Pennsylvania Railroad Sharks by Jack Bramble

[Carey Williams]

Hello all

Hope your new year will be healthy and happy.

You may enjoy seeing the Sharks built by Jack Bramble circa 1950....body galvanized sheet metal , frame brass , 17/64ths scale, outside third rail operation .
Steel spring / rubber belt drive ( think Athearn before Athearn ) .
Pulling Pomona streamlined cars + Lobaugh express refer

Please see link

https://youtu.be/Lr_yEDVF8MM


Cheers Carey

[Dennis Holler]

Those are some nice looking locos!

[bob turner]

The Sharks are stunningly good! Doing sheet metal Diesels is not nearly as easy as a steam boiler or tender - soldering those batts on is almost as difficult as getting the rivets on them. If you haven't seen Carey's P5a video, it should pop up as you view the Sharks.

Allan Wehrle and I were going to do the P5a in cast aluminum - I waited too long to make the masters, and Allan moved to Kansas City where firing up a furnace was no longer a good idea. I do have an aluminum roof casting that he did, for an FT, and some copies of Lobaugh cattle car sides. Allan would use cylinder heads from lawn mower engines as an aluminum source, and he got good results. He did some nice bronze side frames for me - seems like a decade ago.

[R.K. Maroon]

Neat models, Carey. Nice that there is a place where these outside-third-rail locomotives can run.

I mostly think of the Baldwin sharks as freight locomotives, but I do recall that the Pennsy had passenger versions.

Finally, note the Penn-Erie employed a similar belt drive:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bngx2jafsc9se7knvqpqq/Penn-Erie-Drive-Rebuild-Complete-01.jpg?rlkey=bsjcp71nhzb6lpq3hxr9p1auo

This drive is operable, but it makes a ridiculous amount of noise and does not run well as slow speed. It could be made viable with some serious rework, but it would be easier to stuff a CLW drive into the model, were one so inclined. Here is the host model:


https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/damtdvj6429622qiawjhf/Penn-Erie-U25B-PRR-2500_03.jpg?rlkey=x03u7fleszaswg9e89an2r3z6

[up148]

Rubber band drives. I haven't seen any of those in O scale at all. My 1st HO train set (1958) had rubber band drives. I believe it was pulled by an Athearn F loco. Painted for the Milwaukee Road lightning stripe. The Athearns used real rubber bands (black) rather than your O'ring type bands.

[Carey Williams]

Nice belt drive. That white nylon gear....is it holding up ? Some version of that plastic grows brittle and breaks
Bramble used steel spring drive going back to 1933 with Class O electric .. continuing with his class P ...

Double gear reduction down to one axle ...with the steel springs driving the other axles .
I'll post a link to see the other Bramble engines in action
Cheers Carey