A lot of tourist lines I have been to have pieces of these kinds of engines around, usually not much left. They are very small compared to a full size locomotive, but interesting nonetheless.
wjstix BTW since you're "minoring in O scale" Atlas used to make an O scale 6-wheel Plymouth. I think I still have one somewhere packed away from the seventies. Cost about $15 new as I recall.
BTW since you're "minoring in O scale" Atlas used to make an O scale 6-wheel Plymouth. I think I still have one somewhere packed away from the seventies. Cost about $15 new as I recall.
alco's forever!!!!! Majoring in HO scale Minorig in O scale:)
Thanks for all the great info everyone. I think I will continue with my project. Right now I have one plymoth tore down and remotored with a new can motor. I also cut out the grill and added a brass grill and I am thinking of cutting out all the door grills too and replace with brass grill. The hustler has been stripped and the ernst gearing installed. Runs awesome. It was a bit of work to get running smooth but well worth it. It has a plow attached to the front of it right now but will be a removable item to help plow the trackage around the shops. The second plymoth is in the process of stripping 4 layers of paint off it. The previous owner painted it with a brush so it went on way heavy. This one had a lot of extra detail parts added to it and it looked kinda cool. All run really good.. the non can plymoth creeps along really slow.(I was kind of supprised). Well back to studying for recurrent training. Hopefully next week I will be back working on them.
cacoleSome of the old AHM, Model Power, and Athearn locomotives were oversized because the electric motors used in them were too large to fit in a properly proportioned shell.
Here's an example. The fat engine on the left is an old 1960's model from Athearn. The one on the right is a 21st-century P2K. Both are GP-9's, so you can see the liberty Uncle Irv took to get the motor drives in. The very same motor was used in the Hustler, so that was also a wide-body engine. Athearn used the same shell for both gear-drive and rubber-band-drive engines.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
The Plymouth most likely has a prototype but I would venture to say that the Hustler is probably just a little on the imaginary side. In the 1950s good ol' Uncle Irv took a few liberties with designs in order to figure out what could be done with some of the motors he felt compelled to utilize in his manufacturing endeavors!
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Autobus Prime I think a 44 tonner, an end-cab switcher, or a small road-switcher would be more typical. A logging line with enough traffic to dieselize would probably have relatively heavy traffic. The McCloud River, for instance, used Baldwin road switchers. An RS1 would be a good pick. You can still use the critters to switch the paper mills or other industries.
I think a 44 tonner, an end-cab switcher, or a small road-switcher would be more typical. A logging line with enough traffic to dieselize would probably have relatively heavy traffic. The McCloud River, for instance, used Baldwin road switchers. An RS1 would be a good pick. You can still use the critters to switch the paper mills or other industries.
I agree with Autobus, but I lean more heavily toward an end-cab switcher such as EMD's NW-2 or SW-1200 for "mainline" service on a dieselized logging railroad.
Diesels with "B" (two powered axles) and smallish center-cab "B-B" (two bogies with two powered axles each) arrangements were more typical of plant switchers which may have only 150 to 600 h.p. These locomotives had good tractive effort for their size but at the cost of low speed. For any distant run, companies preferred more powerful locomotives of around 1000 horsepower or more.
"C" type (three powered axles) and "D" type (four powered axles) arrangements weren't common. The overwhelming majority of plant switchers had "B" and "B-B" configurations.
Mark
Not precisely what the OP was looking for, but the prototype for my logger was powered almost exclusively by 4-wheel diesel 'critters' when I rode it in 1964. It had been running wood-burning Baldwin 0-4-2Ts, but converted in 1959.
The 762mm Kiso Forest Railway continued in operation until 1975. By that time, roads had reached the cuttable wood and the last unreachable stands had been logged off.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
rs2mike Thanks for the info. I am in the process of restoring a couple and weathering them. I just wanted to know if they really existed. When were they produced? Could they be used for a small logging line?
Thanks for the info. I am in the process of restoring a couple and weathering them. I just wanted to know if they really existed. When were they produced? Could they be used for a small logging line?
rs2m:
Some small shortlines dieselized with critters. A few like the Narragansett Pier kept using them. The WA&G dieselized with small Whitcombs, then upgraded to monstrous 120 ton center-cab switchers (very stylish ones too).
You can also assume there's enough traffic to pay the bills, but not enough to upgrade, and keep on running steam until the 1960s or even later, as happened in a few places.
rr: Some places are even lower-budget. There are a lot of winch-type car positioners, of course, but the Greenville Steel Car Co (I think) had a Farmall tractor fitted with a huge weight and a coupler.
