Lobaugh Mikado 2023

[bob turner]

Hard to tell them apart - note the cab forward bulkhead:



Tender is a genuine Lobaugh, but with my embossed sides and PSC trucks. The trucks were bargains right up into the 21st century - $23, and easy assembly. No wheels.

[bob turner]

This one is on the cover of one of those neat Monte Vista Publishing soft-cover SP Steam Pictorials. I had no idea the SP ever had an Elesco Feedwater eyebrow on a Mikado, but here it is. Tender was converted from one of those El Paso North Eastern coal burners. I don't think this particular tender has ever been available in O Scale.

The model is from a virgin kit, discovered in a collection in maybe the 1990s along with a Mountain. The kits even had the 1940 bottles of paint, and exquisitely preserved blueprints. I, of course, could not leave them in that condition, and both are now fully assembled.

[R.K. Maroon]

I like that El Paso and Northeastern version. As I understand it, you started with a standard Lobaugh SP 2-8-2 kit. You modified the tender and added the Elasco feedwater heater to match the prototype. Were there other modifications or was the El Paso & Northeastern version really that close otherwise to the Lobaugh kit?

[bob turner]

How did I miss responding to this? Three months ago? I must have been drifting. The tender is entirely scratchbuilt except for trucks and couplers. The locomotive is stock Lobaugh, except for domes and feedwater system, and of course cab wrapper. In my defense, Lobaugh did display models for early catalogs with rivets on the cab.

Oh, and that trailing truck and tail beam always have to be changed - but then, again, Lobaugh did the same thing for his display models. I think I included a shot of that on page one - if not, stand by . . .

Also, I will be bothering you with another Mikado, about to take shape. Maybe by early August, depending on how much bar rail I have left from that twelve foot piece I bought two decades ago when it was six bucks a foot.

[bob turner]

Yes - here is the 1939 catalog photo:



Note rivets on the tank and cab, and the tail beam under the Hodges truck. I use exclusively the CLW or Pearce/Stevenson truck, although my two earliest Mikes have the original Lobaugh or something close. This area of the Mike is a lot like the PA nose - I am a bit OCD'd about it.

[bob turner]

Bump!

Motivation is the #794 thread on OGR, where folks are hoping that Lionel will move the bell on a heavy USRA Mike, add a Vanderbilt tender, and letter it SP. Only maybe two folks have pointed out the vast difference between a Harriman Mike and any USRA variant.

Yes, the Harriman variant has a tapered boiler - but you have to look to see it. And the T&NO Mikes were even more distinct (most of them) from the Pacific Lines MK series.

I did say I had another MK on the drawing boards - but I must finish my Harriman Light Pacific before I start. And bar rail brass tube has become difficult to find and very, very expensive - I think it has increased about five fold in the last twenty years. Still, it is cheaper than buying a new Lionel and 2-railing it. Plus, I have an excellent Mikado mechanism just waiting for a boiler. I am thinking 771, although 794 is a possibility. I have photos of both.

I did promise a shot of a Hines/Pearce Mikado - here is one in progress:



No way this could be mistaken for a Harriman Mike. And looking at it, I am thinking that maybe the USRA Mikes were kind of small . . .

[bob turner]

Bump. This is Art's Lost Wax Lobaugh Mikado:



And its matching tender:



We were having a discussion about the provenance of the fabled Lobaugh "Lost Wax" Mike. I think there is still a lot of fragmentary information about these fine models out there, but it is rapidly being lost. In the late 1980s I tried "interviewing" Al Ellis, the proprietor of Lobaugh in the early 1950s, but was really unable to keep him on track. He did love to talk! At the time I was more interested in the Lobaugh AC-8 of December 7, 1941 fame.

We can guess that there are as many AC-8s out there as there are Lost Wax Mikes - as in maybe twelve of each. You can see from the above thread that I have my share of fragments, including that beautiful mechanism you see under Maroon's All Nation boiler (thanks, Jim).

Here is my guess - We know that Lobaugh produced quite a few SP Mikados before WWII - starting in 1938 or so. These were, and are, superb models, and are more accurate in overall shape than some recent imports. Then, in 1950 or so, after Rollin Lobaugh backed out of the train business, Al Ellis started to work on the lost wax Mike - and apparently got far enough so that all the pieces could sort of be put in a box. That is as far as it got - you can see a finished version in that semi-useless 1953 catalog. I think I have personally seen three finished versions, often of the quality you see above.

The differences are stark- the frame is no longer a red art bronze casting, but two pieces of machined quarter-inch brass. Wheelbase is just enough shorter so that Berkshire rods do not fit. Cylinder block is two lightweight but beautiful castings. Drivers were still cast iron.

I do not know if the boiler was a Cusper Brothers product - heavy spun brass with proper taper - but I suspect it was, with 75 or so being produced for the proposed kit.

