Lobaugh Berk 2023

[bob turner]

I have decided to re-do this thread - the original can be found maybe a couple years ago, and some of the photos may have dropped out. The original is 23 pages, so maybe I can hold this one to several pages, with Shutterfly's help.

My initial motivation was to help Dick Garberson, who has acquired an eBay basket case locomotive without gears and without tender. It might have been one of those deals where the seller disassembled and separated the parts - either way, Dick needs a few parts and a tender.

Secondary motivation is to save us from a lack of recent participation. I am not soliciting any participation, but would welcome it if you have photos or useful Lobaugh information.

To start, the stock Lobaugh Berkshire, as it exists in my collection:

[R.K. Maroon]

That's a fine looking Berkshire, Bob. My eyes wanted a closer look, so I downloaded the image and cropped it:



Well, that's only a little better, but it I can get it to fill the screen by opening it with my computer's image viewer (or by right-clicking on the image here and selecting "open image in a new tab")

By complete chance I have one with a very similar road number:

[steamaheadstephen59]

I can't help but like the Lobaugh Berkshire. I to bought one minus the tender on eBay a long time ago, where do all these tenders go any way, thats three locos I have without tenders.

[bob turner]

Tenders show up.. Problem is, everybody wants $150 for a fifty dollar tender needing restoration.

Maroon and I often ruminate on the similarities between MoPac/ IGN and CNW Berks. Mine has a new cab, extra dome on the MoPac version, doghouse on the CNW tender (which is too short by a bunch) and saddlebags over the sander valves. My MoPac is also painted B&O Blue (I have no idea what Jenks blue is, or whether MoPac ever had a blue steamer - but I saw a T&P steamer in blue and silver once a long time ago in El Paso.

Herewith:

[bob turner]

By the by, I got the idea from my old friend Hal Sharkey (now gone for two decades). He had done an identical conversion. He was a way better builder than I , and I got a lot of inspiration from him. He was also a Marine aviator, and flew the piston Corsairs off carriers. I met him through Doc Harold Peters, who was Orange County's transcendent collector of old Lobaugh. He literally had a warehouse full of O Scale, and parts everywhere.

[E7]

As Berkshires go, my favorite would be the OMI P&LE dark olive green version.

[ScaleCraft]

As Berkshires go, my favorite would be the OMI P&LE dark olive green version.

Lionel 726 with Baldwin Disc drivers and cast twelve wheel tender.

[bob turner]

Even though I titled it Lobaugh, I think an Overland or USH or scratch Berk would be welcomed here. The P&LE was never my favorite, but I sure liked the Lima Superpower Berks. I will post one soon.

For now, Maroon and I are having a discussion of the IGN Berks. I have the Pearsall Berk book, and may review it this evening, but for now, I believe the differences for IGN are - single sand dome, oil tender, maybe no sander saddles. The basic differences from CNW go just a tad deeper - the cabs, maybe the smokebox length (I need to check that) the trailing truck, and the tenders. Mainline Modeler did drawings of almost all of these, and I believe a collection of MM drawings is essential if you scratchbuild. I have two huge coffee table books with those drawings in (ugh) HO Scale.

Okay, enough words. International Great Northern, a MoPac subsidiary:



Needs a better tender, and obviously paint. And a motor?

[J. S. Bach]

Note that the flat has been two-railed or replaced with a two-rail version.

EDIT: It works! Now I can bore all y'all with my photos!!

Thank you Bob T for the guidance (by clicking on your one of your Berk images and finding out how it is hosted and displayed)

[De Bruin]

