in praise of old steam tooling...

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Until very recently, I have never given steam a second look. Even when I was a kid in the 80's, I would look at N scale steam and instantly recoil at the bad paint, huge flanges, bent metal valve gear more suitable inside a lock than visible on a model. And those awful electrical and mechanisms shuttering, binding and sputtering down the track.

But... BUT...

I have been accumulating parts for casting and I have to say, some of the tooling really is quite good. Rivarossi and Rowa specifically seem really well done. Now I still wouldn't run these engines on my layout, but I have used the tenders and boiler castings to kit-bash models and the parts never seem out of place with their modern counterparts. That is pretty damn impressive.

[peteski]

I agree Daniel that some of the early molds, especially from Rivarossi and Fleischmann, but also Arnold and Minitrix were of excellent quality.  Back then the molds were designed and hand-made by master-craftsman in Germany and Italy. Those craftsman were very meticulous and true experts at their craft. 

While we now have CAD/CAM and all sorts of fancy tools to automate the mold-making  process, the engineers and mold-makers who use those tools don't seem to be as meticulous as the old-world craftsman. There are few exceptions (like Kato and few others) but in many instances the quality and fidelity of the molds is just barely up pto par. Sure, the models of today have all sorts of add-on details, but if you get down and look at at the basic shells and mechanisms it shows that they are made by some drone who just wants to go home after his 8-hour work day. 

[randgust]

You'll find the best and the worst out there, for sure.
 
There's a lot of really old stuff that gets no respect at all, like the original Lima FP45 shell.  Trucks and frame are pretty bad and wrong, but above the frame? Different story.

I was always impressed by the casting work on the original Atlas 0-4-0 with tender.  The wheels and side rods made it look a little absurd, but take a good hard look at the metal boiler casting itself.    Huh.     http://www.spookshow.net/loco/files/riv040mech.jpg

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Oh yeah, absolutely.

It makes me wish some of this stuff was re-issued today with fixes.

Like the Bachmann Reading I10 consol. Oh man, that'd be amazing...

[thomasjmdavis]

The only reason I abandoned my Rivarossi engines was because they were not practical once I made the switch to code 55 track.  They were rather high maintenance, and ran well if a bit on the fast side, but so did the diesels of the early years of N scale. I had a Pacific and Mikado as my main road locomotives in my early years in N scale (late 70s). The only one I recall being really problematic was an 0-4-0, that stalled at switches for lack of wheelbase. I was able to sell them in the early 2000s for more than I paid for them (except the 0-4-0 that went a bit below cost, and of course, cost of a new one in 2000 was a LOT higher than 1978 prices), and they helped fund the acquisition, IIRC, of Kato F3s, which is rather appropriate, when you think about it, "trading in" 25 year old steamers for new F units.

And to this day, I run the Rivarossi and Rowa passenger cars I bought in the 70s.  Rowa had flush windows when those weren't commonly available in HO, much less N, and 4 or 5 decades later, manufacturers are still putting new tooling streamline cars on the market without them.  If Arnold wanted to bring out an updated version of the Rivarossi ATSF HW cars (upgraded to a standard similar to MT), I would be a big customer.  And frankly, the old Rivarossi streamliners still stand up pretty well to brand new cars from Con Cor and Bachmann {granted, I think some of the Con Cor tooling is Rivarossi tooling, or copies).  Again, if those were updated with flush windows and better trucks and couplers, they would be qualitatively equal to most of what is out there today.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I think the Riv boiler is a bit nicer than the one on the current MP light Pacific. And that 0-8-0. Isn't this the FIRST steam engine ever made for America? I'm using the narrow bunker tender shell to replace the shells on Spectrum USRA short tenders for an MEC 0-6-0. It's that good.

It is clear to me that the tooling was made with the same love and care you can see in the CC/Kato PA.

[mmagliaro]

I completely agree.  The Rowa 2-8-4 Berkshire is almost legendary for how smoothly it ran, although geared too high.
And some of the body shells were very impressive.  The Minitrix K4 hung on for decades not just because there was no other K4, but because that shell was darn impressive for when it was made, and still "pretty good" by today's standards.

I still have a stash of Rivarossi tender shells because those are my go-to fodder when I need to kitbash something.

[nkalanaga]

The Rowa 2-8-8-2 was as good as the 2-8-4, and ran slower.  I have both, and the Mallet is the only steam I run halfway regularly.  The BN didn't use much steam in the 70s...

[brokemoto]

It makes me wish some of this stuff was re-issued today with fixes.Like the Bachmann Reading I10 consol. Oh man, that'd be amazing...

When you consider that road specific steam is selling, I am surprised that Bachpersonn has not issued an  upgraded version of this one.  In fact, B-mann might get away with hanging lettering for several hard coal roads on this one (Delay and Hesitate, Delay, Linger and Wait, CNJ, LV). 

