They both certainly look kitbashed to some extent. The 0-8-0 appears to have had center rail rollers at one point. The OTR pickups look home made. The wiring is also a bit sloppy but that was probably true on many custom built pieces depending on who did the work. The 4-6-0 doesn't have any provision for center rail pickups and it isn't as obvious how to convert it but I'm sure not impossible. The soldering work on these engines isn't the greatest in spots. It seems like in places where there were larger amounts of metal to heat up, the person who built them either didn't have a hot enough soldering iron/torch or just didn't know what they were doing. Other spots are fine. A few places have come undone so I'll have to fix them. This will require some filing to get rid of the old solder and get back to clean metal. Then I'll braze it together with silver solder. I also plan on redoing the simple wiring to be a little more robust and orderly.
They both appear to be assembled from kits as I can't imagine a company selling built product with sloppy solder work. You never know I guess. Overall it isn't bad. It's just a few places. I'm going to strip them down to bare brass, clean up and construction sloppiness and then repaint and weather them. I have so many other projects in front of them that for now the priority will be just getting them to run. I may just hand off the paint work to a friend who custom airbrushes model airplanes for modelling competitions. I can't touch his skill level and this would be simple compared to what he's used to.
I didn't get a chance to get one of the engines back apart last night to get more pictures. I need more time but this whole full time job thing is really taking up a lot of it!
I just bought an old brass Lobaugh caboose kit completely unassembled. Add it to the things to do list.
Fred
The motors from the period could have been either universal of DC only. The 1941 Lobaugh catalog lists K&D motors and indicates they are universal and can be used with either AC or DC. A check of my early Model Railroaders indicates DC was the voltage of choice for outside third rail. According to the same catalog the voltage requirements were 12-18 volts for the motors.
As for your 4-6-0 the construction of the superstructure - brass rod inside a brass shell definitely rules out the Varney/All Nation 4-6-0 and I'm not aware of any manufacturer who offered kits in this form. Given the look of the engines in the OGR post I wonder if your 4-6-0 is kitbashed as well.
Babbitt Railway Supply is located in Kentucky. A fellow at the Duke Energy Train display in Cincinnati told me they were still making kits. The link below should take you to a list that has more information on them.......
http://www.oscalenews.com/O_suppliers.html
Nope. At least not with what I tested it with. I can't see why it wouldn't run. I pulled it apart and cleaned everything. The brushes look good and are clean as well. The motor also spins pretty well too. I'll have to play with that one again another time. I thought I could tonight but won't get around to it.
Are you saying that the motor wouldn't run on DC either in the locomotive or out of the locomotive?
Bob Nelson
Good luck on this one. Hope someone can give you some help. If I remember correctly, several years back OGR ran a thing on a guy with the outside third rail. Some of those folks should have the archives and can tell you who the guy is. Bet he is a great source for info on those engines. Good luck.
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
I'll try to take a picture of the motor next time it is apart. I might do that tonight.
I tried running it on DC but my small Kato powerpack that I use on small layouts won't do anything. After it gets over about 75% throttle, it goes into protect mode. I have a more powerful transformer I can try out. This little one just doesn't have much power so that might be an issue. I have a modern K-line engine that I converted to DC that runs on it just fine though.
Thanks for your help by the way.
Is there a field winding? That would indicate that it is a universal motor that can run on AC or DC. Otherwise, there should be a field magnet. Have you tried running the motor when it is out of the locomotive? It should run on DC no matter which kind it is.
As you probably gathered from the other thread, I wasn't too happy with my experience at the hobby shop where I bought them.
I took the 4-6-0 apart the other night to clean it up some and see what things would need to be fixed. The boiler isn't cast. It appears to be a solid piece of brass round bar that has brass sheet formed around it. It is quite heavy but not cast. I need to look more closely at the 0-8-0 to see if it is done the same way.
There is no e-unit or equivalent inside. There is only a direct connection to the motor from the track. I am assuming this is DC but am unsure. I know that when trying to run them on AC power, the transformer immediately goes into protect mode. My small DC power pack allows the lights to come on but that's it. The motor does nothing. With enough throttle, the powerpack just goes into protect mode. Admittedly I have only used a small Kato powerpack intended to N or HO scale so maybe it just doesn't have the current needed. I need to get a larger one out the play with. I pulled the motor apart and cleaned it will. The brushes look fine and nothing is frozen on it. The gears show some good wear but I can't visually see any reason why it shouldn't run.
Do you have any idea what type of motors these were?
BTW: I bought at old Lobaugh catalog from 1938 off of ebay. I may convert it into electronic form for archival purposes.
I went over to the 2 rail forum on the other site and I see you have already been there. I'm glad the individual who started the thread on those engines posted pictures of several of them. What really catches the eye on the larger engines is the huge disparity in construction quality between the chassis, superstructure, and tender. After looking at the pictures I think what you have is exactly what I mentioned in an earlier post - an individual who bought off the shelf parts/assemblies and only scratch built what he needed. The superstructures of the 2-10-4 and the 2-8-2 GN, and the Hudson all look as though they were scratchbuilt. The detail work on the Pennsy mountain boiler also looks scratchbuilt. The Pennsy 4-4-2, the 2-8-0, and, of course the 0-6-0 switcher all appear to be kits from top to bottom. The engine tenders give the appearance of kitbashed commercial tenders - note in particular the quality of the tender lines and the details such as the railings when compared to the detail placement on the boilers of the bigger engines..
There were a number of companies that made 2-8-2 engines. The wheels and what I can see of the running gear do not appear to match Lobaugh. The records I have indicates only one company made a 2-10-4 - Scale Model Railways. The only PRR 4-8-2 I can find listed was made by Blum ca. 1958.
Lobaugh is one company whose catalogs show up with a fair degree of regularity on e-bay. The two best years would be 1941 and 1953. Those two cover the range of what was catalogued as offered as far as steam locomotives are concerned. If you want a simple listing of the companies and the steam locomotive kits offered I can post that here. I'll try to post a picture sometime this weekend of pictures of your 0-8-0 and what I think your 4-6-0 might be.
As for uncatalogued Lobaugh one engine of which I'm aware is a 4-6-2T which was made after Rollin had sold the business to others and there is the SP cab forward of which less than a dozen were made before the advent of WWII. There are also a series of Lobaugh engine kits which were offered with upgraded lost wax detail castings in either the late 50's or early 60's. If you are looking for more information on old O scale kits you might want to check the Yahoo O Scale group and post questions there. The OGR Forum also has an O Scale only section as well. My experience with both groups has been positive.
I called Lobaugh Manufacturing in California to ask if they had any old literature. Although the company still technically exists, they are a specialty metal machining company today and are 3 generations out from the days of the trains. The company owner's mother was in the office that day though so I spoke to her. The trains were made by her father who was Rollin Lobaugh. She was only a child back then and although she didn't claim to know much about them, she had no problem listing off many of the items that were produced, many of which she still has. She said she has a bunch of old catalogs and literature. I'm going to call her back to see if she can get me copies. While my engines apparently aren't from Lobaugh, it would still be nice to have their old catalogs archived somewhere for reference. Unfortunately Lobaugh had several items that were never cataloged so it will be pretty hard to figure out what those were. Maybe I'll just start a quest to get all the old info that I can so others can see it.
You are now in the realm of the memories of old men and most of that, unfortuantly, hasn't been written down anywhere. There is the magazine O Scale which, as far as I know, is still being published. The magazine focuses only on O scale and the time and location of O scale only meets are listed. Your best bet would be to try to attend one of the larger ones and look through the literature boxes on the tables for catalogs of the companies I mentioned above. Older issues of O Scale (as in 1980's old) have pictures of engines and cars by early O scale kit manufacturers. You could also check pre 1950 issues of Model Railroader for illustrated ads from these companies.
