scaletrains.com Announces Pending Delivery of Standard Turbines

[C855B]

Mike, I'm curious why you didn't buy them with factory installed (ESU) decoders?

Sound. They had two options, DC/DCC ready, and sound. You may recall I don't do sound.

[peteski]

Sound. They had two options, DC/DCC ready, and sound. You may recall I don't do sound.

Ah, that's rigth. You made a sound decision then. 

[Nato]

                       Abomabo, Your Reefer block looks nice, except for the yellow caboose which has a roof walk on the copula. No UP steel cabooses in yellow ever had this feature. When the first steel cars were delivered in mineral red/brown they had those roof walks, but they were removed after delivery, probably as they did not look like a safe place to walk on even though the car would not be moving. On the later IM yellow caboose models this walkway can easily be pried off and the roof repainted. Still a nice looking train with a great locomotive model. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[C855B]

Installed decoders this evening, once I mastered peeling the shell off. Not hard, just took four round toothpicks, etc.

This I will say without reservation: In my 55 years of N scale, these are absolutely the smoothest, silkiest, OMG-operating locos I have ever run. @scaletrains : out of the ballpark, guys. Out. Of. The. Ballpark. Wow.

There is clearly something to be said about 8-axle pickup from four articulated trucks. I hadn't cleaned track in over a month, but there wasn't a single stutter, all evening.

Now... to pulling performance. Yeah, relative to 1:1 there's a bit of a problem here. I have a 25' long, straight 1% going into a large radius (~48") sweeping curve @ 2%. My "standard" test train is 40 cars of mixed heritage, mostly MTL or MTL trucks, most with steel wheels. Car sizes range from 40- to 60-footers plus an 86' auto parts box. Total train length ~13'. That's about right for my layout, with a siding spec of 15 feet.

Turbine handled 30 on the 1% and 20 on the 2%. Not 21 on the 2%, 20, period. Wheel slip city past the limit.

Comparing to other models I had handy, they also came in at 20-22 cars on the 2%: Kato SD40-2, Atlas SD24, Kato U30C. Atlas GP9's limit was 15. Standout was the Bachmann DDA40X, which danced away with all 40 on the 2%. Of course that is a double, so no extra points there.

What was fun, however, was m.u.'ing the turbine with the GP9 - 20 + 15 = 40. Not "new math", the two together pulled more cars than the total of each alone. This configuration was how they generally ran on the 1:1.

So I'm happy. I wish it could haul 25-30, but since I'm normally going to run with the Geep anyway all's fine as far as I'm concerned.

[up1950s]

Drop dead beautiful .



A bit disappointed with it powered B-B instead of B+B-B+B . Often UP trailed these units with a GP-9 just in case , well ...........

[nickelplate759]

Pretty!  If they ever do #50 in it's pre-UP demonstrator paint I'll want one.

[peteski]

Can someone educate me as to when these ran with the aux. tender, and when without it?

[pmpexpress]

Can someone educate me as to when these ran with the aux. tender, and when without it?

According to the prototype history on the scaletrains.com website, Union Pacific's ten standard turbines were delivered between January 28, 1952 and December 1953.

"In late 1955, UP added fuel tenders to all of their turbines which extended their operating range to Cheyenne, WY and well beyond.

The tenders were built from the frame, water tank, and running gear of one 18-C tender from retired 4-12-2 locomotives along with the water tank from a second 18-C tender, creating a 22,000-gallon fuel tank.  The new tender was designated 22-C-GTE and were insulated and heated with steam to maintain the 110-degree fuel oil temperature."

Number 57 was modified for a propane fuel experiment and was run with a special tender that bore Union Pacific Richfield Research Project markings and the reporting number GATX 75224.

In a July 26, 2020 Railwire post, Mike (C855B) kindly shared a link to a black and white photo of number 57 with the propane tender.

While my previous searchs for prototype photos of the propane tender failed to yield any results, I did locate some nice photos of a brass HO-Scale Overland Models OMI-5504.1 Union Pacific 57 Standard Turbine with Propane Tender that was painted by OMI and listed on the brasstrains.com website.

In addition, Worthpoint had a closed eBay listing with photos of an Overland Models 0334 Union Pacific Propane Turbine with Plated Tender #57 in 2-Rail O Scale.

While the propane tender's platform is consistent with the ones that are seen on UP PS-400 Bunker C tenders, the chrome plated tank car with its silver chassis, doghouse, and Richfield Research Project markings is way cooler than the oil tenders that the UP originally fabricated for use with their standard turbines.

[sundowner]

Also, the tenders were used to keep the turbines main fuel tank full as UP discover that the turbines were loosing traction as the onboard fuel ran down. On the standard and verandas turbines, the locomotive frame was the fuel tank, all 7200 gal of it.

[peteski]

Thanks for the info guys.

[CBQ Fan]

Mine will pull 30 cars at a low speed with no stalling issues. I could easily add 5-10 more cars without expecting any issues.