A lot of it went to "Spot Hobbies" in Kansas City. I think Henry Pearce wound up with most of the casting masters, and maybe even the parts from "Spot." Henry supplied me with a lot of the parts, but not a boiler.

It would be neat to have some more info added. I am not sure the six or so of us can do that, but maybe if you have a friend in the know, you could relay a bit more history to be appended to this thread?

[bob turner]

Carey has added some information, directly from Al Ellis. I am going to take the highlights, and start with my comments. The original could be reproduced here, but better to summarize.

My impression - Lobaugh postwar, and before Ellis took over, consisted of the Jabelmann Challenger, a slightly upgraded Berk, a new USRA style boiler for the B&O Pacific, the Greenbrier, and a lost-wax 1/4" scale 0-6-0 SP switcher.

The prewar Vanderbilt tender was cheapened and made into something one would find on the KCS. The prewar underframe was retained.

My interest in Lobaugh freight cars is a bit attenuated - I will leave that to others.

So Al said:

He personally machined 200 sets of Challenger and Greenbrier frames, while employed by Lobaugh. Then it is not clear, but from his writing it appears that he did the Climax, the Lost Wax Mike (only 18 delivered) and upgraded the 10.000 gal and J&L tanks with lost wax details.

He reports that he improved the switcher with three piece sand domes - if true, I have yet to see a single one. He said that the Mike smokebox front was also 3-piece. I have only seen the one piece version. He may be alluding to the headlight and bracket.

He mentioned that the Lost Wax Mike used the switcher cab. I can see that; SP cabs are all quite similar. I have never been totally happy with the postwar cabs on any Lobaugh model locomotive, and always make a new wrapper. The proper 120 C tender for the Mike was available pre-war in 2 1/8" tube, with rivets on one end. The postwar tender used 2" bar rail, and an incorrect (for SP) oil tank. Al says that this tender was supplied with the Mike. I had heard that Max Gray imported a stack of tenders for the Mike - if you would like to know what that looked like, the Heeber Creeper Mogul has one behind it (not sure where it is today - maybe Rio Grande Scenic?). The 2-10-2s came from Baldwin with a similar tender - not the best-looking Vanderbilt tender in my opinion.

I am going to stick with the idea that 75 boilers were spun up, and a like number of frames. The masters for all the parts still exist.

For me, other than recording this for semi-posterity, I am only marginally interested in a pristine original Lost Wax Mike. With the castings I can buy today, I can make a better looking model using a Berkshire mechanism. But I do have two frames from the original effort. I suppose they are now antiques?

Al does mention some discomfort at the end of his tenure. I think it was an involuntary bankruptcy, but not sure. Those are indeed painful.

[Carey Williams]

Mid 1950's Max Gray opens the flood gates to decent RTR pieces from Japan...at not much more than Lobaugh kits ....
"Most" the hobby was happy with rtr if they could get it ... Bye bye Lobaugh for the most part ...There was very little $$ to be made ....Al gets a real job outside the hobby ...

Cheers Carey

[bob turner]

Bump again.

Not sure we covered it, but the Stevenson SP Mike is related to the Lobaugh Lost Wax Mike. Bob is in North Carolina, and is currently making me some SP check valves. I am fresh out of a lot of building stuff, so I think Bob is going to cast some lag clamps and washout plugs for me.

As far as I can tell, the Mike kit is still in stock. Bob has photos in his catalog - I will ask if I can reproduce them here.

As to my latest, I decided on #771, with an added B-L feedwater heater. I am down to piping that, and the number boards and markers. I will get the promised photo as soon as I get those few things stuck on.

[SWrailroader]

Bob,
I have the a complete Stevenson Mike. It is a very nice Kit except the two piece steam I think needs work to make it look decent. I also found a partial kit from Bill Davis at a show. If you need some parts, let me know. I certainly owe you some parts.
Rob

[bob turner]

I am closing in on another Mike - this one is atop a mechanism Maroon sent last year. I still need injector down lines on one side, smokebox handrails, maybe a couple steam lines to the appurtenances, and of course a bell, whistle, and pops. And a generator. And paint.

My digital camera just stopped talking to the big Dell computer, so these are iPad photos. I am just beginning to learn how to manipulate them, so one photo is a bit better than the other.

The model is close to Victoria's Secret - #771. I may have mentioned that before - the locomotive as it exists has a big empty spot where I put the giant B-L feedwater heater - and of course the tender has yet to be constructed. Most TNO tenders had dog houses, and none had spoked wheels.

Herewith:

[bob turner]

Other side:



This AM I am adding cooling coils and train lines to a Harriman ten-wheeler. Just had to take a break.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Most TNO tenders had dog houses, and none had spoked wheels.

I am a fan of that look - leaf spring arch bars with spoked wheels; many of the CVRR tenders had them and I just have never gotten round to matching those up.