1941 City of Los Angeles

[R.K. Maroon]

I am starting a project to build an O-scale version of the 1941 City of Los Angeles streamliner. This project actually started about this time last year with the arrival of this AB set of E6 locomotives:









These are Adams and Son units, painted by Allan Wehrle and graciously sold to me by him for finishing. I have been sitting on them for while because the choice of how to power them was not straightforward. Fate recently supplied a break-through so I am now off and running. I will take and post photos of the drive options next.

This project is going to include one and maybe two sets of passenger cars, so this is project is going to go on for a long time. I will post from time to time as I go. With luck, it will end with a video of a long train of cars snaking behind a gleaming, growling pair of E-units.

Fun Stuff
Jim

[Strummer]

Looking forward to this project...

Mark in Oregon

[Jay Criswell]

Jim,

Boy, do I have a motor for you to use. I bought it years ago on ebay without really knowing what I'd purchased. It's a Pittman DC-8 and it almost looks like what might be called a transition motor, i.e. half open frame half can. The printing on the end of the box in now pretty much faded away but I do remember it being rated for 12 volts and has 7 poles. As far as the size, I'll let you extrapolate using the attached photos. As you probably know, each square on the green mat is one inch.

The motor does run but eats up gobs of current. At 12 volts it draws 1 3/4 amps and the truth is, it probably doesn't have the power of the better Pittman motors being produced today.








Jay

[R.K. Maroon]

Holy cow, Jay -- That thing is a monster. The output appears to be 1/4" diameter (or maybe that's an illusion?). As you will see, I have original motors for these two COLA E6s, but I do have at least one other Adams E6 that I don't have a motor for (photos soon). Let me know if you're looking to find that bad boy a good home -- I'll make a point of putting it to use just to give the guys something to talk about.

As mentioned, I will post photos of the drive situation with these units next. I want to get everything cleaned up before I take photos.
Jim

[aterry11]

WOWEEEE , neat project, awesome start on the shells are you sure Mr. Jay that's not an aquarium powerhead motor? I know back in the day all the industrial aquarium powerheads had pittman motors and most of the ones I had to clean and lube were monsters. if I removed the cover they looked similar.

[Jay Criswell]

You know, it might be. I have no idea.

Yep, output shaft is 1/4" in diameter and 1 3/4" long.

Jay

[ScaleCraft]

Holy cow, Jay -- That thing is a monster. The output appears to be 1/4" diameter (or maybe that's an illusion?). As you will see, I have original motors for these two COLA E6s, but I do have at least one other Adams E6 that I don't have a motor for (photos soon). Let me know if you're looking to find that bad boy a good home -- I'll make a point of putting it to use just to give the guys something to talk about.

As mentioned, I will post photos of the drive situation with these units next. I want to get everything cleaned up before I take photos.
Jim

It's motor like that what cause the mainline Selenium Rectumfriers to smoke at Stiver's when Casey is at the helm.

[Pacific Limited]

What a cool project

Your photos look marvelous man!

[R.K. Maroon]

Thanks for all the nice comments regarding this project. I am hoping the full-on public display will help drive me to get this one complete. So far, so good -- made a lot of progress in the first week.

The COLA AB set came with an All Nation drive for the A-unit, four original Adams and Son truck gearcases (the four on the right in the photo below), and a few other original drive components -- none of it installed.



I like the All Nations drive, but I really wanted the A and B to both be powered. More importantly, I always try to refurbish back to the original drive whenever possible. But as it was, there wasn't enough of the original drive to power both units, and two of the four gearcases were not serviceable:



At about the same time Allan sold me these units, Dave ScaleCraft called from a train auction to tell me that there was an Adams and Son E6 for sale. Dave kindly acted as an agent for me and even packed and shipped it. Here is what arrived:





I will discuss this model more fully later, but for now I just want to mention the drive, which was close to original but with a big can motor instead of the wound-field motors these originally came with. I don't have a photo of the drive as it arrived with this one (and it is now disassembled), but seeing it reminded me of this:



This was actually the first step in this project, though I did not even know what it was at the time it arrived. Bob Turner was cleaning out one of his parts bins about three years ago, found this, and sent it to me knowing I would like it (which of course I did). It turns out to be the original motor and gear tower for the Adams E6. Cool -- So not long after the COLA E6s arrrived last year, I had all the parts for one complete drive. Actually, I would have had most of two, but the gears in the "chrome unit" (as I call it) had a different gear ratio than the standard drive, so those can't be part of the mix here.

More in my next installment
Jim

[aterry11]

Mr. Maroon, what year COLA you going for ? I assume the early skirted consists before the rebuilds? Another question is your time frame before the joint Challenger COLA consist? In my researching have not been able to definitively tell if the joint train was run in 2 or more sections, as the Challenger was all coach? and the COLA Pullman, but with E6's would have to be the earlier, guess I just answered my own question. Look forward to this build it will be stupendous do you have a list of cars your looking for, would gladly help in the search the more eyes the better.

[R.K. Maroon]

A rough and brief history of the equipment list for the COLA is as follows:

1936: M-10000
1938: EMC E2 with new trainset
1941: EMC E6 with new trainset
sometime post-war: E8s
1955: Dome cars
1956: Combined with Challenger.

As I have E6's the prototypical choice -- which matters when it can -- was the 1941 trainset. More on this later, as it is a long and involved subject.

Jim

[bob turner]

I make no pretense at prototype accuracy, but this passenger truck intrigued me. It is probably E-6 era.

[R.K. Maroon]

Interesting trucks, indeed, Bob. I have not seen any like it. As it is, finding the trucks for the passenger cars for the 1941 COLA trainset might be the biggest challenge of the project (other than just getting it done, of course). Here is a shot from an HO model of the train set:



Like the trucks on Bob's car, not like anything I have seen. Of course, there will be compromises everywhere on this project (as with all my projects), so if I get so far that I have an otherwise ready-to-go trainset and no matching trucks, then I will squint my eyes a bit and install some other set of trucks. The line from Shawshank Redemption comes to mind: "How often do you really look at a man's shoes?" For me, it will pass the 30-mph test.

But of course, the correct trucks would be better!
Jim

[bob turner]

I might have a solution - if you do not mind one-piece sideframes. Get me some really good photos and a few critical dimensions, and I will get an estimate.

For that strange sideframe, we made a dental master to avoid shrinkage, made some waxes, and Dennis cast me enough. I sent him the mold - it may be at Stevenson's.

I used to think all my trucks had to be fully sprung - but now I really like the older bronze stuff.

[R.K. Maroon]

Bob, I will see what information I can find on those trucks. Maybe I have to buy the HO model just to take measurements.

So I was wrong about not having photos of the drive of that chrome E6:



Despite being well packed by Dave, the motor was rattling around inside the shell on arrival. Note the mount bent all to heck:



It didn't take long to figure out how it was supposed to go:



The only way the modeler could to get that giant can motor installed was to put it on that thin mount at a rakish angle. OK for cruising the layout maybe (though the offset on the drive shaft seems a bit much to me), but it was too much weight to take the normal bounce and vibe of shipping across the continent. This one will eventually get reworked, but I did get the general idea of how these drives were originally setup from looking at this one.

Jim