Doorstop four axle Diesels

[steamaheadstephen59]

Thanks Jim that was very interesting. I wish I hadn't past on the few Ive seen on the Bay, my only source from Aussi. Im not sure whats so appealing about door stops, but I enjoy the ones I have. To bad its not practical to reproduce them.

[De Bruin]

I second Stephen's comments,
That Blomberg power-truck looks really stout too, WOW!

[R.K. Maroon]

The Baker Bros. power truck is reasonably well designed but it has a couple of less-than-ideal features. For one the motor chain sprocket is located way out on the motor shaft but doesn't have a bearing on the far end (beyond the sprocket. That set up puts a bending load on the front motor bearing that it's not really designed to handle. You can see the motor bearing between the mounting yoke in this photo:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zhz1v3b3si4cwndc849wy/Metal-Chain-Baker-FT.jpg?rlkey=w76jv9w58e401hthrbvnw4c1f

Here is a bottom view of this drive, with the WCCo-added dust cover removed:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/men5mqvncqvzxrk3no83s/WCCo-Adams-Drive-11.JPG?rlkey=nx9y9hp4k7yimbnttyunvmyj1

The presence of worm gear sets on each axle is a plus. Compare this with the Baldwin power trucks (and others), which have a worm gear set on one axle, with a chain to the other. The worm gear carries twice the load in that arrangement -- not good, especially given the small size of the axle gear. The issue here is that the worm shaft is supported only on the ends. This can be seen in the first photo -- the worm shaft can be seen just under the motor. There should be a support (bearing or bushing) on both sides of each worm, or at least a single support in the middle. I will have no qualms putting Baker drives in my doorstop F-units, but I plan to power every unit and will be careful about loading.

Jim

[bob turner]

I kinda like the Adams/CLW gearboxes - only the choice of brass axle gears results in wear as shown above. Good gear bronze or Celcon would do the trick. You really wouldn't need a foundry; these things could be milled out of solid blocks of brass or aluminum. One of these days we will figure out how to re-gear these fine truck blocks, and power the center axle for the E units and PAs. I could get you a photo, but it would take me some time to get my spares out of storage and on to the photo area.

Meantime, here are my FAs in preliminary B&O colors. I used to be a lot better at stripes, using Pilot pens instead of striping tape, and I think I can recover my mistakes here with a dark blue and a black pen, and maybe a re-do with a slightly brighter yellow. But you get the idea.

[De Bruin]

Great looking set Bob!
Before you seal in your finish though you may want to fix that white upper panel,
as most photo records indicate that portion as an off-white light grey.
https://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo808alr.jpg
The anecdotal story is the B&O honoring both the "Blue and Grey"with this (a worthy sentiment.)
The Central of Georgia had a similar scheme albeit using orange pin stripes though the same upper portion does appear as white in some photos as well as light blue and then again grey in others.

[R.K. Maroon]

The B&O scheme is hard to argue with. I would like to do a set of FAs in one of the railroads that served the Southwest. Good choices here, as the Katy, the MOPAC, the Frisco, and the Rock Island all had them.

One last post for now on the GN FTs. A doorstop FT weighs in at about seven pounds. That is more than plenty. but somebody decided that the GN FTs needed some added weight:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1pa5n3qw8w1oucips7xys/WCCo-Adams-FT-400A-Weight.JPG?rlkey=ucq9ee6ptn6fkesj2h7tg0gvj

Almost thirteen pounds! This is not only impractical, but it can be harmful. One obvious danger is to the journal bearings and axles. A bigger danger is to the gears. Ideally, you want either the motor to stall or the wheels to slip before the loading on the gears exceeds their capacity. Modelers don't seem to consider this when adding weight or replacing a relatively weak motor with a modern can motor. Remember too that these units have only one power truck.

Unfortunately. the weight was added to this unit by pouring layers of molten lead into the shell. I failed to get a "before" photo, but there was a big wall-to-wall block of lead between the trucks and a thick layer against the entire underside of the roof. The block was conformally wedged in and wouldn't budge. To remove it, I cut a channel into the block and hammered the two halves away from the walls by using a flat punch through the portholes. It all but dropped out at that point:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4b3k6cmjo1v8ow6mz1gnh/Weight-Removal-01.jpg?rlkey=nyiw47pma796x0oqa6bgjnvg8


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pjvl0cqoh8swojcrulmib/Weight-Removal-02.jpg?rlkey=89t3j966vo53sesh4qzsuxuxx

Here you can see the channel I cut. I was going to mill it, but I don't have an end mill long enough to cut to the bottom, so I free-handed it in a drill press. Fast and easy, if unelegant. The wide spot is there because a broke a drill off at one point. Not great, but not a disaster:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/opamatgejckdlmn3my3s3/Weight-Removal-03-Crop.jpg?rlkey=th8wdf4onaxlr556mxv43mo18

Here is the removed weight with most of the shavings. Five and a half pounds of lead. Somewhere Jerry White is smiling!


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tm0k7ftc0wcplx3budwxc/Weight-Removal-04.jpg?rlkey=52hrnp1ldu3rncapny83unmis

[R.K. Maroon]

Here is the next cast four-axle diesel to arrive:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/717qey3f575y82p5k48pz/LWS-BL-2-01.JPG?rlkey=3ddj0yvgzmsg5qp84c9dowonb&st=ozk85pz9

This is a white-metal BL-2 from Locomotive Workshop. The BL-2 is, as far I know, the only cast locomotive that LWS developed on their own without the involvement of Penn-Erie. Bob T will have to tell us if he considers this a doorstop or not, but I think it is a lot closer to a sand-cast model than to a die-cast model. On that point, how are white-metal items cast? Is there some sort of rubber mold involved?

