.  That the smaller freight and switcher steamers were cast down to shorelines that ran steam much longer also makes their existence in today's world far more likely than a purpose-built passenger loco.

[davefoxx]

Although this might not fit your New England theme, I'd get a Bachmann Class J 4-8-4 #611, which was available in the 1980s-90s version for excursions.  In case you're modeling post mid-1990s, just pretend that NS blew off the dust and put her back out there.  I've come close to pulling this trigger a few times myself.  My saving grace is my minimum radius.

DFF

[Guilford Guy]

I would go for a Bachmann heavy mountain. These have similar proportions to the B&M's R1 class 4-8-2. These engines used both 6 axle tender and centipede tenders, so the one with the loco would be incorrect. I'm not sure how to go about modeling the tender, but if you can find a centipede one, it'd probably be as easy as moving the board from the Bachmann tender and adding new pick ups. Finding details for B&M's medium steam like the P2/3/4 pacifics would be difficult, and the boilers on the B&M pacifics are very different from the USRA design. Too bad you can't just print a new boiler/cab/pilot at shapeways, and drop it on a preexisting 4-6-2 frame.

[jbcz]

Ian

I suggest the Bachmann N&W J 4-8-4.  It's a great runner.  It can pull a ton.  You can get them fairly cheaply.  It's great looking.  And, they were actually used for excursions till recently.  The best part is that you can make a J Class into a pretty good rendition of the B&M R1.  You have to do a little cutting and fitting but the wheelbase is actually close to the R1.  The drivers are a bit small but the flanges make up for that.  The tender is close in dimension to the B&M tender.  All you need is a Bachmann 4-8-4 Baldwin boiler and the pilot assembly and a Minitrix Delta trailing truck.  You cut the boiler in a couple of places, chop off the rear of the cab, adjust the slant of the cab roof, fix the cab window, and trim the top of the N&W tender.  It's a pretty good representation that runs really well.  I have placed it on top of the R-1 4-8-2 plan from the MR 1950's article and it only differs by a foot here and a foot there.  I wrote an article for the B&M Historical Society for how to make the changes in a standard Bachmann 4-8-4.  These changes are similar and the result is even better. 

So there's my suggestion.  Makes a nice copy of the B&M's most handsome loco.  I have photos but can't seem to be able to insert them.

Bruce

[TiVoPrince]

The GS4 is out because of its styling making it not northeast worthy.

Suppose 
that this also eliminates the AC12.  Shame...

[brokemoto]

Bachpersonn heavy 4-8-2, 4-6-0 or 2-8-0.

Kato 2-8-2.

Some roads did operate 2-8-2s in passenger service to protect schedules.  P&LE did, in fact, fit some of its USRA heavy 2-8-2s with steam lines and signalling devices for passenger service.  Officially, the reason for this was so that they could pull crew shuttles, but I would suspect that more than one H-9 did pull a passenger train when  no P&LE or NYC pacific or NYC hudson was available.  B&O had all of its Q-4s equipped with steam lines and signalling devices so that they could be pressed into schedule protection service.  Almost all SP 2-8-2s had steam lines and signalling devices.

UP had a class of passenger 2-8-2s that were bascially USRA light copies.  They used them for local passenger service in hilly country; UP men often called them 'mountain mikados'.

Mainline mikados had sixty-three or sixty four inch drivers (USRA light and heavy both had sixty-three) which did give them a measure of speed.  As the speed of excursion trains is in the thirty -five to fifty MPH range, a mikado would be allright for excursion service. 

 I am not a DCC user, but the word is that the DCC conversion of the Kato 2-8-2 is reputed to be the most difficult in the hobby.  If you can do it yourself or can find someone who knows how, it is a very goor runner and puller, as long as you add the traction tyre.  Experience has dictated that
putting a bit of weight into the tender helps the electrical contact.  Still, the Kato 2-8-2 is one standard by which N scale steam is measured.

The driver size on the B-mann 2-8-0 is about fifty-eight inches.  Continuous operation at fifty MPH would be at the top edge of a similar prototype's safe speed.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I think Ian made an ok choice with the light mountain. A heavy would've probably have been better (just because I've heard it's a good runner), or maybe the 2-10-2 (there's a T&P one that's been on mainline excursions).

