Help Needed With Dimensions for a circa 1950s B & O BOX CAB DIESEL

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have information on the box cab diesels that B & O operated in the late '40s and early 50s between Sparks and Moncton, MD? I am trying to build something to approximate the original and have only one picture recently found on the Internet. It is difficult to estimate the length since the picture is an angling front view along one side. Judging from the size of the door and windows, the unit appears to be about 50 feet long on two trucks, two wheels on a side per truck. I have been able to find some drawings with dimensions of some versions of this diesel, but they depict a shorter unit. It appears that these versitile units were modified for quite a varity of uses.

If anyone can steer me toward a possible source of dimension detail for the B&O unit that served rural Maryland between Sparks and Moncton, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.......Bill

[Anonymous]

Do you have the picture you found on the internet?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I do....tried to "paste" here but the jpeg image will not paste in. I am new to the "forum" format. I'll try to send it by clicking on your email icon....Bill

[Anonymous]

I sent you an email and thought perhaps I can also post here.

There are third party hosting sites on the internet that you can "Upload" the image to and recieve a [IMG***]this is my picture[/IMG***] code that you can paste into your forum post for that specific picture. Here are three examples I know of:

Image Shack

Photobucket

Rail Images

On google you can find these and more sites who host images. Some are free and others you have to pay money. Usually there is a certain limit on how many times a photo can be viewed per month on the free accounts.

I am familiar with Monkton and Sparks area in Maryland. There is a Blue Mountain Quarry there. I dont know if it is still operational but there is alot of agriculture in that part of the state.
Good Luck!

[ndbprr]

I could be very wrong so you need to confirm this but I beleive that was a straight Ingersoll Rand diesel and one of the first. MDC used to make one many years ago. mine has a built in set of spring loaded pads with sandpaper disks on the ends to keep track clean. It is geared very slow. If it isn't right it would be a very good starting point. You might find one on EBay.

[Anonymous]

Here are some links which contains the image of the Boxcab#50 There are other boxcabs in the pages provided but am continuing to hunt the internet for this engine.

http://berliner-ultrasonics.home.att.net/boxcbo50.html

http://berliner-ultrasonics.home.att.net/boxcbo50.html#50notes

http://www.thetrainmuseum.org/rails-2.htm

http://www.trainweb.org/jimrail/roster.htm
1200 EMC Boxcab 1800 1935 Ex-B&O 50 to Alton 50


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_1800_hp_B-B#B.26O_50

That is all the useful pages I could find on the Boxcab #50.

It appears that this engine is now at the St. Louis Museum of Transport in (Where else?) St. Louis Missouri. Perhaps a staff worker may be willing to provide you with measurements as this engine appears to have been repainted and kept in her orginal configuration.

[Anonymous]

Here is the image.

Note that the creator of this thread is the sole owner of the photo, I make no claim to ithis photo. It does not cost anything to host it on my Image Shack.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if anyone is near St. Louis or actually works at the museum who may be willing to furnish measurements sought by Mr. Bill bear?

[Jetrock]

Whoa...that's a pretty serious boxcab! A better starting point for such a beast might be a Walthers doodlebug, with a re-done exterior shell--the MDC boxcab is way, way too short!

It looks older than 1950's--more like the original generation of boxcabs from the mid-1930's.

[Anonymous]

It was built around 1937 from what I can tell on the pages. Apparently this engine was equipped with a different front end and hauled some serious passenger trains for some time.

I think two roundhouse boxcabs can be combined to create this unit but I am not qualified on this kind of kitbash.

[SSW9389]

B&O #50 was built in 1935 and is a contemporary of Santa Fe's Amos & Andy #1A and #1B and EMC demonstrators 511 and 512. These five box cab locomotives were the first seperate diesels designed to haul passenger trains as opposed to being built into their trains like the Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr. And yes you can still see B&O 50 at the Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, Missouri. [8D]

QUOTE: Originally posted by HighIron2003ar

It was built around 1937 from what I can tell on the pages. Apparently this engine was equipped with a different front end and hauled some serious passenger trains for some time.

I think two roundhouse boxcabs can be combined to create this unit but I am not qualified on this kind of kitbash.

[SSW9389]

B&O #50 went to the Alton in 1940 and was renumbered as Alton #100. It was retired by the GM&O in 1/57, repainted as B&O #50 and donated to the National Museum of Transportation. It was not hauling anything in Maryland in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Source X2233.

[SSW9389]

B&O owned one 60 Ton Alco-GE-IR box cab diesel built in1925. The unit started out as #1, was renumbered to #195 in 1942, then #8000 in 1957. The unit was retired and donated to the National Museum of Transportation in 1959. Data from X2234.

The Museum notes that this locomotive was the second successful diesel in operation (after CNJs) and that this locomotive is not normally on display.

[M636C]

This unit, B&O 50, was built to the same dimensions as the Santa Fe "Super Chief" units 1A and 1B, and dimensions of those appear in "Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail" by Worley and in "Santa Fe's Early Diesel Daze" (sic) by Mc Call. These books might be in a large public library. These were effectively the first "E units", being 1800 HP. The Santa Fe units had additional decorative bodywork when built, but one operated post WWII as no 2611 looking much like B&O 50 except that it had Blomberg (F unit) trucks.

Peter