I have done a test fit on the SPECTRUM chassis and it will go, with a few modifications.   I suspect that B-mann could have the modifications done more easily that I could do them.  I have not done it simply because I do not model hard coal roads.

In reality, the thing may need only a better motor and improved current collection.   The chassis itself is not bad.  I fried the motor on one, which is not unusual for these things.   I took out the motor, added some weight, put it onto the track, coupled up a cheater boxcar (Atlas fifty foot on a LL split-frame FA-1 chassis) and it went around the track nicely.  The chassis free wheels, something that many N scale steam locomotive  chassis will not do.  ( I have more than a few steam locomotives from the 1980s and before with fried motors.)

[nickelplate759]

Although not steam, someone mentioned the old Rowa passenger car tooling.   I recently refurbished a couple - here's an example of how nice that tooling was:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

I added roof ladder grabs, American Limited diaphragms, Micro-Trains trucks, repainted it (True Color paints), and lettered it for NKP City of Kokomo (deRAILcals from After Hours Graphics decals, out of print alas).  The roof isn't bowed - that's an artifact of my cell-phone photography.

Regards,
George

[thomasjmdavis]

Nice work George.  I am hoping to do something similar one day with an ACL car, if I can find or make decals for white lettering over a purple stripe letterboard.  The ACLSal society makes decals for the black lettering scheme, but that is a couple years past my era.

[nickelplate759]

Nice work George.  I am hoping to do something similar one day with an ACL car, if I can find or make decals for white lettering over a purple stripe letterboard.  The ACLSal society makes decals for the black lettering scheme, but that is a couple years past my era.

If you can accept silver rather than white lettering (could the white have been faded silver?), you can use the wide lettering from Microscale set 60-773 for the purple letterboard: http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=60-773 .
I did an observation car this way, but alas I used Polly S  ACL Purple and the color was WAY off 

George

[pnolan48]

I still have many of the old steamers, and cherish the memories of what I did to them to make them run better. I added an auxiliary tender to the Atlas 0-4-0 to extend the wheelbase for electrical pickup. Stick four or five cars behind it, put it on a 2 percent grade, and watch the drivers spin as it slowly climbed the grade. I made brass pickup strips that hung from the back of the Docksider, increasing its wheelbase just a bit. That effort was comical as it wobbled down the track, throwing sparks from whichever strip was contacting the rail. But it ran and ran and ran until one day when it emitted a sharp crack! from inside and died. The Docksider motors were also a drop-in replacement for the Atlas Light Pacific, I believe. I'm molding and casting more ship parts than railroad engines these days, but I still have a bunch of 0-8-0s that, I am still convinced, can be made to run again.

[thomasjmdavis]

If you can accept silver rather than white lettering

George, even if we are a bit off topic, thanks for the ongoing conversation- you sent me back to my books, and I think the decals you are suggesting will work just fine (hoping they fit the letterboards of the various cars I will try to use them on- models from several manufacturers and a couple of USP sides).  I have some Badger "ACL Purple" and will see how that looks.  On the car will run in "Dixie" trains generally behind CEI power, so I don't need to worry about matching this or that brand of locomotive.  That WoT ACL "blue" baggage car, on the other hand, may be problematic.

Actually, that is closer to correct than the white I was thinking it was (and once upon a time, I knew better).  Larry Goolsby (ACL Passenger Service= the Post-War Years) calls the color "aluminum-gray"- and I imagine what it actually looked like had a lot to do with how bright the sun was on a given day, and how long since the car had been repainted.  In some photos it looks shiny silver and in others virtually white.  He refers to the color used on E units as "aluminum" but in various photos, it looks like the same thing, or something sufficiently similar for me. 

Tom D

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I just bought a Rivarossi 0-8-0 boiler and tender shell on e-bay for $15. I only wanted the tender shell for an MEC USRA 0-6-0 conversion, but then I came across the B&M H3:
https://070727e4-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/bostonandmainerailroad/home/boston-maine-steam-locomotives/b-m-class-c-d-and-e/b-m-class-f-and-g/b-m-class-h-and-j/IMG_0005.jpg
https://070727e4-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/bostonandmainerailroad/home/boston-maine-steam-locomotives/b-m-class-c-d-and-e/b-m-class-f-and-g/b-m-class-h-and-j/IMG_0006.jpg

That is really close to the IHB engine the Riv model is based on. I'm going to add this onto the pile of projects.

Remove the feedwater heater, replace the smokebox door with one from a Bachmann heavy mountain, drop on a Bachmann 2-8-0 chassis with the front truck and pilot removed. Add a MTL conversion pilot and i'm 90% the way there.

This is getting fun!