Dear forum,

Not sure if this is ethical or even allowed, rather I am sure it is not. However I am not trying to advertise this stuff since I do not benefit from the sale in anyway other than I see it go to a good home that will care and love it the same as the original builder did.

A substantial collection of 2 rail outside 3rd rail mostly Eastern trains came into the store where I work on the weekends as a photographer for the brass consignment dept. The store has no idea how to sell it.

From what I have been told they were delivered in person by the owner, driven to the store from Pennsylvania.

Off the top of my head I am guessing some 45 pieces total. Westbrook, Scale Craft, Lobough, and most any other kit built up, painted rather with a brush than sprayed. Very typical construction found on models from the 1930's-1940's. A few scratch built pieces, overall a very interesting collection of stuff.

I am not interested in any of it since I do not operate outside third rail, and I am not a collector of vintage O scale, to this end anyway. If you guys know anyone interested or who would like to buy this collection as a whole to preserve it please feel free to call Caboose Hobbies in Denver and ask for Don Zimmerman Monday thru Saturday or Roger Clark on Fridays and Saturdays.

Following are images of some of the better models from what I can tell.

Very interesting collection of vintage trains. I love this stuff, but don't have budget for now at the time. To me this is a history worth preserving and is largely being lost.

I did pick up this piece a few years back though (compared to a Williams Brass in some images):

This message has been edited. Last edited by: GG1 4877,

Hey thanks Jonathan! Very cool pictures! HISTORY!!

If anyone knows who would want to adopt these old babies.. let them know.

Any idea if they have any other PRR electrics?

--Drew

Wow those engines are outside third rail.

quote:

Wow those engines are outside third rail.
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David Friedlander

YEs and can esily be converted to 3 rail too!

Please give one of those two fellas a call at Caboose Hobbies if you guys can think of a good home for these guys. I think the phone number is (303)777-6766, ask for Don Zimmerman Monday through Friday and Roger Clark Friday and Saturday. If you need to call on Sunday ask for Dave Etchells. Thank you guys, I really want to see this stuff go to a good home.

Very nice. To me the "roughness" of those engines makes them appear more real. They look old and dirty just like the real thing. I'd love to know what a couple of those cost.

I love that LIRR h-10.

Does anyone know what a piece like that would cost?

quote:

Originally posted by Erik C Lindgren:

However I am not trying to advertise this stuff since I do not benefit from the sale in anyway other than I see it go to a good home that will care and love it the same as the original builder did.

The best way to get exposure would be to put them on ebay, that's where anyone who wants something looks. Since you have many to sell I'd put them on a couple at a time so you don't flood the market. ......dave

Some of the locos appear to be scratchbuilt, such as the LI 0-8-0 & CV 2-10-4. A number of companies offered NYC Hudsons, but I don't know about the one in the picture. Proportions look a bit "off" in that the turret looks rather tall compared to the boiler.

The Pennsy 4-8-2 may be scratchbuilt, though the late Leonard M Blum (Cleveland OH) offered a kit which I think used a cast aluminum boiler. Before WW2, Saginaw sold kits for the Pennsy E6 4-4-2, G5 4-6-0, and H10 2-8-0. The first two did not appear after the war, but an upgraded version of the 2-8-0 was marketed by Central Loco Works (the late Bob Smith).

Scale Craft's Pennsy k4 used a wider-than-prototype firebox to allow for the large, open-frame K&D motor commonly used in that era. It did represent the "common" version of the K4 with smokebox stay rods, absent from the pictured model. Ed Alexander's model of the K4 had a correct-width firebox and was based on the last five prototypes with the cast frame having large cast steel cylinder braces front & rear (also absent on the model pictured). So that K4 might possibly be scratchbuilt also.

The SP 0-6-0 I think is probably Lobaugh.

Some of these are Bill Lenoir developed dies??? Just a thought.???

I ran into an article about Bill in OSN last night from maybe 1994?

Anyway, thanks guys for helping out!

