Now it has been brought to my attention that some feel that I'm carpet bombing the forums with replies, posts, and threads and that my time should be spent on a layout. I know I post a lot around here and thats not to boost post count or annoy anyone but it's because I have a genuine interest and curiosity about trains and the hobby that is the modeling thereof. Also as I stated in another post I do not have the space to build a layout right now nor do I have the finances at this time to begin such an undertaking. The latter will solve itself and the first upon my graduation from high school this year and my finding meaningful employment. I do hope you all will continue to reply and share your knowledge with me and please feel free to ask me questions and I'll answer them to the best of my knowledge.
Anyway time for me to get off my soapbox again and get on topic.
I was surfing around eBay and found a HO Rivarossi 0-8-0 locomotive with a "booster" on the tender??? I have heard of such things triplexes and boosters on trailing trucks on locomotives on the prototype but never in model form.
Anyone know if this model has a prototype?
Here's a link to the listing.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F292328729265
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
At first, I thought a tender with a booster truck is a pretty useless thing, but apparently I am wrong, as the following picture reveals:
More information on the model and its prototype to be found here!
So there is a prototype! Do you think the model has that truck motorized? Probably not, right?
I have my doubts about that ....
Hi, Steven
When I get a chance I'll copy a few pages of an instruction booklet I have that covers tender truck boosters. If I recall correctly they were made by Bethlehem Steel Co.
They were a pretty tough sell for the railroads since, as the tender's coal and water were depleted, the tractive effort of the booster waned considerably.
Even the locomotive boosters mounted on the trailing truck were falling out of favor as maintenance costs began to increase and the return on investment deemed them unnecessary hardware.
I certainly don't have any issues with anyone "asking too many questions"
I say, bring 'em on! I admire your curioscity
More information to follow,
Ed
The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range had 0-10-0s which were built with tender boosters for the predecessor Duluth, Missabe & Northern, but those were removed sometime before the merger.
The 0-10-2s the DM&IR got from Union Railroad were also originally fitted with tender boosters, but those were also removed before the DM&IR ran them.
gmpullmanMore information to follow,
Well, I knew I was hanging on to this booklet for some reason!
Read on...
Bethlehem_Booster by Edmund, on Flickr
Bethlehem_Booster_0001 by Edmund, on Flickr
Bethlehem_Booster_0002 by Edmund, on Flickr
Still interested?
Bethlehem_Booster_0003 by Edmund, on Flickr
Bethlehem_Booster_0004 by Edmund, on Flickr
...almost there!
Bethlehem_Booster_0005 by Edmund, on Flickr
And a drawing:
B_Booster_dwg1 by Edmund, on Flickr
Bethlehem_Booster_0008 by Edmund, on Flickr
Bethlehem_Booster_0009 by Edmund, on Flickr
Finally,
Some specifications:
Bethlehem_Booster_0010 by Edmund, on Flickr
I probably just broke the interweb by uploading all that stuff! That was only the first ten pages out of 68.
I hope that gives you something to chew on.
Regards, Ed
Hi there. The boosters on the rivarossi are not motorized, if that's your question. It does run nicely...
Simon
I would be very surprised to see a truck motorized on a tender, even in brass. However, it's not to say nobody has tried it, or that it can't be done. One company makes a small motorized truck, forget who, that might work in a tender with a bit of bashing. You'd have to add maybe five or six ounces of weight to the typical tender to make it a useful booster. Depending on the amperage draw of this new motor, you might overdrive the decoder if it's to be DCC.
Well there are plenty of model locos with the power in the tender - the various Pemco steam locos come to mind. However, that was not simulating a booster truck, that was the actual drive as there was no motor in the loco itself and the 'drive wheels' just went along for the ride.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
snjroy The boosters on the rivarossi are not motorized, if that's your question. Simon
The boosters on the rivarossi are not motorized, if that's your question.
That is correct. I had a NYC/IHC 0-8-0 (like the one pictured above by Ulrich) and the tender was not motorized. Mine lasted only two days before it broke down so I cannot recommend it. You should be able to find one fairly inexpensive on places like eBay though.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
It can and has been done. The June 1966 Model Railroader page 50 had a good article by W.A. Gardner (who I think worked for EMD!) about how to make and install a booster engine in an HO PRR steam locomotive tender. It was not a model of a booster in a prototype but rather a working booster to give his locomotive more tractive effort.
Not a separate article but I seem to recall in Model Railroad Planning, or perhaps it was Great Model Railroads but I'm thinking MRP, had a sidebar by the excellent modeler Rich Weyand about how he had special, slightly extra long, resin models of Norfolk & Western tenders made so that he could install drive trains taken from N scale diesel locomotives in those tenders, to enhance the pulling power of N scale Y-class 2-8-8-2s so he could run trains closer to prototype length behind a single locomotive.
Not all Rivarossi/AHM Indiana Harbor Belt 0-8-0s had the "visible/faux working" booster on the tender. Mine for example does not. That was a later development.