As an aside - in rereading your first post I note you made mention of the fact that both of the engines have a cast metal boiler. Based on what I know of the listed companies this would suggest the 4-6-0 is the Varney/All Nation engine.
Do you know where I can find some old literature on those companies and their products? There just doesn't seem to be much online. I'd love to know more about my engines but in the end I have no intention of getting rid of them. The 4-6-0 looks like it was built for outside 3rd rail as I can't see a way for center rollers to be installed. The pickups on the 0-8-0 look like they were either an afterthought or there was an option to build it as either an inside or outside pickup. On the 0-8-0 it looks like the pickups were homemade. It appears that there was an original OTR pickup near the front of the engine but it was disconnected and a new one made farther back.
I still haven't run them or even tried to. I have run some continuity tests and determined that the wheels are not insulated. When I run a multimeter test lead to the OTR pickup on the tender and the other lead to the track, I don't get continuity as expected. It is a different story with the engine though. I do get it and it is the same on both engines and tenders. I haven't checked with the tenders attached to the engines as they each use the drawbar as the power connection. Actually now that I think about it, the tender trucks are completely isolated (insulated) from the rest of the tender so it makes sense that I don't get continuity between the track and the OTR pickup. Is there something about these types of motors that would cause me to get continuity between the OTR pickups and the rails?
As a follow up - Lobaugh never made a 4-6-0 nor did Hines or Pearce. The only O scale kit manufacturers I can find with a 4-6-0 are Saginaw (Bill Lenoir 1939-1945) who made a PRR G-5, Jerry White/Rudd (1934-39) a generic 4-6-0, and Varney/General Models Corp/All Nation/Babbitt a 4-6-0 sometimes called a B&O 4-6-0. The tooling was original with Varney (1947), sold to GMC (1947-1950), sold to All Nation(1950-1984), sold to Babbitt(1984 - ?).
What you need to remember about the period was the fact that most of the kits offered by any of the manufacturers were sold in three parts - chassis/running gear, engine superstructure, and tender. Consequently, if you really wanted to have something representing a particular prototype you could mix and match major components from the various manufacturers. Thus it would be very easy for the two engines to have the same drive system but have nothing else in common.
For example, I have a Lobaugh 4-4-0 with a Pearce tender. The original headlight casting was replaced with a headlight mounted out over the boiler front and the position of the steam generator was moved from just in front of the cab to just behind the headlight. The engine has been painted and decaled for the PRR and in Stauffer's book on Pennsy power you can see a picture of a prototype PRR 4-4-0 so configured. The Lobaugh boiler isn't a Belpaire and the Pearce tender doesn't exactly match the heavier modern tender in the picture but the model is as close to the PRR engine as it could be made given that the original builder didn't want to scratch build anything.
Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into that. The place I bought them from wasn't sure who made them. Lobaugh was just their best guess. The drive system is the same between both of the engines so they may be the same manufacturer, whoever that is.
Lobaugh never made an 0-8-0. The engine in the pictures is a heavily kit-bashed Hines/Pearce engine. Heines was the original manufacturer and sometime after WWII they sold the tooling to Pearce. Given the domes and the wheel centers I think it is Hines.
I found a few old outside 3rd rail engines for sale and while I didn't get a couple of them that I wanted, I did end up with 2 really nice pieces. These are supposedly built by Lobaugh in either the late 30's or early 40's but I'm still trying to verify that. The first pics I'm loading are of the 0-8-0 that I got. I also bought a 4-6-0 but I've maxed out my Flickr bandwidth for the month and will have to wait to load those. I bought each one for $125 which seems like a bargain. These are all brass construction and the boilers are a solid casting. They've got some weight to them. I fuly intend to refurbish and repaint them and the Long Island lettering will go. Some may say leave them alone but I have no desire to ever get rid of them but instead make them the highlight of my railroad. Here are the pics of the 0-8-0.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223901423/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223902149/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223903605/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223905505/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223906911/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223908509/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223909917/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223911271/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4224680650/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44365983@N08/4223914785/
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month