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Alco drawings

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 5:23 pm
by pollockmarine
Hi team,

Can anyone point me in the direction of where I can obtain alco drawings, I have contacted C&O and they don't have the drawings I am after so thought I'd ask here with all the wisdom that is in this group. To be specific I am after the drawings for a C&O k3-a the alco order number was R-368 or any alco drawings for the k3-a would help at present have only been able to find these.

Re: Alco drawings

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:03 pm
by Fender
The late Bill Bursey of Clifton Forge VA built a 7.5” gauge model of one of these from C&O blueprints. You might contact the C&O historical society to see if they have the prints he worked from. The engine he built is on display in their museum in Clifton Forge.

Re: Alco drawings

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 8:52 pm
by Mark Landgraf
Hi,

Like Dan said, probably your best bet is the C&O Historical Society - COHS.ORG - Clifton Forge, VA - 540-862-2210
They are well organized and have a paid staff. The drawings are also priced like they have a paid staff. They specialize in C&O, and have known to sell off non C&O drawings on eBay. It's all about the money.

Secondarily try the B&O Museum in Baltimore. You might say they have a collection that represent anything Chessie, L&N and WM, as well as B&O and C&O.The Baltimore collection is not so well organized, in fact, much of it isn't cataloged. They have lots of map cases and lots of those long boxes that are designed to hold 16 tubes of maps or drawings. Drawers have flavors, and so do the 16 map tube boxes. You might say that have a lot of stuff that has been "first pass sorted" Unfortunately cataloging has not even occurred at the drawer level.

Both of the above organizations regularly receive trailer loads of paper from CSX. The trailers are usually mixed RR and mixed topics. B&O keeps everything, whereas C&O only keeps what is C&O and discards the rest, for a profit.

A distant third source would be the Alco Historic Photo Collection in Schenectady NY. While their collection is mostly builder photos, they do also have specification sheets and drawings displayed much the way you sample is.

The factory construction numbers were from 66468 to 66517. They had 63 inch drivers. Were built in between Dec 1925 and Mar 1926 and had C&O road number from 2300 to 2349.

There was a nice article in November 1999 in Mainline Modeler about the K3a, and a K2a article in April 2000.

Please post the drawing numbers in your sample. It's the number that starts with 42.

Please contact me off list at
mark_landgraf at yahoo dot com

Mark Landgraf
Albany NY

Re: Alco drawings

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:10 pm
by Gary Bonine
Pollockmarine,
What follows occurred somewhere around 30 years ago. Back then over a span of about 2 -3 years I purchased seven drawings from the ALCO Historic Photo Collection. They were at the time in the care of the New York Chapter of " The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society". Whether or not this is the case now I don't know.
All but the last drawing were done on mylar surfaced with black & white photo chemicals. The last drawing , a Central Vermont 2-10-4 , was done on a quality paper as the mylar reproductions were no longer available. I found these drawings to be excellent, they were done in 1/2" scale and very accurate ( i.e. measurable ). The only exception were the sections for NP's Z-8 4-6-6-4, it was slightly off, the elevation was perfect. Drawing needs from the sections were taken care of using ratio and proportion.

About a week ago I found I needed to see if they had a drawing for a specific locomotive and just now discovered that my photograph and drawing catalogs from them are missing. I will be trying to contact them to see what I can find and pass it on to you, especially if you can't get what you need from the C&O group.

A couple of years ago I tried to locate a company in the US that still had photographic process reproduction, it apparently no longer exists which is a great detriment if you need to change something on a drawing you have done yourself - its all digital which is not anywhere near as flexible as the older reproduction process ( especially the photographic ).

Gary Bonine
EL Paso, TX