Dave Nelson
As I understand it, the boosters on either the tender trucks or the trailing trucks of steam locomotives were not designed for constant use, but only on an "as needed" basis, generally to provide extra power for starting a heavy train or providing "boosts" of power on grades.
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I had a brass engine in the late 80's (my one and only brass), an HO scale NJ International Custom Brass Boston & Maine class S1b 2-10-2 which had a tender booster. It was unpowered, but nicely simulated. Boy I regret selling that beauty...
Bubbytrains
Yes, booster engines, be they on the trailing truck or on the tender truck, were for low speed operation only. Working on realtively small diameter wheels, the piston speeds would exceed the ability first to do any work and then to even remain lubricated as the locos got up to speed (maybe not something like the small drivered 0-8-0 switcher, but mainline locos like the Reading T1s has trailing truck boosters). In all the designs I've seen, there was a gear connection between the engine (cylinders and valves) and the axle(s) being driven, so that the whole thing was disconnected when not in use, not just by having the steam turned off.
A large number of Lehigh and New England locomotives had boosters. They moved a lot of heavy coal and cement tonnage. I would hedge a bet there were other railroads in the coal region of PA so equipped
Wolfie
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Several of NYC's famous Hudson models, their version of the 4-6-4 which was first accorded that name, were equipped with trailing truck boosters, but not tender boosters.
While some might feel a tender booster was not a very good idea, remember that most trains have to start up when their tenders are already replenished with fuel and water, so their tenders, some weighing well over 200 tons, would have helped to lift a train when a booster was pressed into service. Even with only 1/4 load, say in the hole on the last siding prior to their destination 20 miles hence, the booster would have been working, when they left the siding, under a 100 ton weight.
I haven't looked it up, so my comment might be moot in that no 200+ ton tender ever had boosters under them. Even so, the logic still applies to those weighing half that.
Both Franklin and Bethlehem made tender boosters (I think that is why Bethlehem came to call their version 'auxiliary locomotives') and there not only were three-coupled-axle versions but I know of at least one railroad (Southern) that used TWO on one tender, for hump service.
As far as I know these all had a lethal defect for high speed, that being the practical inability to cross-balance the quartered rods for any particularly sensible value of 'road' speed. In a drag-freight or slow-speed transfer world this did not matter, but we're talking serious augment by no more than the 30-mph range. Note that this has nothing to do with the balance of the actual steam motor or its (gear) drive, which could as noted be disengaged, idled separately, etc. as noted.
The last generations of trailing-truck booster could be nominally run up to about 35mph before 'having' to be thrown out; they were also 'reversible' to help warm them up or disengage a stuck idler -- but apparently none were ever made to 'boost' in reverse, which I'd think would be a highly useful option.
Anyone wanting a modern booster is advised to use a Lewty booster arrangement instead: this uses a compound engine with proper cutoff, high frame mounted instead of banging around in the blowdown mud at the end of long jointed pipes, with hydraulic drive to the driven axles...
I've never heard of a model with a "working" booster. But, you could build one. Take the tender from a tender drive locomotive (such as a tyco chatanooga) and pair it with a powered locomotive :) Of course speed matching will probably be a big issue. That, and most tender drive locos were lousy. :)
- Kevin
Check out my shapeways creations! HOn3 and railroad items for 3D printing:
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/kevin-s-model-train-detail-parts
In the model world, tender boosters only look good if the locomotive is going VERY slowly. At any sort of speed at all, it just becomes a blur.
.
John Allen had boosters modeled onto a few of his model tenders.
Could the mechanism of a side rod Bachmann 45 tonner be used to model a functional booster tender.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
The B&M had tender booster equipped 2-10-2s and 0-8-0s. The two 0-8-0s were used at the Somerville hump yard and they had boosters on both tender trucks. There was a water spout at the hump to replenish the tender water level.
Pacific Fast Mail used to list a tender booster in their catalog. I think it was a Franklin. Some of their advertising showed it in use on their USRA 0-8-0, which makes sense as these boosters were often used on switchers or low speed drag engines.
AC&Y's first two Mikados, Class R numbers 400 and 401, were delivered in 1926 with tender boosters because the road wanted a booster, but could not fit one to the Hodges trailing truck. They were followed by Class R-1 numbers 402 and 403, which had Delta trailing trucks with boosters, so they did not have tender boosters. These boosters were all removed in the late 1930's or early 1940's, and subsequent AC&Y Class R-2 Mikados 404-406, delivered in the 1940's, did not have boosters. This seems to run parallel to the experience of most roads, which determined that the increased power could not justify the increased costs of maintenance.
Maybe just not quite ready for prime time? The always frugal Reading added them when they built the T-1 4-8-4's from 2-8-0's starting in 1945. Trailing truck booster, not tender boosters. Some early disappointments in performance were attributed to the engineers not properly utilizing the booster to get started.