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Railcars & Trucks ...
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 Posted: 28 Sep 2008 01:45 pm
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Herb Kephart
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This car was built in the shops of the East Broad Top Railroad (3'gage) in 1924 from pieces salvaged from an old Maxwell automobile. It was called the "Maxwell car" at that time. It was used at various times in its life for track inspection, telephone line maintainance, payroll delivery, and as an ambulance.

While this is not the best of pictures, it is the oldest know photo of the car in its as built condition



Evidently, the Maxwell engine was not up to the job, so in 1928 the shops replaced the engine and transmission with one from a 1924 Nash auto. We don't know if the Maxwell rear was retained at that time, or not. Because the railroad had assembled the Brill gas electric by this time, the Maxwell became M3 and the Brill M1. M2 was a short lived abortion made from an old street car body, the less said about this the better, as it was a total failure.
The M3 ran when the railroad shut down in '56, but was finally  rendered non operable by people fooling with it that didn't know, or care, what they were doing.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a picture of the car prior to the restoration.

A couple years ago, a plan to restore the car, at no expense to the railroad was made by volunteers. While many people lent a hand, the major part of the work (and money) was provided by Larry Freeman, Charlie Wooten, and myself. The car was brought to Larry's shop, and the engine transmission and rear to mine. Everything, and I do mean everything, was rebuilt or replaced.

Engine installed, and new pilot made- taken in Larry's shop



The controls



More pictures of the rear axle rebuild, which had been replaced sometime after the Nash parts were installed, are at General Talk, under the "Oh dear- what have I got myself into" thread, by Yetter_man.

Finished, at the EBT



Coming back to the station after the maiden run. I had the honor of being the first to run down the 7 miles to the picnic grove, and back



Herb:old dude:



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 Posted: 28 Sep 2008 04:02 pm
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ytter_man
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^Woah, i was 100% sure that your avatar piccy was a model! Nice :)

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 Posted: 28 Sep 2008 05:48 pm
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Trebor
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Thanks Herb. Great pictures. I thought it was a model also.



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 Posted: 28 Sep 2008 08:38 pm
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W C Greene
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Here are a couple of more photos from Railroads of Nevada. The first is the Eureka & Palisade railcar, a 3 foot gauge piece of work.



Here is something. It's not really a critter, but Mudge will like it. A standard gauge McKeen car from the Silver Peak RR. This one is a short 40 or so footer and has cooling coils on the roof because it uses distillate to run and it needed to be kept cool in the desert heat.



More will usually follow... Woodie



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 Posted: 29 Sep 2008 12:13 pm
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Dave D
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Make me the third who thought so.:bg:

It SHOULD be a model....Hmmmmmmm.



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 Posted: 29 Sep 2008 02:12 pm
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W C Greene
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OK Dave, why don't you make a model of the M3? It would still be little even in Gn15.

                 Woodhead



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 Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:36 pm
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ytter_man
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Looky what i found!



It's JR Hokkaido's DMV running on a small portion of the Senmo Main Line, from what i'm told.

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 Posted: 30 Sep 2008 11:34 am
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W C Greene
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Now, here is something quite cool. My friend Jim Cooke built this Brill railbus in HO using a Jordan (Highway miniatures) plastic kit which is unobtainable now. The car is dc and is powered with a NWSL "flea" drive. Jim installed a complete interior with a bunch of Preiser figures. She runs great and when Jim takes it to the "club", everybody crowds around to watch her run. Sorry the pix isn't in color, but that just adds to the atmosphere. Bill (Mudge) took the photo some years back.



Sorry, the little photo got posted also. But that's life.   Woodie



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 Posted: 30 Sep 2008 01:46 pm
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Dave D
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All fixed Woodie.



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 Posted: 1 Oct 2008 08:25 pm
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W C Greene
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OK then, shall we continue? Here are some more "vechicles" that may or may not be online elsewhere. However, here they are just for you'all.



The above is a Missouri, Kansas, & Texas inspection car which was powered by a vertical boiler and probably a single cylinder. Mudge told me he made an HO model of this back in the 50's.



Here is the Tijuana Taxi which probably provided a nice, airy ride across the border.



The Unitah Railway had this cool superintendent's car obviously made from a Model T with a neat chain drive to the rear wheels.



