IHC 2-10-2

A couple of guys I correspond with have them and are most pleased with them. Not as detailed as the Bachmann 2-10-2 but they both say a "good buy" none the less.

-- Cheers

Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Thanks. I was thinking that if they were like the other Premier engines that they would be pretty good. The picture in the ad shows blind center drivers... I wonder how close these locos are to the old AHM 2-10-2's. And, I wonder how they would do on my 22" radius curves...

Thanks again.

dlm

Excuse me for asking, but I'm not a steam guy so the term may be lost on me... "blind" drivers means no flanges, correct?

Correct, and this was pretty common on many prototypes too. It helps make long wheelbase locos more 'flexible' in traversing sharp curves ... the same reason we modelers use them. They were most common on locos with long rigid wheelbases, often 10-coupled locos like 2-10-0's and

Occasionally they could be found even on small locos like switchers that had to access unusually sharply curved trackwork.

I've even seen a 4-6-0 with blind drivers ... the first *TWO* driver sets no less, with only the back set flanged. It relied only on the lead truck to center the front of the loco. Strange.

That's not to say that ALL models have the SAME arrangement of blind drivers as the prototype (if any), but it's nothing to get excited about, and MAY be desirable for various reasons.

Dan Mitchell ============

Yes, and the prototype used them too, for the same reason: to enable long wheelbase steamers to traverse tight curves. Those blind drivers also had wider tires. Some early 2-8-0s had _two_ axles of blind drivers, even.

HTH