Gentlemen, may I be allowed to join this select club? About 20 years ago I became interested in USA steam, particularly after a visit to the Snoqualmie Railroad Museum in Washington state. There I found a book on Northern Pacific RR super steam and became hooked. Up until then I thought all US steam was just muscle but the book taught me otherwise and I realised how sophisticate the post 1920 designs were.
My first foray into US locos was this Sunset Models N&W J 4-8-4
Alas it is no more in my collection.
Clive Neale, one of the Heyside group also had a love of US motive power and purchased from Kohs & Co a model of the second series of Chesapeake and Ohio Allegheny 2-6-6-6. We spent a lot of time discussing the model and recently I have secured it from his estate. The model is about 34” long and about 7.5 kilo in weight.
The model comes with its own form of sound control but is said to be DCC compatible. On my behalf Tim Ingmans is investigating with Kohs what if anything is required to make it compatible to our NCE equipment.
I understand there has always been considerable debate as to whether the Big Boy or the Allegheny was the largest and most powerful USA simple articulated locomotive. All I can do is quote from the Huddleston and Dixon Jr. book entitled The Allegheney Lima’s Finest,
“As magnificent as the Big Boy was, however, it will have to relinquish a bit of its hold on the title “biggest” to the Allegheny. It was not the tallest. It was not the heaviest. It did not have the largest boiler. And as magnificent as it was, it did not boast a factor of adhesion close to that of the 2-6-6-6. Both of these engines were superb and both design groups created machines that have held all of us in awe.”
I think it is good that there is rivalry between American authors just as there is in Britain. Thank goodness it is possible for some of us to witness the magnificence of the Big Boy in steam, alas the Allegheny can only be viewed in museum.
Personally I don't really care, I'm delighted with my Allegheny and just have to find a suitable layout to run it on.
), superb machines for heavy and fast flat land work, like the Challengers their power kicks in above 40 mph making them hard to equal.
, never seen one myself......until today.....FLAWLESS O scale J-1e Westside Hudson! | eBay I think this one is C&O, looks like it but the seller hasn't made that clear.