And another one from the Uintah Railway, both these cars were 3 foot gauge and great examples of what a dedicated shop crew could do with a little imagination. Maybe somebody will build models of these railcars, I know that I would love to .

                     Boudreaux



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 Posted: 26 Nov 2008 02:44 pm
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ytter_man
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Modern day China:



Didnt one of our German members modeling Romanian logging have something similar? :)

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 Posted: 26 Nov 2008 05:42 pm
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Dave D
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Woodie that MK&T #2 inspection car is very cool!!

Thanks for sharing that.



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 Posted: 6 Dec 2008 06:40 pm
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ytter_man
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Here's one from Syria, any idea what it is? The full article can be found HERE.



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 Posted: 16 Oct 2009 12:49 pm
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Mudge85
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Judging from the windows and the center door it looks as if it got hit front and rear by something square.(_!_)

Bill Caldwell

 

 

 

 

Never look back...something might be gaining on you...my favorite quote from Satchell Paige

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 Posted: 17 Oct 2009 08:22 pm
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W C Greene
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Jake-I know what that is...it's some real funkiness!   Woodie



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 Posted: 11 Nov 2009 08:09 pm
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Huw Griffiths
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Whilst checking out some industrial archaeology websites, I came across this link:

http://www.mylearning.org/image-zoom.asp?jpageid=769&picid=2

It's a photograph of a steam tram, built in Leeds by Kitson. They supplied similar trams to a number of cities in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere.

I don't know whether you'd call them critters - they certainly weren't mainline - but they've always fascinated me anyway!

Regards,

Huw.

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 Posted: 11 Nov 2009 08:38 pm
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Herb Kephart
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Good golly Miss Molly!

That thing deserves inclusion in any critter discussion just on it's funkiness!

That's funky, with a capital F! 

Wonder if they issued gas masks to the passengers on the upper deck?



Herbie:old dude:



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 Posted: 11 Nov 2009 08:52 pm
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Huw Griffiths
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ebtm3 wrote: Wonder if they issued gas masks to the passengers on the upper deck?

No, but the front ends of the upper decks had screens, to stop soot landing on passengers.

Regards,

Huw.

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 Posted: 12 Nov 2009 09:26 am
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Huw Griffiths
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The requirement for screens at the front of steam tram trailers was just one of a whole collection of regulations that British steam tram operators had to obey.

Quite a few of them seem to have been devised specifically to ensure they could never be viable.

Some were so ridiculous that they even passed into folklore - 2mph speed limit in towns - having to have some guy walking in front, carrying a red flag - a maximum of 2 trailers (which was why double deck, bogie cars became popular) - plus onerous requirements about steam and smoke emissions (which was why lots of them had roof condensers and ran on coke).

All in all, the only people who really stood to gain from this nonsense were the owners of horse tramways.

Rules on mainland Europe seem to have been a bit more sensible, with the result that steam trams got bigger and lasted longer. Here's a link to footage of a restored steam tram in Bern, Switzerland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iax79ezuQPM

I'm not sure about the fake sepia effect and Scott Joplin soundtrack - but they're novel.

As for models, steam trams have been neglected by RTR manufacturers, especially in Britain. (I think you can safely ignore the toys with no interiors - but with silly faces, aimed at Th*m*s fans.)

For O-16.5, there are some very nice card kits of Kitsons, produced by Alphagraphix. Other than that, British steam tram modellers are abandoned - I'm sure there are commercial reasons, but it's very frustrating.

I guess I might end up scratchbuilding!

Regards,

Huw.

Last edited on 12 Nov 2009 01:23 pm by Huw Griffiths

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 Posted: 12 Nov 2009 10:01 am
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W C Greene
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Huw-see if you can find a Grandt Line STEAM DUMMY kit. This fine O scale superstructure is made to "cover" their On3.On30 Porter locos to make them more acceptable to "city operation". The dummy looks pretty much like the British tram lokies and may just be what you want. Also, the old San Francisco cable car in O scale is available again from Lindberg. You can find these by Hawk & Testors on the old kit tables. These kits can be "bashed" into a fine representation of a tram also.

In my scale, 1:35/1:32, Airfix made a beautiful old double decker bus used in WW1 London which can be used for this tram, but alas, there is no "dummy" body made in that scale.

                         Woodie



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