Erik:

I doubt it; Bill Lenoir did his pre-war work for Jack Ferris, who marketed under the Scale Model Railways label.

These look to be later, early postwar stuff. By then, Bill was building on his own, and his engines at that time were quite un-mistakable and well-cataloged.

The Hudson looks very "Mi-Loco" at first glance, the 0-6-0 Lobaugh, the scratch stuff using components available from Faber, et al. An example; the vents on the LI DD sure look like Walther's globe-vents (bet it has Poly-Drive, too!)

All agree on the Lobaugh switcher - probably the most valuable piece in the collection at between $300 and $400. The two PRR locomotives could be Saginaw/CLW, or just good scratchbuilts. There is a foolproof way to tell. Good Saginaw or CLW tops out at $300. Having seen a Blum M1 and most of the K-4s, I think there are no Blum/Scalecraft/Alexander models in this collection; the rest are just average prewar scratchbuilt efforts. It is fun to see these things, and I am glad they have been shared here. They deserve an article in one of the three magazines we have available.

I agree with the eBay suggestion, but to see what a good prewar model will bring, check out those guys with Scale Craft "buy it now" ads that have been running for over a year. A fair price for most of these beauties would not exceed a hundred fifty.

All just my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by prrhorseshoecurve:

quote:

Wow those engines are outside third rail.
----------
David Friedlander

YEs and can esily be converted to 3 rail too!

Don't you have to replace all the wheelsets and Drivers?

Dut to not being insulated!!

No you don't need to replace the wheels. Outside third rail operates the same as modern three rail. Both track rails are the same polarity. The difference is that the center rail of modern three rail is replaced by an outside rail that is contacted by a shoe that typically hangs from a truck or side frame. The Long Island loco photo has a great shot of an outside third rail pickup. Also OTR is how the trains into and out of Grand Central and many subways operate so it even has a prototype. The outside third rail is about 1/2 inch outside of the track rails. The NMRA standards and templates still include the OTR spec's. The most famous is John Armstrongs Canandaiga Southern. SO basically the center roller on three rail has just been moved to a shoe that picks up power from a third rail outside of the track. Because of this if you install an insulated roller to the center underside of these loco's and move the wire from the third rail pickup shoe to the new roller you are good to go.

This "Internationals" Japanese Switcher of 1950's vintage shows how outside third rail was done on many locomotives. The drive needs some work, so I've never run it, but I suspect it is a universal AC/DC motor. It's also 17/64" scale as well based on the blue print plans that came with it, but the small size of the protoype doesn't lend itself well to seeing that.

Often an outside third locomotive has insulated drivers. It is very difficult to tell by eyeballing, but easy to tell with an ohmmeter. I would bet semi-serious cash that the Lobaugh switcher is insulated. About half of the Scalecraft K4s that I have came with insulated drivers.

quote:

Originally posted by GG1 4877:
This "Internationals" Japanese Switcher of 1950's vintage ...... It's also 17/64" scale as well based on the blue print plans that came with it, but the small size of the protoype doesn't lend itself well to seeing that.

The ED14's were of course 42" gauge; one reference book shows a length of 11200 mm, but whether that's "over pulling faces" [ as US practice ] I don't know. And while they are 1500 v DC, a Pennsy scheme isn't that farfetched: they were built by GE, so perhaps Baldwin did the carbodies ?!!?

Best, SZ

Brian et al--

MiLoco models were built to 17/64" & their tooling (ca 1935) was for the conventional 6-whl truck tender. (The NYC did not get centipede tenders until ca 1940. IIrc, Lobaugh introduced a centipede tender frame casting in 1941 for their model of the UP 4-8-4 (FEF-2), and the tender may be based on that product.

I think the tender actually looks a trifle oversize compared to the loco. In fact, to my eyes the boiler on that Hudson looks narrow. As one of Red Skelton's characters (maybe the "mean little kid") used to say, "That just don't look right to me!"

