Broadway Limitied - Which Paragon 4 Heavy Pacific 4-6-2 is truly prototypical?

[Sokramiketes]

But anyways Broadway Limited probably just used the body of their Heavy Mikado and tossed it on a 4-6-2 chassis. So that is why it is not a specific Erie loco.

They did, and its too bad. 

[MRLX1020]

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I shot this for Model Railroad News back in late 2021 - and I think it does an OK job of illustrating some of the differences from a Light to Heavy USRA Pacific.

[peteski]

Are both locos scaled the same in that photo?  Or they are not scaled the same, and the photo is just to show differences in their appearance?

[squirrelhunter]

They did, and its too bad.

It's not all bad- the book Uncle Sam's Locomotives by Eugene Huddleston talks about how the USRA Heavy 4-6-2 used the firebox from the Heavy Mikado and the boiler from the Light Mikado. Quite a few post USRA 4-6-2's used the Heavy 4-6-2 boiler with 73" drivers. The book had a nice chart with the useful stats for the USRA locomotives including things like minimum and maximum outside diameter of the boiler. I had a copy, but I can't seem to find it right now, if I do I'll post the relevant info from it.

Bottom line, I'd use the light 4-6-2 to represent engines of USRA descent since the boiler is from a light 2-8-2.

The heavy 4-6-2 is probably more representative of 4-6-2's that were a good bit bigger than the USRA engines.

[MRLX1020]

Are both locos scaled the same in that photo?  Or they are not scaled the same, and the photo is just to show differences in their appearance?

They are on top of each other vertically - so I guess they are scaled the same?  Any distortion is due to the lens, but the idea was to show the light and heavy proportions.