An open letter to Model Railroader about the BL niagara

TO be very honest, I'm extremely glad that my railroad esthetic has not "developed" to that point. I tend to look at American locos as greyhounds, covering great distances in short times, and Brit locos as being dashounds trying to get out of the badger burrow.

;^))

Rich

North American locos were and are hardly "greyhounds". They hardly covered great distances in short times, it was, and is, more like great distances in long times. North American train are, in general, plodingly slow.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Naaaaah.

Whatever you reckon, Roger. The average UK loco is an ancient little inside-cylindered 0-6-0. Maybe not ugly, but certainly plain... :-)

I meant the train, not the F-7 as a stand-alone entity. Although I do like the 4-4-2 Milwaukees and the 4-6-4 Baltics, I don't care much for any of the others as far as steam goes.

The most beautiful of all the Hiawathas was the Olympian Hiawatha of 1947 pulled by an A-B-A set of F-M Eries. Second was the Afternoon Hi behind the 14A-14B. As a New Haven-o-phile, you should surely appreciate a beautiful train like the Hiawatha behind a A-A set of DL-109s

The Olympian Hi running in the Bitterroots between Othello and Avery behind an S-3

4-8-4 was a beautiful thing to behold as well. Milwaukee S-3s were never "bathtubbed". The Ten-Wheelers and the Pacifics were pretty lame, I'll admit, but the F-7s were among the best-looking in a field of giant mechanical sowbugs.

Froggy,

I think this points out a very good example of railroad modeling VS model railroading. Your neighbor was a model railroader. His interest was in the railroad and its operations, not in creating scale models of railroad equipment. The two are different hobbies. For most people I think they are Siamese twins, joined at the head such that they can never be separated. We want scale, realistic-looking equipment that operates in a prototypical manner. If I was forced to choose between highly prototypical operation with tinplate equipment, or fine-scale models with no operation, I would opt for the tinplate and operation. I wouldn't be real happy with it, but that's what I'd do. I don't care much for sitting around admiring my models sitting on the shelf. Froggy,

NA locos have "Character", particularlly MILW models. Roger Aultman

Roger T. wrote:

While hauling tonnage unheard of in the UK. OVer distances covering several times the length of the UK, and that's just the first afternoon. With your mainlines comparing with out shortlines, I suppose some comparison might be made in that context.

But, I suppose that there is a point where one goes past just ugly to being so ugly it's interesting. This does not excuse your designers from stopping at "butt ugly".

But to be serious, esthetics seem to be more determined by what one is accustomed to seeing, and I haven't seen much from the wrong side of the Atlantic that I'd have to model.

Don't take anything seriously, it's a blooming hobby, not real life.

;^))

Rich

To each his own Roger. While I like the look of many UK machines, I do not share your assessment of them as stylish beauties that are superior to North American machines. I prefer steam locos to look like such machines as the Great Northern's O-1 Mikados, Texas & Pacific's and CP's 2-10-4s, New York Central's L-3 4-8-2 and Milwaukee's S-3

4-8-4. The Battle of Britain class, for example, pales by comparison in both size and aesthetics to any of the ones I have listed. But - - - aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder. It is not my intention to try to say that you are in error, just that many of us have a different idea about what is aesthetically pleasing in a machine made for doing heavy work. I like horses, but the ones I like are the big, heavy, working breeds like Percherons and Clydes. I don't care much for Thoroughbreds, Arabians or Morgans. I see steam locos in the same way. The 2-6-6-6 Allegheny is a Clydesdale, while the Sir Nigel Gresley is a Morgan. Most UK machines are ponies by comparison to NA examples. They UK and NA are two different worlds that have vastly different requirements. The distance from Southampton to Glasgow is about half as far as from Vancouver to Calgary. In the one instance, you've traveled across almost the whole country, in the other you've only made a start.

Froggy,

"Richard" <

Speaking only of steam, the average North American loco only ran over one division, about 125 miles. Hardly "several times the length of the UK". And to do that usually took several hours.

Of course.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

I'm talking strictly aesthetics here, not performance.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Right, aesthetics. I think Jackson Pollack's art is a joke. Others will rant against me and call me a Phillistine for making such a comment. In fact, I much prefer Rene Magritte, Salvadore Dali or any of several of the Impressionists. Abstract art to me is like the rap music of art. I only experience it when I can't escape it. It all comes down to personal preference. BTW, I happen to like UK rail-stuff and am going to join up with a group here in Atlanta modeling it. My interest though, is in diesel-electric and straight electric machines, more specifically the 59 class and 66 class. Modern stuff. The group here is steam era, but that's fun too. Oh, I have developed a fondness for rail-things Australian as well. They emulated UK practice to a great degree, as I am sure you know. Froggy,

Gentlemen: Now, before I get fried, let me protest I am only going on aesthetics here.

Prominent and stylish British engines (in my opinion): The 'Castle' 4-6-0 Gresley A-1 4-6-2 Johnson's Midland singles Hamilton 4-4-0s (these last two being my particular favorites) (and many others, to be fair) Prominent and hideous British monstrosities (see above): The various Bulleid 'streamlined' Pacifics. The Gresley A4 The W1 water-tube 4-6-4. The streamlined 'Duchess' 4-6-2.

And now: Prominent and stylish American engines (see above): The PRR K4 (and many, many other Pacifics. It's just a nice looking configuration). The PRR T1 Willam Mason's 4-4-0's SP's rebuilt Atlantics.

Eminently hideous American engines (see above): All NYC streamlined steam engines except the Dreyfus Hudson. Everybody else's streamlined steam except the N&W and CP and MAYBE the Hiawatha 4-4-2's The D&H's L.F.Loree. The B&O George Emerson 4-4-4-4.

And in response to NYCfan back there...no, I'm not a gutless weasel, I'm a crank who has written my share of cranky letters to the newspaper, so I should know what they look like :) The fact is, there is a lot of interesting stuff in my chosen era than the General, the Jupiter, and the 119, but since those are famous, that's what we have available. We can always kitbash.

Cordially yours, Gerard P.

Interesting mix of UK and North American practice. They generally favoured UK practice at first but seem to started to sway towards North American practice around the time of Big Mistake Two.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

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Bulleid locomoitves were _Never_ "streamlined". In Bulleid's own words they were "airsmoothed". In the their as built form they were "OK" locomotives. The rebuilt ones were a vast improvement. However, their boilers' were excellent.

However, one does hold the world speed record for steam and they were as reliable as all heck. They also handled the longest non-stop steam hauled train in the world. The Flying Scotsman, the 392.7 miles between King's Cross and Edinburgh took about in 8 hours 15 minutes on seven tons of coal and no stops. Howmany North American trains ran 400 miles in a little of eight hours?

Ah, with upside-down bath tub "streamlining".

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

They were that slow? Pity.

See:

... and they did it WITH intermediate stops. It's a shame your Flying Scotsman couldn't keep up. ;)

Google "400 miles in 400 minutes"

Various Australian railways started adopting North American practices

*well* before WW2. More like the 1890s. :-)

All the best,

Mark.

Froggy, While there are ascetically pleasing locomotives found around the world there is nothing that looks as good as a Mason Bogie or an early C-16. I like Dali too. While Monet doesn't really make a big impression on me the last Jackson Pollack rendering that I remember did. It was one with big orange blobs that reminded me of something that might have been vomited while on the move. I prefer the illustrators like Dean Cornwell or Boris Vallejo and a few surrealists. Bruce

How many times would the length of the UK fit between Chicago and San Francisco, even if it was a straight line path? In these runs, swapping the loco instead of waiting while it's fueled makes more sense.

Depending on where it was. In thinly populated areas, such as our Great Plains, with few stops and slow downs, they did much better, and still do. Coming out of CHicago, until they've crossed the Mississippi would be a different matter.

But in terms of appearance, I would still rather be working with Pacifics and Mikado locos than anything from other parts of the world. All in what one is used to looking at. The brute strength of a Pacific or Mikado is apparent with the first glance.

Rich

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