Train Mountain turntable The Train Mountain turntable holds a 40-foot train and has hydraulic drawbridges at each end to avoid accidents. Each of the 32 radials subdivide into 3 storage tracks. The 16-track facility for visiting steam for the meet in all concrete with electricity, air, and treated water at each position. Electrics and diesels were in another area.
Train Mountain Main line and a siding built before Quentin Breen learned to avoid heat kinks. On the hottest summer days, track men and impose "heat orders" on multiple miles of main line. While building the Colton Cutoff in 1967, the SP laid a continuous 11 mile piece of welded rail. Easy, if you know how: Just build it stout.
Art's first steamer was in inch-scale Frisco 4-6-2 Art's first steamer was in inch-scale Frisco 4-6-2 that called the Los Angeles Live Stemers track its home. Now, he lives close (40 miles) to the Bitter Creek Western in Arroyo Grande, CA. The track is built on sand dunes, which are remarkable stable.
Over the past few years, I’ve enjoyed letter correspondence with Arthur W. Reiter, M.D., 10150 San Marcos Road, Atascadero, CA 93422-2212 (805) 461-9331. Art is a large-scale modeler. I supplied him some drawings for a SL-SF stock car years ago that he turned into a fuel car to follow his live steam model of SL-SF 2-8-2 4158. More from Art is taken from this October 2001 letter. Photos of his models need little explanation other than what he’s supplied. >>>>> NMRA (Life #501) Los Angeles Live Steamers Riverside Live Steamers Southwestern Live Steamers Dear Doug, Finally, the Central Coast Frisco Fan is heard from and sends you profuse thanks for your help. Plus, that of your friends who contributed to your store of information on Frisco Stock Cars. The Frisco 47192 has been running for some time and has earned glowing praise from various live steamers and other MRs. I assume that you are still a model railroader and Frisco fan. I have not been in Rolla since about 1948 but have a video of the Cuba Sub. It does not include any scenes of either Lindenwood or Springfield yards, an inexcusable oversight. I wrote to them about that. Like the Video Rails tape of Beaumont Hill which shows nothing of Colton Yard (6 miles long) or Indio, the Eastern end of the subdivision. The SP Sunset route main crosses the ATSF-UP (now UP) main at Colton Tower (now removed) where where 95+ percent of all rail freight for Southern California necks down to a one by two 90° crossing. The name “Colton” is never heard. Bah! Statistic - Los Angeles-Long Beach is the busiest port in the Western Hemisphere. Some container ships hold 6000 boxes. The current global slow-down may have affected those numbers. Fuel costs have slowed the BNSF’s hottest trains to a max speed of 65 rather than 70 MPH. My favorite trip is a drive along US 58, Interstate 40 and US 64 from Indio, thru Barstow and Needles to 7600 feet at at Flagstaff. Near Mountainair the main becomes double track until Oklahoma, narrows, then double track again to Chicago. I bear off Southeast at Clovis thru Lubbock toward Comanche and Priddy, TX. You’ve got to have a good Texas map to find FM 218 east 4 miles out of Priddy. I love that bunch at the Comanche & Indian Gap, but the 1600 mile drive is daunting, and I am now unwilling to attempt it without a buddy to share the driving. It is almost like turn-of-the-Century railroading, except for radios. An 8300 foot single track, radio-dispatched, bi-directional gem. The longest straight track is known as the ‘race track’ but speeds are moderate because of a closely parallel barbed wire fence. I hope I can get back there again. Enclosed are your copies of the photos of the Propane/stock car #47192. The number really should be 47200 for a 39 foot car car built in 1910 or 1923. I am short a few diagonal braces. There is no car floor to impede air circulation needed to vaporize propane. On a cool winter day 2 miles from the Pacific and working hard, I freeze ice on the outside of the three tanks. There are shut-off valves on each tank and on the hose between the pressure regulator and the tender where there there is another shut-off. Finally, propane gets to the firing valve which is four-stage with just over a thousand 0.023” propane slits. 4158’s diesel fired boiler died after nine years. A boiler man in Fresno reduced copper flue size 1/8” and added three (to 27). The big change came from the addition of a firebox arch! I got the boiler off after only five days of effort and took Charlie Dockstader with me to see Ed Perry. Charlie is an Honorary Member of the Los Angeles Live Steamers who has built a superb 1882 CP El Gobernador with Stevens valve gear and who now works to on computerized analyses of most any locomotive, stationary, boat, or pumping engine valve gear you care to name. Has his own web site, first seen on the Alaska live steamers site. Anyway, while holding the check in my hand I repeated my sad cry for an arch. Perry said nothing but he nipped off a couple pieces of 1/2” angle iron and tacked them to the side sheets of the firebox. Made a nice fit to the back flue sheet. Laid three pieces if 1/4 X 3 inch mild steel across the firebox supports and all of the products of combustion must travel back to the door sheet before turning forward over the arch, just below the crown sheet. This creates a longer dwell time in the firebox and increases heat absorption, especially thru the crown sheet. You should have been at Train Mountain in September, 1998. That is the track on 2200 acres about 30 miles East of Crater Lake. Owner Quentin Breen had coupled to forty-seven 1.5 and 1.6 inch scale cars behind his pair of Prime Painted GE dash-8s entering the sag North of his tunnel beneath the County Road. He stalled. A smaller steamer and my Mikado were following at a respectful distance. Total: now 56 cars. So we walked three hundred feet forward and asked if we might help. “Please do. My hydraulic transmission is overheating- - or something.” Dean Willoughby, owner of the UP 825, was on my engine at the time, further assisted by an Oregon Mogul. Everybody whistled off and started off bravely. Neither steamer slipped at all; from that distance you weren’t sure about the diesels. Once started, it was semi-flat, then increasingly steep. A couple easy stretches, then uphill through Leaning Tree, Dog Walk, the Serpentine and Blue Caboose Campground, and finally the steep 2.17% near the summit. When we got to the nearly flat main yard, the steam helpers were cut off to make the owner’s diesels look good on the final leg into Central Station. It was even better than the Good-Ol-Boys run in 1992 on the Riverside (California) Live Steamers’ track where all participants were touring members of the Southwestern Live Steamers. There were five smallish engines (up to 4-6-0s) on the point, followed by the 4158 operated by Peter Bryan, a Houston CFP. It was probably Pat McCarthy of Kansas City who yelled, “Everybody else shut down and let Peter pull.” Peter did it! And with 41 cars behind him. With that sort of weight (tonnage!) both you and your engine must feel good or dream up a quick excuse. What else is up? After incredible delays, my Warbonnet GP6OM is nearing Completion in Burnaby, B.C. Four deep cycle 12V batteries and a sound system (Phoenix) you can hear over the next hill. If my fondest hopes are realized, Lindsay McDonnell and his wife will drive it down in about two weeks I have a watercolor of the midsection of the 1522 titled “Taking The Breeze” by Ted Rose of Santa Fe, NM. Plus Kotowskis of the 4409 on the Bluebonnet and a blue Firefly at a rural Kansas station. And a second painting of a serpentine heavy passenger behind the 1522. I joined the SLST after a pitch on the web. Hope this letter finds you well and active. I have had a couple of problems but that is to be expected in the upper 70s. Thanks for all your help. P.S. My son is building a ng 0-4-2 Chloe for practice before starting his real love, the Bullfrog Goldfield (no ampersand or hyphen) 4-6-0 #13, a bonanza road whose engines were patterned after the P&LE(?). The Grandson (then 14) scored big at the NMRA National in San Jose a year ago (a third against adults plus 5 Manufacturers’ awards) and had the Best-In-Show print at the Scranton S-Gauge convention this August.
Don Wirth 4500 The third and last (!) of my Hallmark meatball 4500s. Making these engines reasonably accurate is nearly as hard as scratchbuilding them. I have made my last 4500 tender. There are 2 coalburners and this oilburner on my roster now. This one is still in fresh paint, and I haven't attacked her with the weathering chalks yet. Soon.
IHC's has the colors for there 4-6-2 (It should have been a 4-6-4) as Black w/silver stripping and red lettering????? Is this correct? If not what should the colors be?
Austin: I have this same model (I believe it's numbered for #1062). The color scheme is pretty well on; I reckon that one could add the appropriate four-wheel trailing truck and convert the tender for an oil-burner, and the general public wouldn't know the difference. I, on the other hand, have tried to flow through the rock rather than around it. My model is disassembled with Squadron green putty all over the boiler, and the tender nearly converted to oil-burning on its way to becoming 4-6-2 #1057. I believe there are pictures of the prototype Hudson in B/W in Collias' <u>Frisco Power</u> Good luck. Chris Abernathy Columbia MO (Modeling the Frisco's River Division in HO-Scale c. 1943)
There is a color picture of a Hudson in Marre's Frisco color book. The engine and tender are black with the stainless skirting and band on the tender edged in red. The "Firefly" Pacifics were "Zephyr Blue" with stainless bands/skirts edged in either gold or red. For modeling purposes, on the 4500 model photo posted, I mixed ATSF Blue and B&O Royal Blue to arrive at a color a tad lighter than Zephyr Blue, using Scalecoat I baked on at 150 deg for a couple of hours.
Don Wirth's SLSF 1522 Mountain I'm on a roll. I just finished up the 1522, as she was in Frisco service. I had the advantage of having plenty of detail photos of her before we restored her in 1985. I remotored her with a can motor torque armed to a KTM idler gearbox. Now all I need is a layout.
Brad Sloan's SLSF 1271 Brad Sloan's model of 1271 as entered in the NMRA MCR 2004 contest - first place. Also the prototype print from Memphis, September 1948. This same photo has appeared in two books credited to Charles Felsted and Harold Volrath. I bought my copy from John P. Allen of Centralia, IL many years ago. Doug Hughes
John P. Mann's SLSF 1015 Fresh out of West Springfield shops is 4-6-2 No. 1015 which has been leased to eastern rail magnate John P. Mann for service on his line. The engine is ready to start her deadhead move to the Cleveland, Ohio area to Mr. Mann's railroad.
Don Wirth's SLSF 1015 I just finished detailing and painting this model of 1015 as she appeared at the end of her career, running out of Ft. Smith. Modifications included removing single air pumps and replacing with a cross compound and the addition of a doghouse. NO footboard pilot tho.
I have an undecorated Sunset Streamlined Frisco 4-6-2 "Firefly". I would like to have it professionally painted, but have no color photos of the locomotive nor information I can provide the painter. Could someone provide me some answers ? Thank you, Allen
Air Tanks and stacks for 4100 class mike Greetings, Are air tank kits available that fit the 4100 class mikes? They look just about the same size as the 1500's (~.25" OD in HO scale). Did the 4100's have the same big stack as the 1500's? I don't recall ever seeing them commercially available...may have to make a casting. Best Regards, mike
Re: Air Tanks and stacks for 4100 class mike If you go the casting route, Mike, I'll be eager to see how they turn out. Do you have stack dimensions for either class? I have a 1500-1519 waiting in the backshop. I'll also eventually need to place an order for some 4100s.
|-| I just won a frisco 2-8-2 numbered 4013 the model was made in 1959 by a company called aristo craft it is a brass locomotive I paid $46.55 for it it came with its original box and the cloth that held the locomomotive in place the locomotive still works and has a good paint job. Iwas wondering if I got a good deal on it|-|
