Hi John and guys, Just thought I'd join you here at the B&O forum. Hopefully we will build a decent interest group here in future. I am into umpteen different Railways and scales,Modern Scottish in OO, Brazilian HO,Chinese HO,Japanese "N" and late British steam era in N. .My B&O interests however manifest themselves "G"in 1/29th scale. Where I have a 3 track mainline goes right round the garden. I am really interested in the late steam period on the B&O from about 1950 to 1957. My favourite B&O locos being the P7 pacific class. I have extensive information and photos on the P7s for anyone interested plus much other B&O steam related info. Oh well ,look forward to enjoying this forum. DAVY
Hello Davy Mac and welcome to the Trainboard, feel free to ask questions and seek help from the Moderators of this forum or the Administrative Forum which I moderate. Visit the Cattle Car where you can relax, it is our Off Topic section. Welcome Aboard and I hope you have fun here at the Trainboard. Lady Sunshine Moderator
Davy; Welcome aboard!! I'm Mike K. and as my online handle indicates, I'm into B&O too! The S1a class steamers are my fav because of thier record of service on the Hyndman Helper on Sand Patch. Another B&O fan is my friend, the moderator, John Patton, 7600_EM1. If ther's anything you need to ask about the B&O, ask one of us, and we'll help. Again, welcome aboard to Trainboard!
Davy, WELCOME ABOARD!!!!! Glad to have another B&O railfan! You know me from yellowstone10 e-mail... And you know what my name stands for.... I hope to see more traffic in here as well as fellow B&O'ers! As Lady Sunshine said, You can enjoy the entire for its entirity and the fun everyday forums as well as real life forums an modeling forums.... Whatever you fancy, we should have it.... Questions e-mail me... or go to the administrative forums we'll all lend a hand with helping you know the site an understanding its functions...
Welcome to our family here at the TrainBoard, Davy! John and I are especially fond of the steam articulateds, and have been known to get goose bumps over most other steamers at times. Not being all that familiar with the P7's, I would like to hear what you have to tell about the P7 Pacifics, and see any photos you have of them.
Hi again everybody, thanks for the kind welcomes. Nice to be aboard. "Lady Sunshine" (are you actually a lady?, not so many ladies into trains that I know of, this forum gets better all the time!) My wife and daughters hate trains! (probably thanks to my obsession!) As I said guys I really do have a lot of knowledge on the B&O P7s. Studied them in great depth.The reason for this being that the "G" 1/29th Pacific model by Aristocraft is based on a B&O P7,even though Aristo sell it in a variety of roadnames and colours. It was the Aristo pacific which attracted me to 1/29th garden trains in the first place,so I had to find out what the loco actually was.The Aristo loco is pretty accurate although it does have a few quirks,for example to be really accurate it's drivers should scale out at 80" but are in fact scale 73" approx.The tender is also accurate but is only correct "out of the box" for engine N0 5304 at one particular period in time,etc., etc.,(I reckon 1930s) .However on the upside the Aristo pacific being based on the P7 which in turn were very close to the USRA heavy pacifics(ERIE), the famous Southern PS4s, Pennsy K4s and a few others lends itself well to kitbashing. The Southern PS4s for example were extremely close physically to the P7s though by no means identicle and they did have 73" drivers as did many other pacifics so the Aristo model is a good starting point for many a kitbash. I also recently converted an Aristo pacific into a B&O (ex B&M) T4 mountain type for example. Learning about the P7s attracted me to the B&O and this became my favourite US road. Anyway guys if you want direct info in the meantime feel free to E-mail me at dcormack@dcormack.freeserve.co.uk. I also have umpteen books on the B&O and can scan things for folks if required (once I get my scanner working again that is!) In the meantime B&O P7 class, known as the "Presidents" Originally built in 1927 by Baldwin. To a degree could be said to be USRA heavy pacific copies.(All originalUSRA heavies were allocated to the ERIE) The locos were turned out in Olive green with red and grey lining with the names of US presidents.In later years they were turned out in B&O Blue and had their presidential names removed. They had long tenders with straight sides.The class members didn't remain the same for very long,and a variety of physical changes took place over the years.By the end of their days 1956/57 they came in a variety of guises.Only one remains in preservation.That is loco No 5300 which is on display at the B&O museum. The loco is as she was when retired and though re-paintd olive green at the museum she never ran in her present physical state in this colourscheme. Some books show P7s in later years in what "looks like" black.However this after much re-search proves to be a result of old photos and tricks of light and soot.All the P7s remained B&O blue till they were withdrawn. I do believe there have been HO models of the P7s too produced in the past but John Patton will know more about that than myself. Mehano currently produce a Pacific model in B&O blue and it is numbered for a P7 post November 1956,when the B&O steam fleet was renumbered to 3 digit numbers to make way for the diesels. However the Mehano model is based on USRA light pacific and is therefore wrong for a P7. Their "streamlined"B&O pacific must also be based on some other road's pacific because it certainly isn't authentic for the B&O. The B&O had 4 streamlined pacifics latterly.5301 to 5304. All P7s and were streamlined to haul the "Cincinattian" ,the engines remained streamlined till their demise. (5304 was streamlined twice in her life which must be very unusual??) Anyway guys , catch you all later DAVY
Davy, I have to say you done well with the details in your post, however to your comment... I will say that the IHC "Mehano" Pacifics are wrong for the B&O's P-7's. However the best P-7 factory I've laid eyes on goes to a well known builder in HO scale... Mantua.. The collectable line. I have the B&O P-7 "President Washington" and its scaled nicely for the B&O class. As for the IHC Mehano version thats like the G scale Pacific boiler on a Makado chassis.. The IHC stuff is "cookie cutter" design.... The boiler casting will fit on a Makado or a Pacific.... Just mounted on a different chassis. As for the Rivarossi Pacifics those are close.. very close to the P-7's but not as close as the Mantua's. Mantua made their boiler castings from original B&O blueprints from Baldwin, just scaled down to 1:87th..... Make make a note of this, the basic line of Mantua Pacifics were not done the same way.... Only the Mantua Collectable B&O's Pacifics were done with actual blueprints.
