Anyone have any home built Critters on your rail line? I am thinking along the likes of these ... see below. pe1503.jpg 369×228 pixels bendix0.jpg 573×385 pixels cfp98.jpg 1,271×920 pixels Tom
Class A Climax all scratched except for one that has been converted to N from an Nn3. And from many moons ago a railbus, a 4-2-0. a 2-8-2T, and an Aveling Porter steam tractor which is a static display. And a really old fuzzy picture from some years back. A doodlebug made from a 34 ft. Overton and a LL SW mechanism, the previously shown railbus and a bigger brother, the red one, that has a mechanism from two Kato 105 mechanisms with two motors wired together.
That third one - built on the Shay chassis, is quite the locomotive. I'd see a couple like that done on a Heisler, one done on a Climax, but never one on a Shay before, and that one looks more like a Whitcomb body on a Shay than some home-brew. Know any more about it? Every time I see somebody emulate my Class B build with the Kato chassis it makes me feel good. Darn thing really does run well, it's worth the fight if you can find the parts. Nice job. I've built the following using Kato critter and Tomytec parts: Ge 44-tonner (pre-Bachmann) EMC 40-ton (4-wheeler) 28-ton Shay 30-ton Climax B 13-ton vertical-boiler Climax A (available as a kit from me and also as a built-up) 18-ton horizontal boiler Climax A (same as above) Trackmobile (big one) GE 70-tonner Burro crane with attached flatcar (currently the champ for the smallest mechanism ever) GE 25-ton Whitcomb centercab 65-tonner (available as a kit or built-up) I've experimented with a lot more that didn't make the grade, too. Several of these have YouTube videos of them running, search for 'randgust'. As far as for home-brews, the all-time favorite of mine is a Heisler converted to a diesel; Mutual Plywood #54, it's still out there in 'operational' condition, too. http://harrymarnell.net/images/wes-3a1.jpg Details and a shot in service: http://timberheritage.org/our-collection/locamotives/ First time I saw it I christened it the "Jesus Chrysler.....!"
This got dropped by a buddy and requires some time in the shop but... GE 25 Tonner- Shell is a Shapeways Nn3 item and the chassis is largely scratch built with a nod to Randgust for technical inspiration, support, and advice throughout the build:
Wow!. I've heard of that heisler before, and I've always been curious how they connected the diesel engine to it. I imagine the just used the existing center drive shaft and siderods to transfer power. there is another image of a dieselized heisler that I just found http://www.freerails.com/gallery/589/589_082142_370000000.jpg Could be same one, but gives a nice internal view. There was also a very well known shay converted to a diesel-hydraulic locomotive by Canadian Forest Products. http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/...c01636-5364-4be9-9e7e-4c6119973bdc-A28539.jpg
Actually It wasn't that hard of a conversion for the logging company shop forces used to cobbling together almost anything. Most of the Class As and a few other types of geared lokies had a two speed gearbox, or think transmission. Most of the infernal combustion power was mated to that. The Class As seemed to have been the leading candidates for those conversions much later in their careers more so than any other types because of that transmission I guess.
When I said home built Critters I was actually thinking along the lines of The ATLAS Davenport switcher, LIMA's or BACHMANN's Plymouth on a 0-4-0, 0-6-0 or a Diesel creation shell of your own shrouding a Steam loco, Shay and a Heisler chassis. Tom
According to information posted on another board, it is: quote "long gone'', but there is a brief exchange about it on the Railfan.net forums. http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=Vancouver;action=display;num=1203630805;start=11 Also, if we are looking specifically for diesel shrouded steam locomotives, then there might be some relevance in a 2-8-4 Berkshire cab forward, with a geep style cab. http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3455
Way there was a time back when I took leave of what was left of my sanity and took three Bmann MDTs and made an ABA set. The B unit was made by cutting down an old F7B unit shell and spicing the remains together, adding some rooftop air tanks and a few other things, and mounting it on an MDT. It ran basically because having the other two powered units pushed the one or pulled one when they lost power, or for whatever reason wanted to stop running. Needless to say it soon went to the scrap heap. It looked great but ran like crap and all I had was three times the poor performance. g
That 'open hood' shot is also Mutual Plywood 54, and the Canadian Forest Product 'Diesel Shay' looks to be the same unit as the color shot at the beginning of the thread. Remember that Heisler themselves built one or two units using their frame and gear drive using diesel-electric power. One was at Wickwire steel in Buffalo http://images.cloud.worthpoint.com/...810/02/1_9421ccf46cb9626f85a190ddee07c5e9.jpg But of all the wacky conversions I've ever seen, this may be the winner: http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/file.php?1,file=22522,in_body_attachment=1 I'm not even sure I understand how it works.... While it would seem that Climax A's would be easy to convert, remember that Climax went out of business in 1928. The great majority of A's had wooden, not steel, frames, and they were really a disposable locomotive. Those wood frames condemned most to a relatively early death and why there is only one survivor today in pieces. Seems to me there was at least one or two that had internal combustion on them.... I'll report back. I think the ones that were converted were probably steel-frame B's. The driveshaft was still centered so it wasn't that impossible to do by dropping a transmission case in there.
Wow. That is a weird looking creature. Seems like it would have been a fair amount of work to accomplish. I wonder how well it worked?
Just for fun, I tried bringing a photo in here, but they apparently have remote linking disabled. So photos cannot embed.
Let me try this way.... That's still in a league of its own. One of the things I love is that apparently out in the desert, you can have a horse with no cab.... it feels good to get out of the rain..... Also note there's no coupler, at least on the front. Although it's stopped the air brake cylinder is retracted, so its a pure guess on whether or not it had any air or if they left the brake lever and cylinder on for decoration. It looks like the only controls may have been a primitive throttle and a reverse-type clutch lever. Anybody recognize the 'prime mover?'. I'd suspect some kind of heavy truck engine.
My guess is a very early 4-6-0 because of the driver arrangement that was common to the early versions. Could have been an old GN or NP since they had an early bunch with that driver spacing. Probably had a link and pin at one point fitted to the pilot but since the other end is not visible to determine if something remains in the way of a coupler and the side shot of the front pilot doesn't reveal any bolt holes it is conjecture on my part. Tractive effort had to be not worth much and probably was only in the 30 thousand pound range when a regular loco. Now with all the boiler and other metal gone It probably isn't too much over 10 thousand. Somebody did give some thought to balancing the weight though with that big fuel tank at the opposite end. However when that tank got low the tractive effort had to head south. And the engineers stand had to be a cold spot in the winter and miserable if caught in a cold rain. Unique and most likely a cheap source of power for awhile but miserable to run. Couldn't complain about the engineer's visibility down the track though.
