1941 City of Los Angeles

[R.K. Maroon]

Brian -- I believe what you have there is is a Sieber Bros. model of the EMD E7. The roof, nose, end, and truck sideframes are Adams and Son. The roof is the later of the two known Adams and Son E-unit roofs. It appears your sides are brass sheet instead of cast, but please correct me if I am wrong. Siebers Bros. bought the Adams castings, punched out the sides, fabricated the drives, and built and sold the model. Here is one I have:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/u15ze41gaob3tajupft8f/Adams-Sieber-E7-Shell-01.jpg?rlkey=5k5d0gg0nwbig1xaahvakcird

As you can see, mine is only the shell. The unit you have is the first one I have seen that has the original Siebers Bros. drives with it. These drives were originally introduced with the Siebers Bros. E6 (what they called the "EMC Passenger Diesel"). The axle gear on these is a known weak point, so one often if not usually finds these with the axle gears worn. Unfortunately there is no easy replacement. I find I have to find about three truck sets to harvest enough axle gears to make one good drive unit. More about these drives can be found in O Scale Trains Issue #86, Jul/Aug 2016.

Also, note again that most anybody but me would refer to this as Adams and Sons model. I believe I am fighting a losing battle to get recognition for Siebers Bros. and other manufacturers that actually built and sold models using Adams and Son castings, but to me it's a battle worth fighting. Bob Smith at CLW had the right idea. When he had castings made by A&S he provided patterns that said "Central Locomotive Works" on them. Nobody calls those Adams and Son.

There are three of these, yes? Are the other two the same?

Jim

[railandsail]

You are correct, the sides are a relatively heavy brass sheet.

The fellow has not brought the other two units back by for me to inspect and photograph yet. I'm looking forward to seeing those other units,...curiosity.

Thanks for your knowledge.
Brian

[R.K. Maroon]

Brian -- I kept thinking I had posted on the Siebers drive train and gearbox. I then realized it was in this thread! It starts in the bottom half of page 3 and goes on sporadically over the next few pages. Here is an ad from an early-post-war Model Railroader:

Siebers Bros. Power Truck.JPG (100.89 KiB) Viewed 11383 times

Jim

[bob turner]

If we assume this was 1951, that is $184 today - enough to buy six axles of CLW or P&D power.

Jim - neither of my iPads are happy with your recent photos, but the Siebers ad came through loud and clear.

[R.K. Maroon]

Bob -- I have a similar problem when I look at the post from my Apple Mac Air computer. The photos don't load. They show up fine when using my Dell. I will research this to see if Apple products have a problem with loading photos from Dropbox. The scanned advertisement that you can see was loaded directly as an attachment. Attaching photos is more time-consuming than inserting a link and it is a file-size hog.

Jim

[Tom Dempsey]

Came up fine on my IMac

[railandsail]

Well I finally got that fellow to drop by with the other 2 boxes of 'stuff' he had. Turns out there is
1) an unpowered B-unit for that E7 loco
2) a PA loco

So I'll try my hand a photo posting again....
(Woops, photos posted in opposing order??)

[railandsail]

Haven't seen mention of a PA unit of this era of modeling....

[railandsail]

Looks as though there may have been an FT unit somewhere,...by the looks of this one side panel, and a couple of the truck side frames....?

[R.K. Maroon]

Thanks for posting all the photos. The sleeve for the Siebers Bros. sides is really cool and probably extremely rare (not to be confused with extremely valuable):

DSCF1830.jpg (87.2 KiB) Viewed 11279 times

Siebers Bros. was one of several companies that sold locomotives made from Adams and Son castings but there is not much more than a trace of their name these days, as they didn't mark their models (and A&S marked their castings).

The short sides are for the E7, the long sides are for the EB, which I believe is the same for the E6 and E7. That is, there is no difference, at least cosmetically, between an E6B and an E7B. Somebody correct me if I am wrong.

DSCF1827.jpg (249.72 KiB) Viewed 11279 times

The built-up EB looks like it has the Siebers Bros. chassis. Bob T. will take note of the rivet baton strips, a feature not often seen. Looks like pretty good work at a glance. While, as stated, I don't believe there is a difference between a prototype E6B and an E7B, there is a difference in the roofs of the Adams and Son casting set for their E6 and E7. This particular EB has the E7 roof (which is more accurate -- the roof for the A&S E6A and E6B is greatly flawed).

DSCF1817.jpg (95.26 KiB) Viewed 11279 times

Jim

[bob turner]

Yes. Rivet strips are impressive. PA - not so much. But save the trucks and gears for the E-7 projects.

[R.K. Maroon]

The PA may be an IMP or other early import, but I'm not sure of that. Is any part of this model made from castings? There is a lot more detail on the sides than you usually see with brass sides (Exhibit A would be the Siebers Bros. sides).

As Bob suggests, the drive appears to be US-made. I have a couple of sets of these drives (with the motor mounted to the truck gearbox) and spur gears on the end:



I am not sure of their origin, other than I got them from Bob T. (he will recognize the photo as his own). They could be Exacta but also have much in common with the drive from the all-cast CLW PA.

The FT side looks like Wentzco, as the A&S FT casting set included cast sides. I would guess that all the B-truck side frames that appear in these photos came from a Wentzco.

[De Bruin]

Wow, does that look noisy! Do these old drives with a big straight cut gear like this have any kind of viability/duration for/in continuous operation?
I don't object to noisy , but you know would like to get at least a couple of hours a year out of these older (potentially less than bullet proof) set-ups.
BTW Great string !

[Nortonville Phil]

Maroon,
.
When I look at that PA it looks like a Cast shell to me because of the thickness of the body sides. At least the nose is a casting for sure. Look at the headlight area where you can see roughness left from the sand casting process. I wonder though if Exacta ever made a copper PA.

[bob turner]

Here is the deal on PAs:

Bob Smith was commissioned by Alco before the first unit was built. He and Winnie were present at the Waldorf Astoria when the real thing was unveiled.

From his masters he made 600 more models for "us".

The first Smith castings were the most accurate PAs ever made in the USA with the possible exception of a scratch built or two. The second run of CLW PAs was wildly inaccurate from the cab doors forward. Whatever that thing is above (no offense) belongs in the brass recycling bin, so that someday it can be made into something with a little class.