Some of the old AHM, Model Power, and Athearn locomotives were oversized because the electric motors used in them were too large to fit in a properly proportioned shell.
The AHM Plymouth is probably oversized, mine always looks on par with a large hood unit (just shorter) which would be way too big. They also run a warp speed and can do a neat Lionel imitation around curves except they won't roll off - they get up on two wheels, loose electrical contact, and drop back down on the rails.
The Athearn Hustler is pretty much a freelanced combination of different makes of small industrial switcher. It's also probably a bit oversize, but not to teh same degree as the AHM. Ernst made a gear drive repalcement for them (to replace the rubber bands) which made them run at a much more realistic speed and not jerk back and forth when they stopped.
Both, but mostly the Hustler, have been used as the basis of more accurate conversion articles over the years in various magazines. I don't know if any logging lines used them, but just about any industry that was large enough to need railroad cars moved around on their property and didn't want to pay the local railroad to do it had similar locos. The larger the industry, the more likely it was to use one of the larger models represented by those two. A smaller company would have run one of Plymouth's smaller models, or a GE 25 tonner, or even a Trackmobile - the original ones look NOTHING like the recent Overland brass or FDT metal one. In fact they look pretty much home made, but really were built by Whiting.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I think the Mantua and AHM Plymouth MDT (?) locos are overscale, AHM's more so. Mantua's Plymouth CR-4 is IIRC scale-sized.
I don't know what the Hustlers are, but if there's a prototype you're likely to find it here:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/industrial.html
Here's one I think I need to model:
http://abpr.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?april06/04-24-06/davenport_critter@crandon_wi_kermit_geary_jr.jpg&redirect=1
Model Power says their Hustler is a Porter. It's not entirely unlike one, although it has enough radiator fan to cool three Porters. I think one is for the beer fridge. What the MP unit actually is, in a product sense, is an ex-Marx body with a different drive.
There is so much variety in critters, however, that these composites or scale-cheaters aren't a huge problem. There's bound to be something similar, somewhere.
wjstix rs2mike So were there actual plymoth and hustler diesel engines? Well Plymouth made quite a few diesel switchers for industrial use, not sure about the Hustler but it may be a generic composite of typical tiny industrial switchers. As far as scale size, I wouldn't be surprised if the old AHM Plymouth wasn't oversize to allow for a large motor. IIRC AHM made a ore car that was a bit oversize, more like OO scale than HO.
rs2mike So were there actual plymoth and hustler diesel engines?
So were there actual plymoth and hustler diesel engines?
Well Plymouth made quite a few diesel switchers for industrial use, not sure about the Hustler but it may be a generic composite of typical tiny industrial switchers.
As far as scale size, I wouldn't be surprised if the old AHM Plymouth wasn't oversize to allow for a large motor. IIRC AHM made a ore car that was a bit oversize, more like OO scale than HO.
I know the feeling.
I'm looking at a Bachmann 45-ton GE B-B (four powered axles on two bogies) switcher alongside a Roundhouse EMD Model 40 (42-ton) B (two powered axles) switcher. The GE is longer, but the EMD has taller hoods and cab. Thus, the EMD appears more massive and brutish. The EMD's orange color compared to the GE's black color accentuates the difference in size.
If the locomotive was built by an American manufacturer, or specifically for an American importer, the scale should be as advertised.
OTOH, some American importers went to Japan and contracted for locomotives already being built for the Japanese market, blissfully unaware that, while models of locos built by Baldwin, they were 3'6" gauge prototype, 1:80 scale and over gauge to run on HO track. Specific examples: the die-cast Tenshodo Baldwin 0-6-0T and the Tomy (IIRC) 0-8-0T imported by Max Gray. I bought both as kits in Japan, and both are in revenue service on my layout right now.
The only way to be certain about ANY model locomotive is to measure the model and compare the measurement with an accurately dimensioned drawing of the prototype. Be aware that dimensions are sometimes 'fudged' to allow installation of an oversize motor - witness all those Athearn BB diesels.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 1:80 scale, aka HOj)
Ok I have never seen these locomotives in person so scale is a mystery to me. I have the athern hustler and the Bachman,ahm,model power ect plymoth diesel switchers. Are these little swithcher engines and others like them correct scale. The plymoth diesel looks big but i have no idea.
Any thoughts?
Mike