Hi John , These Mantua P7s ,I 've heard about them before somewhere?? Are they still made ? Isn't Mantua now out of business?? Cheers DAVY
Mantua was sold by Tyler family trust to Model Power. So check their website for what they will be doing productionwise, and when. Mantua sold dressed up "collectible" versions of several variant garbs of pacifics, and these appear at train shows either under their marque or Franklin Mints. With respect to same boilers being used on pacifics and mikado types:this followed prototype practice, not only on USRA designs where this was true (except only the Erie had any USRA heavy pacifics) but also on other designs. Which is a boon to Bowser (was PennLine) who produces PennRoad models. This allows them to use same boiler casting for 'K-4' pacific and 'L1' mikado, and 'E' atlantics and 'H-9' consolidations. So did the Pennsy. Mantua did the same thing , both on their conventional and center cab versions of their mikados and pacifics. The problem is that they produced generic models , which is especially hard to understand in the case of the camelbacks because only the Lehigh Valley had camelback pacifics and mikados. That being the case ,why they did not faithfully copy the prototypes is difficult to comprehend. Mantua's pacific is not far off the mark for basic outline of a few 1920s built locos, and with photographs of prototype can be fudged into a pretty good likeness of B&O power. It is not a stand-in for the last built pacifics (e.g.B&M ,Reading,CP) or heavy hitters (e.g. Omaha Road,Erie), although it has been made into some of the smaller Hudsons (e.g. Me.Central,NdeM) by determined modellers with prototype photos , and willingness to adapt differing drivers,etc. Good-Luck, pjb
Hi PJ, Thanks for your informative reply.My knowledge of US "HO" outline models is very scant. I am aware of the USRA standards etc. Though they were not as straight forward as some people think. Like a USRA light Mike didn't equate to a USRA light Pacific etc., etc., USRA heavy pacifics had the same boilers as "light" Mikados.USRA "Heavy" Mikes had bigger boilers again. However these differences get less noticeable when you get down to HO/N scale granted.A well trained eye will still pick up on this. It would be too costly for manufacturers to go into every nuance of detail I suppose. All the best DAVY
Yes, Davy Mantua is out of buessiness now, but you can still get their loco's at most hobby shops. As AJ said they are close but I have to say I have that keen eye on these things with smaller scales! And the closest Pacific to the B&O's P-7s in HO scale that I've seen so far is the Mantua collectables. IHC, or Rivarossi don't even come close. And the Genesis Pacific isn't a B&O P-7 its a P-6 I believe. I'll see if I can find some links for B&O P-7's for Watash to view!
Hi Davy, Welcome Aboard! I am also a B&O fan but as you can tell from my handle that I stick with the BN. Anyway I love learning new things about foriegn roads. Lady Sunshine is indeed a lady and last count we had 5 women on board here!! Enjoy your ride!
Hey Clayton!!!!! Nice to see you around I thought you fell off that last passenger train thay went by! Haven't seen you around in awhile! Anyway the lady count is holding at 5 YES, but I'm working on another to come around! So then it'll be 6! Anyway I'm going to see if I can get pictures of my P-7 Mantua "Pres Washington" #5300! See if my digital will do the trick to get a "hald decent" picture of it online! And hopefully acompany it with pictures of the real one and of other P-7's as well.
Hi Guys, Clayton ? (BN Fan? am I right ?) ,saw a little Welsh dragon flag on your posting, do you have some connection with Wales ? Thanks for your welcome aboard anyway.So there are 5 girls on this forum and potentially a 6th in the pipeline ?? Johnny Patton must be a real sweet-talking trains-salesman right enough! I have a wife and 3 daughters who definately need therapy to enjoy trains.As it stands they'd rather use my trains for target practice hee hee! All the best DAVY
Davy, I'm not really the sweet talker.... only one of the 6 will be a member from myself. If my memory serves me correctly, Clayton (BN9900) for Little Welsh_Girl to join, and Wayne (Watash) got Barb (LadySunshine) to join. As for the others that I missed, I can't say I know who got them to join.... I have to comment, on your wife and 3 kids on the using your trains as target practice!! NOOOOO Thats a waiste of good toys that keep you sane.. tell 'em they'll have to pay for a head shrink for you if they ruin them! HA! All Jokes aside... They just don't have an interest huh????? Make some "girlie" and "kiddie" ones like a circus train for the kids and something in the lines that your wife would like to see... Its a start.....
Hi John, My wife will NEVER like trains of that you can rest assured.As for my daughters I'm afraid they are well past the kid stage.The oldest is 23 and the other two (twins) are 22. There is no chance of them becoming train converts. On the upside I get the trains all to myself.........apart from young Christopher ,the kid in the pics I sent you. That's cool with me ! DAVY
Davy, I didn't know that... But yes I guess you are stumped family wise.. But little Christopher, may give you the enjoyment! Even tho not family but will seem like it! Thats so great too.. For any small child to take up the interest if family or not.... WAY TO GO!
