What was the most beautiful?

Ok, this one has won my heart, along with

AND

All homage to "me" for posting these wonderful images. "me" you are the link-master!

:)

Steve

Bachmann makes this. It is a tender mounted motor with a drive shaft to the engine. AHM use to make/import it. I do not know if it is availble any more. Check in the Walthers catalog.

Steve, Many C-16's have been made in HOn3, Sn3, On3, and G gauge. Many were brass and no longer made but are easy to find. Look for importer brand names were like Westside, Sunset, PFM, and PBL. I think Precision Scale may have some new ones out in HOn3 right now. It seems like every few years someone issues a new run of them in one scale or the other. Several manufactures have them in G gauge some are 1:20.3 ( that makes them the correct size if G gauge track is equivalent to 3') and I think some are 1:24 scale. Then there are the old Kemton brass kits in HOn3 and On3 that still surface every now and then. BLI makes an On30 version that comes with DC/DCC/sound. One comes lettered for #268 in her bumble bee paint and they can be found for around $200 or less. Bruce

imagine what caused a dent on a Hiawatha front!

OUCH!!!!!!

:)

This is one Loco I would love to get a HO model of!

Steve

Thankyou Bruce - will look further into it using your importer's names as reference

Steve

might be this?

Yes, but a cast iron balloon will not fly. These balloons flew quite well.

........F>

They were contemporaries of the Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen (SBB) Ce 6/8-I "Krokodil", but were larger and nearly twice as powerful and twice as fast. The terrain over which they were designed to operate is not unlike that of the Gotthard line, only several times longer than the distance from Zurich to Goschenen, where I gather the Ce 6/8s mostly operated. The Coast Division from Tacoma to Othello is slightly longer than the entire distance across Switzerland from Schaffhausen to Chiasso, or from Basel to Bellenzona This is in no way imaginable meant to diminish the Ce 6/8s, but merely to offer a comparison in the scope of North American railroading compared to that of European railroading. Our stuff is BIG, our trains are long and heavy, and we go great distances. Only Australia comes close in scope. The GE Bi-Polars served admirably for over 40 years, and I can virtually guarantee they did it with a lot less maintenance than any other country's locomotives.

........F>

That's what I thought!

That's not quite true - if you make the cast iron thin enough ....

Not cast iron, but all metal, the USA flew a small dirigible called the "Metal Skin" during the airship era. It was experimental, but flew reasonably. It was based out of the Detroit area (Gross Isle), and Ford was involved with it's construction. It's construction hanger was/(is?) still there for MANY years after. For a while it was used as a blimp hanger at the naval air station on the island.

Small for a rigid airship, it was about the size of a blimp, and looked a lot like one. It had a rigid metal shell (hence it's name) to hold the lifting gas, and retained it's shape without internal gas pressure (unlike a blimp). It was a one of a kind, and was not deemed worthy of repeating, but it did fly many times. If the whole idea of airships hadn't been (prematurely) shelved, perhaps something might have come of it.

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

Wow! This sounds fascinating, Dan. Any idea how the envelope was constructed, and how it was made gas-tight? I presume the lifting gas was helium?

I am fairly sure there were several attempts during the Montgolfier era to build hot air balloons using iron sheet beaten extremely thinly. The major problem of lighter than air craft (as I see it) is that the speed they can attain is still inside/under the speed that winds can regularly attain and so they can only be used when the weather is suitable.

The North Shore Electroliner. One of St. Louis Car Co.'s best. It looks fast even now.

Jay

website URL: members.aol.com/orphantrainlocos/index.html All the world's a stage - and everybody's a critic.

It was known as the ZMC-2 metalclad dirigible, and was built in 1929. Ford was involved in it's construction. The skin was aluminum alloy. It had only a minimal interior skeleton ... mostly the skin was stressed to serve as a rigid balloon. Most books on the history of airships mention it and have photos, some more than others, but I know of no single source of information that's extensive. It was scrapped sometime in 1941.

Photos:

A website I've seen that mentions it is:

Other wedsites that mention it:

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