When someone's deciding, I think the key here is what type of excursion service it'll be in. Is it primarily a short little tourist route (like Strasburg, the Black River & Western, etc...), a bigger one (like the Grand Canyon or Steam Town), or for mainline excursions (like NS did and is doing again, or the NKP 765, the MILW 261, the 4449, or the UP steam program)?

For the former, I think the MP steamers up to the Bachmann consol is a great choice. I was actually just reading about how a CofG 4-4-0 was actually even too light for this service, but the Wilmington and Western seems to make it work quite well (http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=385863&nseq=6). The PRR 1223 served admirably at Strasburg too, but it was also a fairly big American. These guys did occasionally venture out onto the mainlines, but it wasn't a common occurrence (http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=300733&nseq=4 http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=199287&nseq=11 http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=20494&nseq=18 http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=215015&nseq=2). Some of the limiting factors here would be axle loadings, abuse of volunteer maintained track, and cost of operation (how much coal would she eat in a given weekend).

For the second case, the light mountain is a good choice, and I think the Kato Mike would be too. I think the Bachmann Consol would fit in well here too. Limiting factors here are the ability to keep up the pace with a decent sized train, and also still the cost of operation, but typically these infrastructures could handle bigger power and would require longer trains to pay the bills. Examples: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=401247&nseq=0 http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=386682&nseq=2 http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=323592&nseq=3

And last but not least, the bigger the better. You've got to be able to pull long passenger trains to make the economics of these excursions work (there's a reason the CRHS's Susquehanna Limited was the longest thing through B'more Penn Station in a long time). That means that big, quick, mainline power is required. Cost of ownership isn't such a big deal because typically someone else beside the owner is fronting the money for the fuel tab.

[pnolan48]

If I were modeling a steam excursion train for recent times, I'd go smaller, like the Bachmann Connie. Boiler requirements and inspections for a license to operate would seem to favor smaller engines, and it would seem easier to certify a 2-8-0 than some massive 4-8-4. I'm thinking of the engines that run on the Durango and Silverton or the Chama excursions, and the problems each line had with recertifying the boilers perhaps a decade ago. While these are narrow gauge, there was much effort required to certify even these small engines in terms of X-ray examinations and other metal fatigue methods.

[Bob Bufkin]

Ed hit the ball out of the park with his comments.

As a side note, the Clinchfield (4-4-0) was used in excursion and their Christmas runs for years.  It was quite light and they used a EMD B unit to help it.

[elnscale]

I am not a DCC user, but the word is that the DCC conversion of the Kato 2-8-2 is reputed to be the most difficult in the hobby.  If you can do it yourself or can find someone who knows how, it is a very good runner and puller, as long as you add the traction tyre.  Experience has dictated that
putting a bit of weight into the tender helps the electrical contact.  Still, the Kato 2-8-2 is one standard by which N scale steam is measured.

I know of a guy, Lee Weldon is his name, that has done this at least once...on my Mike...

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Don't underestimate the power of the Ten Wheeler.
This is a great looking and running little dude.
The traction tires fell off of mine and it was still able to pull 8-9 cars round the Free-moN layout.
Ten Wheelers just look like they're from an earlier era (even though WP and others were buying them through WWII and using them into the Diesel era)



If you want something in the middle, I've been really impressed with the Bmann 2-10-2 I got recently.
Looks good, runs great (both slow & steamin' along) and can pull quite a load.

The 2-10-2 starts it's run around the 00:45 mark.
We started with over 20 cars, but had to take some off because of coupler issues, not because the 2-10-2 couldn't pull 'em.
There's room in the tender for a speaker for chuffin', too, and as soon as I install mine I'll share how 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ed hit the ball out of the park with his comments.

As a side note, the Clinchfield (4-4-0) was used in excursion and their Christmas runs for years.  It was quite light and they used a EMD B unit to help it.

Thanks Bob! I like to think that every once in a while my analyst hat gets put on...

I think you're confusing the Clinchfield #1 with the CofG engine I'm talking about. But that makes the point even better. The small Clinchfield ten wheeler (http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=333435) was even too small. Just think about this guy: http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27300&start=31.

I almost forgot, I forgot about a fourth category. The "man portable" steam engine. There are a couple 0-4-0Ts floating around that are carried around on trailers and are able for display at many different locations. For example, the Flagg Coal 75 just did a stint at the Walkersville Southern. Here's a fun video of it and the Viscose #6:

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And while looking at that, I found this: