Coal or Oil

[TVRR]

I've got a Kato 4-8-4 S2 apart on my bench just now, installing DCC + sound as well as details like cab windows and maybe an engineer and stoker. While gazing at all these parts I got to wondering if a large Bachmann DCC ready tender would be appropriate or not. It's currently labeled Santa Fe but that could change fast, something about a oil Vandy tender just looks odd on an eastern railroad.  Does anyone know if any eastern roads actually used the S2? 

[Mark5]

Only the Great Northern railway used this locomotive.

[victor miranda]

.... I am going with no.
 

the 4-8-4 type was fairly uniform in overall dimensions.

so if you move the details to the proper places it will stand in pretty good for most 4-8-4 locos.

put elephant ears on it and it begins to look like a niagara for example...
(you may want a different tender.)

the drivers of the s-2 are the biggest... stopper.
because so many railroads used the box-pox type.

I'd look to snag a b-mann Berk tender if I were trying to make it look eastern
... and wanted sound. ( a sound decoder ain't cheap however)

perhaps snag a RR heavy pacific tender?
... making pickups for that may be a struggle.

not clear easy path here.

victor

[randgust]

The only little factoid I can offer up is that anything that ran through the Adirondacks - on NYC or D&H, was mandated to burn oil due to the fire risk danger in the forest.  I've never seen anything bigger than a 4-6-2 on the NYC in historic shots.   Don't know about D&H up the Tahawas branch, but I can't imagine an oil-burning D&H 4-8-4 up there either, let alone with a Vanderbilt style tender .    B&O used a lot of Vanderbilt tenders but like most eastern roads that had a lot of on-line coal, used coal unless somebody told them (like the state of NY told NYC) they couldn't.

http://www.adkmuseum.org/about_us/adirondack_journal/?id=108

I'll also introduce you to this resource:  http://www.steamlocomotive.com/northern/

And if you go deeper, you'll generally find full specs like driver diameter, etc. on each one.  Here's the S-2:

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/northern/?page=gn

Usually, if a locomotive is a 'second cousin' to another one (railroads did buy very similar locomotives from each others designs; the C&O 2-10-4's and a PRR J-1 are actually very similar, almost as bad as the NKP/C&O/PM 2-8-4's) it will usually say that on those source web pages.

[brokemoto]

The NYCS actually did run some Hudsons in the Adirondacks during the summer.   It surprised me when I read it, as one would think that these high drivered beasts would not do too well climbing hills, but NYCS did use them up there.   NYCS did operate  many summer only trains up there, at one time. 

The railroad would convert the hudsons to oil during the summer, then switch them back to coal when there were fewer trains running the rest of the year. From what I could gather, there were only a few hudsons like this and they were used on the Friday evening and Sunday late afternoon/evening trains that ran the Summer Bachelors to and from New York City.    The NYCS used the hudsons because they were faster than the pacifics and ten-wheelers between the hills and Croton-Harmon.   The Summer Bachelor trains made few intermediate stops between the hills and New York City.  They did  have to stop at Croton-Harmon for a change of motive power, though.

It appears that the crews would complain about the hudsons at the beginning of summer and beginning of fall.   There must have been something about the swap-out that made them balky, or something.   What I read was not too specific.

I do forget where I read this, now, as it has been some time.

Meanwhile, in regard to the original poster's question, there were other roads that ran 4-8-4s, as others have mentioned, already.   None of them looked anything like the GN S-2.  Still, you could bash it into something that ran in the East.   NYC did run 4-8-4s as did D&H, WM, Reading Company, LV, C&O to name a few.

If you buy a Kato GS-4, the WP did run a copy of the thing, it ordered them during the Second World War when the War Production Board encouraged the purchase of existing designs rather than new ones.   Experts have stated that Central of Georgia also had copies, but I can not see where the C of G locomotive looks anything like and SP GS, even if you do remove the skirts.   The WP copy was an  oil burner, the C of G "copy" burned coal.

Few Eastern roads used oil.   Some did have a few locomotives that burned it, but this was mostly to get around Smoke Abatement Laws in urban areas.  WM had some oil burning Pacifics that it used on passenger trains that ran into Baltimore.   The B&O 0-4-0T, the oft-modelled "docksider" also burned oil, as it worked the Inner Harbour and Pratt Street in Baltimore (B&O did later convert two of them to coal and "conventional" configuration--with a tender).  There were others, but as a rule, as coal was either on line or closer to the Eastern roads, most used it.  Keep in mind, as well, that it was not until the 1880s, or so, that someone figured out how to use oil in a steam locomotive.   It was a guy named Urquart (sp?) who was actually working for the Russian railroads who did it.   Thus, many railroads simply stuck with what they knew.

