What is your pick ?
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
What scale? With or without DCC? With or without sound? Too broad a question to have an answer. In G scale you can even get live steam if you have several grand laying around in your bank vault collecting dust.
The Nickel Plate Berkshire - hands down.
BigRustyThe Nickel Plate Berkshire - hands down.
Can't give you an argument against that pick
The real ones
Boston and Maine R1d
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
NYC Niagara
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
My favorite is the Rio Grande 1700 series M-64 4-8-4's built by Baldwin in the late 'twenties. One of the prettiest 4-8-4's I've ever seen.
Here's a model of it produced some years ago by Key Imports:
Tom
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!
As a diehard, lifelong ATSF & IC fan, I have to say the best looking steam loco is the NYC Hudson!
For the ATSF, their large Northerns (37xx) are their best.
For the IC, much as I hate to say it, those Paducah style box sand domes just kill the aesthics of the locos. And to make matters worse, you can't even get a decent HO model of them!
Hey, the above is just my opinion, and I won't argue one way or the other with anyone that disagrees.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Japan National Railways C62 class 4-6-4.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
mobilman44 As a diehard, lifelong ATSF & IC fan, I have to say the best looking steam loco is the NYC Hudson! For the ATSF, their large Northerns (37xx) are their best. For the IC, much as I hate to say it, those Paducah style box sand domes just kill the aesthics of the locos. And to make matters worse, you can't even get a decent HO model of them! Hey, the above is just my opinion, and I won't argue one way or the other with anyone that disagrees. ENJOY ! Mobilman44
Mobilman
I agree the NYC Hudsons were very nice looking locomotives, but I was raised watching the 2500 and 2600 series Illinois Central mountains and the sand boxes looked just fine to me. I was surprised to find other railroads had rounded sandboxes.
The trick is to pace them at 75mph to get action shots or up close.
CZ
UncBob What is your pick ?
My all time pick might be the C&O Greenbriar. A very nice locomotive.
And it might be?? This is one of those questions that has about 100 anwsers!!
I personally like the GN S2 a lot.
If BLI actually ever made it, I'd be tempted to get one and use it for excursion service or something
I'm suprised there hasn't been a nod to the AA 20-01 (4-14-4) or UP 9000 (4-12-2) locos
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.
LNER A3 Pacific I love British trains http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygF5_98PTrQ watch the first couple of minutes in HD, it is the new Tornado, wonderful stuff
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
Reading T1!
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
I vacillate a lot the Nickle Plate Berk--the USRA heavy Mountain and the Lackawana Pocono
I can't decide betwen the C&O T-1/PennsyJ1 and the UP 9000 series long-boilered three-cylinder beasts with the flying pumps. Eventually I'll have one of each. . At least, that was the plan...BLI seems to have gone soft on their offer of the 4-12-2.
-Crandell
mobilman44I have to say the best looking steam loco is the NYC Hudson!
Bingo! For me, a classy and timeless design. I will say that the NKP Berkshires are not too far behind though.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
For me I think the best looking example is CNR's class U-2-e Mountain. They are a very clean looking loco especially with a Vanderbilt tender.
Lawrence Stuckey, a fairly well known photographer of the CPR thought so too.
CN Charlie
Gotta love those chunky PRR steamers
How about an E6 Atlantic?
I wish I was a headlight
On a northbound train
Well, I like Mountain types, especially the USRA Heavy and its clones/rebuilds, and those built by the B&O.
Second might well be the Detroit Toledo & Ironton 800 series Mikado, which does look very much like a C&O or NKP 2-8-4, just a little smaller.
Both are locos I have chosen to model on my ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
Third I would pick the B&O P7 Pacific.
Sheldon
That 2-8-2 does look like a Berk just lower and maybe better
What model is that Mikado ?
That model was a Berkshire, the trailing truck has been replaced with a brass one with a booster from PSC.
The model is the Bachmann NKP/PM version.
After doing much research on the DT&I 800, all the Lima super power Berks, and a number of the heaviest Mikados, it turns out that the NKP/PM Berks could just have easily been Mikados on a road with heavy trackage that could stand a little higher axle load.
Roads like the C&O, PRR and others could have easily handled such a loco. The GN O-8 Mikados had as much power, larger fireboxes and much higher axle loadings than the NKP/PM or C&O 2-8-4's. And, they had 69" drivers just like those 2-8-4's.
The DT&I 800 series Mikes look like the Berks, because they where designed and built at the same time Lima was building those Berks, and DT&I did not want the larger drivers or heavier loco. The DT&I 800's were in fact, super power Mikados, little baby brothers to the Berks with all the same features and refinements less the larger drivers and firebox, and the same looks, outside bearing lead truck, same boiler profile, same tender design, similar domes and placements, same feadwater heater, same valve gear, etc.
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/dti/dti-s800.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/dti/dti-s804lba.jpg
So, on my freelanced ATLANTIC CENTRAL, we did order such a Mikado from Lima. Just like a NKP Berk but with a single axle booster trailing truck, placing more weight on the drivers and increasing TE even more. I am in the process of building four of them. There will be two pairs with slight differences to represent two different orders/subclasses. The one in the photo is waiting to go to the paint shop.
I'd say the individual who chose the Rio Grande M-64 4-8-4 has impeccable taste! For me, too, it is the ultimate, most beautiful 4-8-4.
I find the huge sand domes and some other appurtenances on the big Lima Berk and Texas Types to be a visual put off.
My choices:
1. DRGW M-64 4-8-4
2. UP 4-12-2
3. DRGW M-78 4-8-2
4. SP 4-10-2
5. UP rebuilt 4-10-2 5500 class
In my opinion, any of those 5 engines epitomizes what I consider to be the "classic look" of steam power--some exposed piping, but not too many external appurtenances as to look like a rolling plumber's nightmare--and overall good, clean proportions. I love the big non-articulated steamers.
John
my definition of a plumber's or pipefitter's nightmare: WP 251-class and 257-class 2-8-8-2's
The beautiful green Southern Railway Ps-4 Pacific 4-6-2, specifically road number 1401. From late 1920's to early 1950's, the epitome of steam passenger power without the shrouding of streamlining.
USAF (Retired)
In no particular order
C&O Texas class /Pennsy J1
UP FEF-3
And the NYC Niagra's
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
On that converted Berk
It seems lower because there isn't much daylight between the boiler and the frame ?
UncBob On that converted Berk It seems lower because there isn't much daylight between the boiler and the frame ?
UncBob, it must just be the lighting or the angle of the photo, because that part of the model is all stock.
All I did was add weight, cut off the drawbar post at the back of the frame, make a new drawbar that pivots from the orginal trailing truck mount, assembled and installed the brass trailing truck which is attached to the new drawbar, removed the DCC decoder from the tender and added weight to the tender.
A few more details will be done before I paint it. I will add some missing hand rails and a cab/tender deck plate.
Uncle John's 5001/5011 2-10-4s hands down.
The best looking Northerns/Niagaras/Greenbriars/Poconos/whatevers were Rock Island's R-67Bs followed by MoPac's rebuilt Berkshires followed closely behind that by Northwestern's post-WWII Class H-1 rebuilds. One cannot, of course, slight Northern Pacific's A-4/A-5 Classes.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet