Thanks Bob. I seem to recall Maroon posting example photo(s) of the Penn-Erie drive sometime in the past, perhaps before the last purge. I have since acquired two such Penn-Erie models with those “factory” drives, described in Carey’s U-Boat post as rubber-band though here more accurately O-ring driven. The motor to truck pully system employed is clever, albeit tad “Rube Goldberg-ish” (opinion) and varies in performance and noise apparently from one example to another. I apologize if I’ve posted this earlier, I know I put it up on OGR recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfU17o ... 7b&index=4Jim has filmed a similarly powered example U-25B of his at speed in the above DFW club video on You-Tube (around 3:56) with drive-noise worthy of a 50’s era science fiction movie death ray. Ironically my other factory drive LWS (which I'll post later) is also a U25B.
So here’s an outlier to the usual Penn-Erie catalog of U-Boat castings, yet still a contemporary in GE’s catalog from the early sixties to the end of the U-series, not-unlike the E-44’s though on the other end size-wise.
This example center cab, specifically the last of three versions of this long running (1940 to 1976) 65-ton series, likewise most modern looking with a narrow hood and lower cab and large end platforms, than the two earlier 65-ton models which look like typical 44 ton-ers. Although somewhat rare in class one service, they made their mark mostly in short-line and thrived as industrial “critters” for a full gamut of industries, government authorities etc. with an Italian steel conglomerate owning the largest fleet at 41 units across five subsidiaries.
Despite the ultra small car body space in 1:48 this guy has essentially the same factory O-ring drive option as the larger U-Boats; with a motor(above, on top of the right truck) having an extended cross slotted shaft/pulley connected to a pulley on the lower level drive shaft driving both trucks.
The truck side-frames on this one look like something out of the Wagner or Q-Car catalog.
I originally saw this on E-bay but lost out in the bidding to Sarge, who kindly horse-traded it to me later, including the spare O-rings seen here. It runs well but is indeed noisy and has a high starting speed. Me thinks it would benefit from a pair of magic carpets like the old Q-car steeple cabs instead. Needs glazing, additional detailing and a second coupler etc.
Also thinking about a paint scheme too, leaning towards the Western Rwy. of Cuba (Occidentales) but have no idea what that looked like, though they bought theirs new in 1960 so its the correct version and I might be able to find a later shot of it in its “ commie pajamas” which would definitely make for another weird post on the "Paint Shop" string.
