Hi everyone,
I am looking for an HO scale model of a 2-8-0 camelback, similar to the ones used by the Lehigh & Hudson River.
Does anyone know of an HO 2-8-0 camelback model? Brass or plastic, it doesn't matter. Anybody know of any good models that exist?
Thanks,
- Matt
The most common camelback 2-8-0 models you see around are a Gem RDG I-4, various models of RDG I-8 and a LIRR 2-8-0. They are all brass made in the 1960's and 1970's. They run in the $300-800 range. The LIRR engine has the cab well forward of the firebox.
On You Tube search for "Anthracite Modeler", he does some amazing kitbashes of camelback engines.
Model Power made a camelback 2-6-0 that is based on the NYO&W engine. It is a very squat engine and probably not what you want.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I think you'll have to compromise and use a stand-in. Like using a Reading I10s for the L&HR's class 90.If that bothers you, assume that the L&HR leased it (RDG was one of the line's owners). I wanted a model of CNJ's 0-B-0 Whitcomb #1001 that replaced the famous #1000 in the Bronx. No one has ever made one. So I found an ancient Penn Line Davenport 0-B-0 "Midget" and painted and decaled it for the ficticious #1002. and #1002 prior to decaling Here's an illustrated steam roster of the L&HRLehigh Hudson River Roster - NE Rails (railfan.net)R and the results of a search for "HO Canmlback 2-8-0" ho camelback 2-8-0 - Search (bing.com) Compare the two and see what model comes closes to what you want. Once you;ve decided what you want, Ebay is your friend. If oiu don't find what you wan today, check back periodically to see if one turns up. Advice, if it does, pull the trigger NOW - it may be gone when you get back. Good luck!
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mthobbiesDoes anyone know of an HO 2-8-0 camelback model? Brass or plastic, it doesn't matter. Anybody know of any good models that exist?
yes (see google search)
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Mantua made one. Hard to find though.
Simon
A local shop had a couple of the Mantua Camelbacks still new in the box, one was a 2-8-2, not sure about the other one. Called Tolin's KnK. No connection but always up for helping someone find a hard to locate older model.
I believe the Mantua 2-8-0 Camelback was basically the same engine as their 2-8-2 Camelback, but with a part added where the trailing truck was on the Mikado. So if you find a 2-8-2 Camelback for a decent price, it could be the starting point of a moderate 'kitbash' to a 2-8-0.
The Mantua model is a repreentation of a LV class N-1 and the Mantua 4-6-2 is a class K-1. As the Valley was a part owner of the L&HR, you could leave lettered and numbered as is and assume they are leased. A Pacific on the Bridge Line? Leased for a brief period, yes. "From October 1912 until January 1916, the L&HR hosted the PRR's Federal Express passenger trains on the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route between Phillipsburg and Maybrook. With the completion of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City on September 9, 1917, the Federal Express resumed service via Penn Station and the New Haven Line direct." As it was just a short period, instead of buying, I can see where leasing might be preferred. Or you could have a run through arrangement with a K2 or K4 powering your Federal.
Can you imagine working on a Camelback?... the engineer's on the righthand side of the boiler, entering a curve to the left and unable to see what might be ahead. On a regular loco, the fireman can look out the left window and holler across the cab to the engineer that there's a derailment ahead.
Can you imagine being the fireman on a Camelback?...one workboot on the narrow shelf just aft of the firebox, the other boot on the bouncing footplate of the tender, all the while trying to shovel culm into the two firebox doors, protected from the weather by an outhouse-size roof. If the poor bugger had time to look out his left-side window, he might see the derailment ahead, but not have much of a way to relay the message to the hogger. At least he'd be able to vacate his post before the crash.
Wayne
My maternal great uncles immigrated to this country in the first decade of the last century (they then saved their money and paid to bring their baby sister - my grandmother - to this country). Her brothers had become coal miners around Shamokin, Pennsylavania. Imagine the conditions in a coal minel in 1910. Oh, you were expected to pay for the oil in your lamp and the dynamite you used. But you never heard a peep of complaint from them. Compared to the old country, working in an Amerrican coal mine was, if not paradise, such a step up in working and living conditions, that they were grateful for the oppportunity. And there were millions like them. It was a hard age and workers, including railroad men, had to be, and were expected to be, tough. They would be amazed at at the thought that sitting in a comfortable chair, typing on a keyboard would be considered "work". To them, work was when you were operating a shovel or pickaxe or were pushing a "blue Uke" (Which is what coal crackers like them called a wheel barrow)
doctorwayneCan you imagine working on a Camelback?
https://digital.hagley.org/AVD_1969092_01A_001
P&R engines in this service were no slouches, either.... and if I remember, one of the early classes of 4-4-2, in fact class E1, on the PRR (and later, LIRR) was a Camelback design (although not with a Wootten firebox).
Most of the railroads with these big 2-8-0s had most of the engine weight balanced over the eight drivers, leaving what looks like a colossal overhang at the rear (see the PRR I1s for the same general philosophy on ten drivers). Any weight not needed for reasonable tracking at drag-freight or coal-=train speeds was wasted adhesion... this might make one of those three-cylinder U-4 switchers at least a candidate.
And you could always reverse-kitbash a Reading T1 back into a 2-8-0; just take the course back out of the boiler and use an old underframe...
Not really in this thread, but since we're discussing Mantua: the exact opposite of long visual overhang was visible on their Camelback Pacific. That had about as much trailing-truck room as a N&W Y-class 2-8-8-2... that is to say, not nearly enough to justify having it in preference to a good 4-6-0 of similar size. A Pacific benefits from having a deep firebox... and doesn't need a rear pilot truck for backing up very often.
