Baureihe 23 (German Steam) and New York Central Hudson, both OO Gauge (1/76)

[Matt Bacon]

A couple more headed toward the Classic British Kits display at ScaleModelWorld 2015.

First up, the german general purpose loco, Baureihe 23 (Class 23):

Then, the New York Central Railway Hudson (not the super-cool streamliner version....)

bestest,

M.

Edited October 20, 2015 by Matt Bacon

[Matt Bacon]

And finally, a few of the whole line-up, as it stands tonight:

bestest,

M.

[cobraman]

Nice collection.

[Jim B]

Nice collection of engines.  What is the purpose of the "blinders" on the German engine?  I don't recall ever seeing those on US engines.

[bamadon]

The "blinders" are called smoke deflectors.  The purpose was to make the smoke rise instead of covering the engine cab.  They were used on American roads as well.  Two I can think of off hand were the Union Pacific and the New York Central. 

[Jim B]

Oh, ok.  So they were used to channel air flow.  Did they really work?  I just called them "blinders" because they look like blinders for a horse.

[Earl Marischal]

Matt,

Nice work but are they all statics?

No layout to have them parked in a siding somewhere?

I'm guessing the Class 23 and the Hudson are Revell kits?

steve

[Matt Bacon]

Yep... they definitely worked. They started being needed as boilers grew in size through the early 20th century. The taller Victorian chimneys gradually shrank down as the boiler and firebox diameter grew, because the height of tunnels and bridges etc was fixed, so the locos had to fit into a specific cross section, called the "loading gauge," which didn't change. With a simple blunt front end, the air has to split around the front, leading to a low pressure area below the chimney, which sucked the smoke back down and tumbled it along the boiler sides, right where the driver needed to see. The "smoke deflectors" channel the air into an upward blast, carrying the smoke up and over the top of the locomotive instead.

One further complication was that as piston mechanisms became more and more efficient at extracting energy from the expanding steam, the lower pressure the output to the chimney. Rather than blasting smoke and steam out like a Victorian engine, a 20th century loco had to work to "draw" the exhaust out of the chimney...

bestest,

M.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Matt Bacon

[bamadon]

Yup, what he said.

[Matt Bacon]

Nice work but are they all statics?

No layout to have them parked in a siding somewhere?

Hi, Steve... they are all statics indeed. They are for a Classic British Kits SIG display at Scale Model World in November, which is celebrating 60 years of classic railway plastic. These are all Kitmaster engine kits dating from the very early sixties. Some (Schools Class, Mogul, Battle of Britain Class, City of Truro, Evening Star...) went on to be issued by Airfix alongside their own railway kits. Eventually, a few went on to Dapol when Airfix stopped doing model railways, and are still available today.

The interesting thing is that all of them are proper OO scale (though on standard OO/HO track gauge), even the Continental and American prototypes, so you can compare sizes in a constant 1/76. That was probably a big marketing mistake by Kitmaster (who's going to want a 241.P "Mountain" or Baureihe 23 on a UK layout, or a 1/76 giant on a 1/87 scale model railway in Queens or Reims...?)

We think we are going to be able to display a full set of all the Kitmaster locos on the display (and yes, there is actually a layout running Kitmaster rolling stock hauled by motorized Airfix locomotives for passers-by to "drive" past all the Airfix plastic scenery that was such a big part of their range of kits)

bestest,

M.

[grayghost]

Super nice trains.

Why do the British trains not have a light? I see some nice electric ho on ebay but none have a light.