[randgust]

OK, I have to defend my home territory.

I have a local newspaper article, that I'm very proud of, of a 'successful test of a locomotive using crude oil as fuel' on the Warren & Franklin Railroad - all the way back in 1864.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Creek_and_Allegheny_River_Railway   This is literally 'just over the hill' from Titusville and Drake Well, where oil was drilled in 1859.   So don't believe for one minute that the Russians, SP, or anybody else gets credit for it.   It belongs right here.   I can't imagine how WELL it did or didn't work using riht out of the ground crude, but the test from Tidioute to Irvineton was considered a success at least in the local press.   And that's right where I grew up.

I've always figured that at least at that time, it was simply too valuable to burn, interesting test, but you could also probably fire a locomotive on US currency if you had to.

[Chris333]

Randy, "Warren & Franklin Railroad" was based in PA.

Did you know about the "Franklin & Warren Railroad"?  It ran from Kent to Warren Ohio. Kent was called Franklin Mills before the A&GW built their shops there and re-named the town "Kent" after the businessman who brought the RR to town..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_and_Great_Western_Railroad

[TVRR]

Thank you for all the information and links guys. Now knowing that it's a total foob frees my conscience to do pretty much anything with it re road name etc. Anybody who runs an Arnold Crocodile as an excursion engine can not be held to rigid standards of " that's just not right".

[Hornwrecker]

GTW had coal vandys on their U-3 mountains and U-4 northerns, not exactly an eastern road.

[TVRR]

Good point. Maybe I can simply make a coal load for the current Vandy.

[nkalanaga]

The GN did burn coal in a few of their S2s, usually for a relatively short period, and one or a few locos at a time.  So a coal burning S2 wouldn't, in itself, be unprototypical.  They apparently worked fine on it, but the GN preferred oil for them.

[Mark5]

C&O used Vandy tenders on certain locos.

[mmagliaro]

If you end up not using that S2 tender, please PM me.   I could use it.
Maybe we can make a tender trade.

As far as Eastern roads using an S2, definitely not.  Some had 4-8-4's however.
C&O, D&H, NYC, Reading, WM all had 4-8-4's to name a few. 

You can read about them here: http://www.steamlocomotive.com/northern/

I looked at a bunch of photos of the eastern-road 4-8-4's cited there.  Here's what I see:

They all had teardrop style drivers, not spoked like that GN S2 has.  To me, that's the biggest drawback
in trying to use the GN S2 as an eastern-road engine.  In fact, when I made my SP&S 4-8-4 from the S2,
I changed out the drivers for exactly that reason. 

None had Vanderbilt tenders, let alone oil tenders.   (The C&O had Vanderbilt tenders, and of course,
the Bachmann Vandy tender is  dead wringer for the C&O one, but I cannot find any examples of
the C&O using those on 4-8-4's)

The NYC had really cool centipede tenders on their 4-8-4's, but they DID have some with conventional
tenders that are really really close to the NYC 4-6-4 Hudson, so you could use the tender from an old
Con-Cor/Kato 4-6-4.  That would also have decent 6-wheel pickup trucks in it.  Not axle-point, but all-wheel
and not bad.

A more conventional 6-wheel coal burning tender would be much more correct
Visually, I think the old Rivarossi 6-wheel coal tender looks the closest to the tenders on these engines.
The old Rowa/MRC Berkshire tender would be good as well.
In either of those cases, you would need to change out the tender trucks and do some wiring to get
real pickups in them.

Chopping out the oil bunker in that S2 tender and making it a coal tender would not make it look very "eastern".
 
How far east do you have to go?   Chicago and Northwestern had some coal-burning 4-8-4's with spoked drivers.
The tender is still conventional 6-wheel, though.  Not anything like that S2 or a Vanderbilt.

[TVRR]

How far do I have to go? Not very far really. Predominately model the southeast states where Southern, Norfolk Western, CN&StL, COG used to run and only in a general way. It could be anywhere, other than a few specific scenes found locally.
Willing suspension of disbelief allows me great liberties in what to run although I tend to be era specific, consists with appropriate motive power just look right. Probably why I own so many36~40' cars too.
While it's evident that this beast never ran east it will get an eastern coal tender like the Berkshire when I find one and be relabeled for a local road that "acquired it" Not a perfect solution but well within the boundaries of
Suspension of Disbelief.
Got a tender you want to swap?

[mmagliaro]

I'll round up a few photos of a ConCor Hudson, USRA Long (Bachmann), and whatever else I can find around here and post them, so you can just look at them in here.  I don't have any Berk tenders.