I found this one on ebay:
mantua HO 2-8-0 camelback | eBay
Looks like it might be a modified 2-8-2. It seems there should be something under the firebox. I have one of those and it would be easy to remove the trailing truck. I don't know how important prototype fidelity is to you but that is an option.
OvermodAnd you could always reverse-kitbash a Reading T1 back into a 2-8-0; just take
the T-1 boiler seems longer than the I-10 or I-8
Reading T-1
Reading I-10 (blueprint)
Reading I-8
Mantua camelback
The PRR Class E1, complete with its English style rigid 6 wheel tender. Data from "Atlantic Type Locomotive--Class E-1, No. 698", Railroad Gazette, Volume XXX1, No. 27 (7 July 1899), pp. 487-488; "Atlantic Locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad", Railway and Engineering Review, Volume XXXIX [39], No 34 (26 August 1899), pp. 474; and "Atlantic Type Fast Passenger Locomotives-E1-Pennsylvania", American Engineer and Railroad Journal, Volume 74, No 1 (January 1900), pp. 22-23. See also Paul T Warner, "The Development of the Anthracite-Burning Locomotive", Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, Volume 52, pp. 11-28, as archived on [] . (Thanks to Chris Hohl for his 13 December 2020 email supplying two citations and several corrections.)
Comments in an article on the E-2, describes an "unsatisfactory cab arrangement of the class E-1" although the author does not elaborate. Locobase concludes that such a big grate meant that the fireman and engineer couldn't communicate across the footplate very easily.
In fact, [] (last accessed 20 February 2007) shows that this was a camelback with a Wooten firebox, a very rare type on the Pennsylvania. Locobase contends that this is one of the most stylish looking camelbacks, possibly because the cab rides relatively low on the boiler and the dome, stack, and headlight stand tallest on the profile.
Paul T Warner asserted that it was "...safe to say that, at the time of their construction, they represented the most careful designing and the finest workmanship that could be found in this country. They met the 60-minute schedule without difficulty and demonstrated their ability to easily maintain an average speed of 75 miles an hour from Hammonton to Drawbridge, a distance of 27.4 miles, with trains weighing 300 tons behind the tender. "
Walter Mason Camp's R&ER report cited another example of the design's power and speed when it took "a 410-ton passenger train 33 miles in 35 minutes [56.6 mph/91 kph) from start to stop, and ...the entire run of 90 miles from Philadelphia to Jersey City in 109 minutes [49.5 mph/80 kph ]" including stops. "t not time was it fully let out."
In the article cited above, Warner described the firebox in great detail, reporting that it "... had a combustion chamber with a brick wall built across the back of it, in accordance with Mr. Wootten 's design, but following Pennsylvania practice the Belpaire System of staying was employed. The crown and roof sheets were flat and horizontal, and the water spaces were of liberal width throughout. The grates were of the rocking type arranged to shake in four sections, and particular attention was given to the arrangement of the ash-pan and smoke-box. All these features contributed to the success of the locomotives."
Camp noted another advantage of the combustion chamber in increasing the distance of the flues from "the body of the fire". The effect, he added, would to "considerably increasae their life and lessen the tendency to leak after an exceptionally severe trip."
Long travel valves offered "an unusually large inside clearance of 5.32 in on each side," Camp noted, and as "the link motion has a remarkably good scheme all the way up the quadrant, the engine should, and does, clear itself very freely while running at high speed." Such absence of choking, he contended, was "a matter of vital importance in this service."
Warner also called its construction the "high-water mark in the development of the hard-coal burning locomotive."
And yet their design was not repeated as a camelback. Locobase notes that the Pennsy only tried out the camelback layout a few times, disliking the separation of the two crew members.. The long combustion chamber so vaunted by the analysts soon lost favor in camelback design and no other engine combined camelback and Belpair firebox. And very few Pennsy designs featured much of a combustion chamber until the M1 4-8-2s and the T1 4-4-4-4s. The strains imposed on "unusually long main rods" and lightly built components in the drive train may have demanded more maintenance time than their performance merited.
Regardless of the actual blend of causes, the three locomotives were sent to the Long Island where they served only a few years before being scrapped in 1911.
OvermodAnd you could always reverse-kitbash a Reading T1 back into a 2-8-0;
Not really, the T-1 is derived from the class I-10 boiler which is a much larger diameter than any camelback ever was.
It would be easier to take a Roundhouse 2-8-0 and add a Wooten firebox and make a P&R/RDG class I-1,I-2, or I-4 class camelback.
Here's how I did that: (1) Kitbashed Camelback 2-8-0 - YouTube
gregcthe T-1 boiler seems longer than the I-10 or I-8
Not a prototype Reading camelback. But in partial defense, few of the alternatives are, either...
dehusman Here's how I did that: (1) Kitbashed Camelback 2-8-0 - YouTube
Very nicely-done, Dave.
mthobbies Hi everyone, I am looking for an HO scale model of a 2-8-0 camelback, similar to the ones used by the Lehigh & Hudson River. Does anyone know of an HO 2-8-0 camelback model? Brass or plastic, it doesn't matter. Anybody know of any good models that exist? Thanks, - Matt August 1984 Model Railroader, pp. 68-69 has an article "Lehigh Valley Camelback Pacific and Mikado" by Dave Gould. It discusses changes to make the locomotives more accurate representations of the original. I've also seen an old article where the author modified the Mantua Camelback 2-8-2 into a 2-8-0 by removing the trailing truck and shortening the boiler by removing an inch from the body covered by the cab. This moves the firebox forward to look more natural for a 2-8-0. You might consider these changes. Good luck!