Oh, for Mike Ciar--

Before there was John Armstrong, the most famous OTR pike was built by Frank Ellison (Delta lines). John's main forte was layout design & he had many layout plans published in MODEL RAILROADER and in three different books iirc. Frank wrote many articles from the 1930s into the mid 1950s on building scenery & structures & operating a layout in a more prototypical fashion. His articles appeared first in the LIONEL MAGAZINE and later MODEL BUILDER, also in MODEL RAILROADER and TOY TRAINS. (I don't know offhand if he was ever published in the old MODEL CRAFTSMAN, but then I don't think John Armstrong was ever published there either.)

Very interesting old models though. Erik's initial post describes them as outside third rail. Checking the wheels, as noted by Bob2, would verify whether they are insulated or not. If uninsulated, converting to 2R would be a machining project as to insulating or replacing the drivers. Small wheels could probably be replaced with available insulated wheelsets.

Converting OTR models to inside 3R would be easier, but the flanges would not work on tubular track. The layout would probably have to have wide-radius curves similar to 2R, and turnouts made to 2R track standards. I don't think many inside 3R pikes meet that description.

scratch built,kits, or whatever, those are beautiful. I'd love to he that M1. thanks for sharing.

quote:

Originally posted by jwmathews:
Brian et al--

MiLoco models were built to 17/64" & their tooling (ca 1935) was for the conventional 6-whl truck tender. (The NYC did not get centipede tenders until ca 1940. IIrc, Lobaugh introduced a centipede tender frame casting in 1941 for their model of the UP 4-8-4 (FEF-2), and the tender may be based on that product.

I think the tender actually looks a trifle oversize compared to the loco. In fact, to my eyes the boiler on that Hudson looks narrow. As one of Red Skelton's characters (maybe the "mean little kid") used to say, "That just don't look right to me!"...

Woody:

You're right about the Mi-Loco/Mini-Scale generation of Hudson kits in their "stock" form. They both show the jacking up of the turret/cab to clear the big ol' wound field motor that is apparent here (an affect even present to a degree with that venerable icon, the 700e).

My thoughts, unclearly made, had already drifted to what the guy might have started with. Certainly wouldn't be far-fetched for someone with these talents to add the brakes, a Kemtron PT tank kit, and other gubitzes. Who-ever he was, he was pretty "cutting edge" for his time, what with the brakes on all drivers and detail levels.

My leanings still are that many of these (if not scratch or bash) are old Jack Ferris/ Scale Model Railways engines. Since scratchbuilding and bashing/mingling skills were much more prevalent then, it can only be a hunch. The problem is that they are in Colorado and I'm several time-zones away. Ten minutes with them in hand would answer (or add) many questions. Until then, we're really stabbing in the dark, here.

Ah, the "mean widdle kid". I'd forgotten all those characters, Clem Cadiddlehopper, Cauliflower McPugg, Freddie the Freeloader...
Red Skelton was a genius!

Brian

I believe that these items came from the collection and layout of the late Jay Duke of Montclair NJ. When Jay passed away his son couldn't sell his trains fast enough. Jays layout was O scale outside third rail and these look like his engines.

I doubt that they are Ferris - the photos I have of Ferris locomotives show them to be dead straight, as in having all lines symmetrical, or horizontal, or vertical, or whatever they are supposed to be.

The pros of yesteryear did not often do rivets, but when they did, they were straight and evenly pressed/spaced. Many hobbyists made their own locomotives, and some, like those pictured, are quite credible - just not up to Icken/Ferris/White standards. Opinion.

Hey guys, your thoughts and theories, facts, and just plain amazing help is appreciated. It looks possibly like each item will be sold as separate pieces. Not sure when they are going into the system. Roger and Lee will work up some prices based on past experience and perhaps some of your thoughts. The remaining issue is the consignee, will he accept our prices? If he does then they will be posted with new photos and you guys can buy and cheery pick what pieces you want. Thanks for the input, and the history! It is kind of cool to see the name of the original owner builder, that is neat!