Ohio & Penna Coal Co. HOn30

[Philip H]

The model itself was designed by David Hoffman, another famous HOn30er.

That would be my uncle.  At that time he was doing a lot of consulting designs for Japanese brass mfgrs.  He started out as an EBT modeler, and recently was dabbling in ACW stuff in HO in brass.  His health hasn't been the best of late so his modeling related stuff has been set aside.  He also used to sell EBT lost wax castings and wrote a book on Dunkirks which I have a copy of somewhere about.

His day job for 30ish years was running the NASA railroad at KSC in Florida.

[Chris333]

Wow! About 20 years ago I was getting mailings from him on his latest projects. He had a few ads in the magazines, but never was "online". I still have some of his HOn3 4 wheel flatcars that I converted to HOn30.

Just a month or two before the Dunkirk in 1979 he had a hand in a 12ton vertical boiler Climax. It only came in HO or HOn3 so I'm slowly converting mine to HOn30:

Here is the paperwork that came with the Climax:


And I have his Dunkirk book sitting right here at the desk.

[Philip H]

He got paid for a lot of his work in models, so I probably saw these as a kid and had no idea.

He's not online at all - no email, no website, nothing. 

You can see him here at 1:04:

[Chris333]

He also had some brass castings for the Maine 2 footers.

So how did you end up an N scaler? 

[Philip H]

He also had some brass castings for the Maine 2 footers.

So how did you end up an N scaler? 

I was 9 . . . and mom and dad bought me n scale.  The rest is history . . . .

[Chris333]

Just remembered also. Everyone called them "Hoffman kits", but some of his ads said "Bald One Locomotive Works".

[Philip H]

Just remembered also. Everyone called them "Hoffman kits", but some of his ads said "Bald One Locomotive Works".

thats appropos as I don't ever remember him with much hair . . . .

[Chris333]

[Philip H]

SO cool.  The house in Mississippi is designed to look like a railroad depot. He and my cousin built a lot of it themselves.

Small small world.

[Cajonpassfan]

A steam Porter dummy. Ready to run.
Or was it a powered “dummy” ?
Otto K.

[Chris333]

I believe the whole chassis/motor/gears were assembled and the body was a kit.

[Chris333]

I tore the Dunkirk down to clean everything and get ready for paint. 4 screws hold the whole working chassis to the body. I painted up everything so I could lube and re-assemble the chassis "for good" also replaced the pick-up wire with something more flexible. Here it is running on DC with the Kato Sound Box.

[Chris333]

Hey look a Hoffman kit on ebay right now:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HOn30-Class-A-Climax-David-Hoffman-Bald-One-Loco-Works-Locomotive-HOn3-Brass/293879476490?hash=item446c94f10a:g:wHYAAOSwlWNfzQ0A

[Chris333]

Being that these Dunkirk's were HO, HOn3, or HOn30 there was just a big brass tab sticking out to mount a coupler to. The previous owner notched the foot boards for the trip pin to swing. Don't use trip pins so I soldered in a new filler piece and made a 3D coupler mount that also imitates link and pin slots.



And if anyone was curious the 2 cylinders were mounted inside the cab similar to a Heisler. I found this photo of a 1:24 scale model that shows the cylinders.

[wazzou]

Man, that must've been loud.