Mystery 1/2" scale rolling frame and box of bits

[redrocco]

I was looking to start a live steam build a while back and ended up buying a nice but unknown 1/2" scale 4-6-2 atlantic rolling frame along with a big pile of mystery parts and castings. I have been in the process of cleaning the years of grime off and trying to figure out exactly what I have gotten my self into. The person I bought it from said it was all found in a box in a old barn when the new property owner was cleaning it out and now one knows who its original owner was. It seams like years ago someone cleaned off a work bench and got the builders current project and what ever else was there and mixed it into one big box. I have been looking online for months and have found locomotives with some similar features but nothing that looks to be a dead match. Some of the parts have solder and or wax and have been hand modified for making castings i think. I took it to the local live steam club and they recommended posting pics of it hear. I am hoping that someone can help me out as I would love to complete it and the more I can learn the better.

Thanks.

[redrocco]

Five more pics of parts.

[Glenn Brooks]

Welcome to the forum! Well you have a fascinating mystery here. And very nicely detailed model, or models. The 4-6-2 wheel configuration is actually a "Pacific" locomotive. An Atlantic would have 4 drivers, fitting the frame and configuration of some of the wheels you display in your parts photos. So maybe you have parts for three or more different locomotives. As the castings and use of materials in the castings seems similar, at least initially you could assume the same builder had most of the parts cast by the same person, perhaps the same foundry.

There are a couple of expert, early day antique model engine collectors on the forum who hopefully will read your post and comment. It appears to me the castings and materials -bronze and iron - appear to be early 20th century, perhaps 1910-20era. Pacifics were built by the railroads from 1902 through 1930. So the Pacific could have been built any time after 1902. Also 1/2" scale was very popular, maybe predominate in the model railroad world from 1890 thru 1920, and there were only a handful of vendors selling casting kits in those early days. After 1920, a lot more people started making castings and building loco's, but the scales and gauges increased to 1" and up, so it becomes harder to track latter day models. Hopefully someone who really knows these early day locomotives can add some pertinent info about who designed or built your frames...

Also, as an aside, the two silver looking parts shown in your second post - second photo, might be add on components acquired later. Are they aluminium castings?

These barn finds sometimes turn out to be wonderful windows into the past. Couple of things you can do are to post your location in your signature line. Also fill us in on what town and state the barn is/was. This will catch people's attention who live in that area and region - perhaps trigger some old memory or thread regarding the prior owner of the locos.

So here's a way to search for the original owner, or perhaps the vendor who created the original casting kit. Nail down the address of the property where the barn is located, then ask the county tax assessor for a record of property ownership. So,stokes a local title company will do this for you for free, if you explain what you are looking for. This will give you the owner's names going back hundreds of years in some cases. Then start tracking the family genealogy of the property owner and contact whomever might be alive now and ask what they know about the model. You might be surprised what you can find out. Also,definitely ask the folks who cleaned out the barn what they know, particularly any anecdotal knowledge about the time frame the castings werestored in the barn, and what" great Uncle George " told tthem about model trains.

Last year I tracked down and verified that Albert Campbell was the original builder of my 1902 12" gauge 4-4-0 American, largely through an on line search of family history and carefully plotting out old ownership dates of property. Eventually ended up talking with Mr. Campbell's great great grandson, now retired, who remembered helping his GG grandad in his shop fire up the loco , as a kid. This gentlemen has a 1" scale model of another Campbell loco stored in his basement , that is itself over 100 years old - and has been handed down generation after generation as a family keepsake.

Thanks for sharing these parts. I am sure there is a fascinating history here if you can track it all down and piece together!

Regards,
Glenn

[Dick_Morris]

Looks like a nice start. My old catalog says the Little Engines 1/2" scale locomotives used slide valves disguised as piston valves. It looks like yours has true piston valves which would rule out LE.

[redrocco]

Thanks for posting, the 2 castings you mentioned as well as the 3 in the upper right of the 3rd pic on the second post are also aluminum. Your correct about it being a Pacific, I had just been reading a build about a Atlantic and had Atlantic's stuck in my brain. I have e-mailed the person I bought it from who lives in Canada to see what he can tell me about where it came from. I live in upstate NY a long way from the place I bought it from and I hope that the seller can help me out.

[redrocco]

I would agree that it looks like its made for true piston valves. If there are any specific parts or sides that a close up pic would help please let me know.
Thanks.

[PRR G5s]

Redrocco,

I'm not a 1/2" scale expert by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were a betting man, I would say it's a Coventry B&O President class pacific. Or at least a clone of Coventry's. I know Coventry 3/4" scale cylinder blocks have "COV", but not sure about the 1/2" scale cylinder block. That's my $0.02. Very nice find by the way!

Eric L.

[redrocco]

I had looked at the few pics I could find of Coventry's K4 and P7 president and while the cylinder blocks look very similar and Coventry seamed to use the same style of crosshead and crosshead guide i always found lots of differences in other places. I have considered that if the builder was very experienced he may have picked what he liked from several sources and also made some of his own parts and castings from scratch. If that's the case I might never find a truly close match to mine. I still have hope that some one on hear will have a positive ID for the whole kit.

[James Powell]

There are at least 4 sets of engine bits in here- at least that's my guess. You have a fair amount of frames for a 4-6-2, a single frame for a x-4-x, a single frame for a x-6-x, and a set of con rods for a x-8-x

If the chassis came out of Ontario, then perhaps Carrdo, my dad, or Steve _might_ have some answers. There were a fair # of builders in 2.5" gauge that I know of in Ontario, but which one this might have come from, I have no great idea.

(Dad's had 3-4, 2 1/2" locos pass through his hands over time- and I suspect, from what I can see, whoever built this, it wasn't their first rodeo. )

James

[baggo]

I've looked at our drawings for Coventry's 'President Washington', his B&O P7, and I would say that the Pacific chassis is nearly all that. There are a few differences e.g. the guide bar yoke is a different shape, the cylinder rear covers are different, and the crossheads. Pretty much everything else is identical. Looks like you also have the blast nozzle, compressor casting, sand dome, steam dome, and link brackets.

John

[LVRR2095]

I've looked at our drawings for Coventry's 'President Washington', his B&O P7, and I would say that the Pacific chassis is nearly all that. There are a few differences e.g. the guide bar yoke is a different shape, the cylinder rear covers are different, and the crossheads. Pretty much everything else is identical. Looks like you also have the blast nozzle, compressor casting, sand dome, steam dome, and link brackets.

John

John is correct the rolling chassis is a Coventry P-7 as are the sand and steam dome castings. But there are a bunch of other parts there that belong to other locomotives. The rear cross head guide yoke doesn't belong, and it doesn't look like it is even attached. Contact John K. at Friend's Yankee Shop as he has the Coventry designs and he should be able to fix you up with the drawings for this locomotive.
Taking a closer look....I believe you have the simplified version of the P-7 known as the Special No.1. I say this because I see eccentrics on one of the driving axles. These would be for an axle pump that was never used of the true President's Class P-7.
One of the castings looks like the crank case for a model airplane engine! The original owner must have been quite a model engineer.
Keith

[baggo]

Keith,

That's interesting. I didn't know of a simplified version of the P7.

I know of 3 P7's that are being built over here. Two of them are shown below at one of our rallies. The top one is being built without any castings and the cylinders etc. are fabricated.

John