Congrats JS B, looks good!
Memory loop here for one of these.
Back in the late eighties, my club in Dallas (finally) finished their very long and very large modular layout, based on scaled-up N-Scale modular specs. Once in operation everyone brought out their “goodies;” mostly short lived bon-fires of imported brass, Atlas-Roco, AHM twinky failures etc. trying to pull a S*** pot full of heavy, dry, old school freight cars. *phew* smoke detectors were set off at shows multiple times though thankfully no sprinklers. ….Duh.
Ah… but one of our members George Potter ( nice guy who later also worked with the McKinney Ave Trolley group) brought a locomotive his late Dad had built over many years, as he could afford too financially, in one of those home-made wooden boxes, unpainted. A Lobaugh ‘J’ class Berk’.
I was blown away with the look of the build, the prototype appearance, even more so by how the model slayed anything on the layout tractive power-wise, walking away with 40-plus of those dry lead-sled cars and running for hours, not a crawler either with impressive track speed. I couldn’t get George to sell it to me, which I appreciated then and now more so as I really couldn’t afford it then anyway, and hell it was his lasting connection to his late father.
I love these, certainly making an impression on me as novice then to two rail O scale and one I still keep. Typical old school model though, obscure prototype, small class of 12 on C&NW, usually assigned to coal trains on the Peoria Division, albeit it’s design can be the basis for B&A, MP’s and other classes too.
What a great model by Lobaugh though.

[R.K. Maroon]

Good story, Pete. I remember vaguely that the old timers in your club (now my club) would talk about how the new stuff from overseas didn't run like the old Lobaughs. It didn't mean anything to to me at the time. This would have been the late 1980s.

Here is some history: Lobaugh introduced the Berkshire in their 1940 catalog:



Note the reference to a #3 K&D motor. The Lobaugh-branded motors came later. The presence of a K&D might be one hint that you have pre-war Berk. Those #3 wound-field motors are current hogs. Well, I guess they all are.



This is easy to miss today, but Lobaugh makes a big deal here about the $175 price of this locomotive relative to other models available at the time, and attributes this to "volume production".



As with many manufacturers at the time, Lobaugh offered the model both as a kit and RTR. Further, the kits came with three levels (between no-parts-machined at $61.50 and chassis-fully-assembled at $104.50.

The "volume production" claim sticks in my mind. I have a memory that in some later year Lobaugh states that the Berkshire is their top selling model. To my brother's point, it is very odd that a model of an obscure prototype of a granger railroad (among so many granger railroads) would be a top seller. Maybe the low price really was was a big factor here.

Jim

[healey36]

Curious - what does “K&D Motor with all drivers sprung” mean?

[bob turner]

K&D refers to the motor manufacturer - I have forgotten, but I think Kendricks and Davis? Lobaugh put their own labels on them after a while.
Sprung drivers are a "thing" in 2-rail. The axle has little bearings that ride in a slot, and move up and down with typically a coil spring pressing downward. The technical terms are "Pedestal" which is the slot itself, "Pedestal Binder" - the little keeper that holds the bottom of the slot together, and "Driving Box" - the axle bearing. The Church and Kratville books are great references.

Pete mentioned the B&A - the Lobaugh is most accurate as a CNW or THB - the MoPac and IGN are relatively easy. The Superpower versions are not quite as accurate, but close enough for guys like me. There were two versions of the B&M, and of course the B&A versions and the original Lima #1, which are slightly different. Let me entertain you with the one the SP purchased from B&M, and subsequently modified. There are no known photos of the prototype showing a retained Walschaerts gear after feed water and tender mods, but there is also nothing that indicates it isn't true to a prototype.

The most serious flaw is the length of the smokebox, which I am sure you, and definitely I, can overlook:



I specialize in these tenders. You cannot see it, but I simulated a welded seam about a scale foot up from the bottom. This is a 120 SC - converted from a 90 SC, originally supplied with Mallet Moguls and Mallet Consolidations. Also note the sand dome, which is not correct for the SP version, since it was supplied with the group with six axle tenders - at least one wound up on the Santa Fe. Next photo will show that corrected.

[R.K. Maroon]

That's a very nice model or a very unusual prototype, Bob. I don't recall seeing that one before. I do know that the B&M Berkshires are distinctive for their coffin feedwater heaters, and it appears from your model that the SP keep this feature. How much of the original model were you able to use and how much did you have to fabricate to get to the B&M/SP version?

Jim

[J. S. Bach]

That's a very nice model or a very unusual prototype, Bob. I don't recall seeing that one before. I do know that the B&M Berkshires are distinctive for their coffin feedwater heaters, ...snip... Jim

I have also seen that as "Coffing" although I suspect that is wrong.