For what it's worth, this is the only model I have ever bought from Bill Davis, and probably the only O-scale locomotive he sold that only brought $75 on eBay.

JIm

[sleepmac]

Jim, I was startled to see that BL-2. A rarity indeed. That paint scheme is eye catching is it not?

Dan Weinhold

[R.K. Maroon]

The BL-2 seems to garner the same sort of love-it-or-hate-it feelings that the Alco DL-109 does. This is understandable, as this is a face that only a mother could love:


https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nad2o9j5y0p5wz79yh42q/LWS-BL-2-03.JPG?rlkey=ama53ylgh7s7m8xcb8na1b1xk&st=llcm7vo3

The model came with a chopped-up chassis from an Atlas F9, which is what it was designed for. I was going to upgrade it with a better drive but decided to sell it, as I didn't have any other PM or C&O equipment at the time and an assembled but unpainted shell came along instead. I have since acquired a fleet of C&O steamers and wouldn't mind having an early diesel to go along with them. Too late now.

And, yes, C&O blue and yellow with the stripes looks awfully good on these.

Well, that's my opinion, at any rate

Jim

[bob turner]

There has to be a better way. I find these things almost as ugly as that Portland monstrosity, but tastes change. I am now enamored of the PRR T1 and the B&O dockside, and forty years ago I had nothing but disdain for either. I still have no time for that Lehigh Valley thing with the wings, and no time at all for upside down bathtub styling, which surely this thing was inspired by.

That said, there must have been some aluminum casting sets for these? If not, find some raw Pewter castings, and I will stitch them together with JB Weld and paint them with rattle cans. I am sure I have those colors in stock (DupliColor just went from $3 per can to $18, so good thing they work for a very long time).

An All-Nation mechanism would work fine for these - even a single truck version. And some nice guy just gave me an excess of Blomberg side frames.

[bob turner]

Maroon will recall how damaged these castings were before I applied gentle pressure. As you can see, pressure, J B Weld, and glass cloth did a good job, and so far no cracks have occurred in the finish anywhere. I note that this can be a four axle Diesel "squared."

[R.K. Maroon]

As I recall, the GE U50 was essentially two U25B locomotives on a single rigid frame. It may not technically be a four-axle diesel, but if we reimagine the title of this thread as "Doorstop B-truck Diesels", then were good. I will post a similar photo when the U50 comes around on the list.

As it is, the next four-axle doorstops to arrive on the doorstep were a pair of Penn-Erie Baldwin sharks, specifically the Minnesota Central units shown a few pages back, The styling on these was supposedly inspired by the Pennsy T1, but those big arched cab windows sure look a lot like the ones on the BL-2 to me:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cga2hzuqnubspolf2b2p7/Shark_01.png?rlkey=ire2h2xjxt9xivmzjuuchc14a

So, while there is reason to suspect that this just another face that only a mother could love, the sharks seem to garner more fans than the Bl-2 or the DL-109. Or so it seems to me.

Jim

[R.K. Maroon]

It's been a while since I last posted on this, so I will refresh things a bit. The first seven unique four-axle doorstops purchased by me (and posted here so far) are:

-- Baldwin FM H20-44
-- Baldwin EMD F3
-- Jack Collier EMC FT
-- Ken-Kraft Alco FA
-- WCCo / Adams and Son EMC FT
-- LWS EMD BL-2
-- Baldwin RF-16 "Sharknose"

All of those arrived in 2011, which clearly indicates I was struck badly with bronze poisoning upon first exposure. It was actually worse than it looks, as I also bought other doorstops that first year: two electrics and one or more three-axle diesels. It was a buyer's market at the time, as prices were still suppressed by the recession and not many cared about doorstops.

2012 brought me this:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/96vk1xmg9hjlgi5jje2di/EMD_SC_03.JPG?rlkey=tctcjplzlo82325ezpjkqnxf8

This is a pre-war Hawk model, advertised at the time as a EMC 600-HP switcher. We now know it as the SW or SC -- a Six-hundred horsepower unit with either a Welded or Cast frame. The model has a cast hood and sheet metal cab. It is notable for the use of two leather flexible couplings on the motor drive shaft. These are still pliable after 85 years:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/shwjb4k29218zbusx9vi7/EMD_SC_09.JPG?rlkey=2wwa5l21xju6waj3le21r9ams

I don't believe the Pittman DC-93 PM motor is original, as the earliest reference I have to this motor is dated 1948, which is almost ten years after the introduction of the Hawk model. All indication is that production of the Hawk model ended with the start of the war.

Jim

[bob turner]

This is the All Nation version of the SW. I hesitate to say SW1, because I know very little about Diesel locomotive nomenclature. But I think there are several inaccuracies in this one, since all it is is a sliced up NW2 with an extra toolbox. Not really bronze age, since it is Zamac, but hey - the truck sideframes are bronze! Unpowered, came to me for five bucks, and was labeled Santa Rosa. I hit it with orange rattle can, and otherwise left it alone.

[ScaleCraft]

I found a photo somewhere of an SW1 looked like that.
Didn't even have the big porch on the rear.

Yours appears to be unpowered?