3/4" Scale J1e

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Bill Shields
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Bill Shields »

Harold owned a full size Hudson Tender?

or did he get NYCRR to donate it rather than cut it up into razor blades like all the locos?
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Steam Engine Dan
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Steam Engine Dan »

the story goes that somehow he got it saved, and had kept it since before donating it to steamtown. thats all i ever heard of the story. i am hoping people here that knew harold better might be able to verify or confirm if it is true. maybe steve bratina can verify. he knew harold really well and is familiar with the real 5313.
Steam Engine Dan
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Steam Engine Dan »

ok bill, i just emailed steve. hopefully he'll better insight than me.
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Bill Shields
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Bill Shields »

Which means he got NYCRR to park it somewhere out of sight.

Knowing Harold as well as I did -> this I can believe.
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Steam Engine Dan
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Steam Engine Dan »

ok bill, here is the story from steve bratina. "Here is the story. I was at the FLLS 30th Anniversary and Bill Withune was the guest speaker. During a conversation wth some of the guys, it was mentioned about Steamtown wanting to build a NYC Hudson. I chimed up that at least they don’t have to build a tender which got a bunch of blank stares. Once I told them how the TH& B used a tender off of the 502 (ex 5313) to make a steam generator car, they exclaimed “How come nobody told us about it”.
I ended up sending a recent article on the tender that was in the TH&B Magazine to the president of the FLLS. He wrote me back ( when we still wrote letters)thanking me for this information and that Harold had gone ahead and bought the tender. At the time, it was in Vermont as the CPR had absorbed the TH&B by then and sold the car to some railroad there.
And now you know..............the rest of the story"

Here is a picture of what it looked like after conversion. They used some of the bunker edging from the 501 to match the rest of the contour. The water scoops were removed when the engines arrived on the property.
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image1.jpeg
Berkman
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Berkman »

The detail photos you took of the commonwealth trucks are quite interesting.

but WOW the steamtown collection is looking very rough.
little giant
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by little giant »

From what I remember I was standing next to Dan's locomotive taking pictures of his hudson and a gentleman came by and said those common wealth trucks looks like the ones in my backyard but the tank was square-ish compared to Dan's. Myself and Bill Young kind of laughed and said yeah right. He said that he was going to get them cut up and sold for scrap next month. Then it was decided to get Harold to talk to this gentleman about this tender. Harold went home and did some research and found out it was a NYC tender that was used as a workshop and then turned into an oil bunker for a generator. The picture above does not look like the one at steam town. It doesn't have windows or a door. I tought the gentleman was from Canada. Anyways Harold saved the tender by paying the gentleman what the scrap man was going to take it away for. Seth Corwin who was an Engineer at steam town and a member of FLLS made the arrangements to take it to steam town where it sits today.
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Bill Shields
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Bill Shields »

Lotsa stories about Harold...crazy as they sound, most of them are true.

I wonder how many arms he had to twist to get it out on the main line tracks?
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
Steam Engine Dan
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by Steam Engine Dan »

little giant wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 8:16 pm From what I remember I was standing next to Dan's locomotive taking pictures of his hudson and a gentleman came by and said those common wealth trucks looks like the ones in my backyard but the tank was square-ish compared to Dan's. Myself and Bill Young kind of laughed and said yeah right. He said that he was going to get them cut up and sold for scrap next month. Then it was decided to get Harold to talk to this gentleman about this tender. Harold went home and did some research and found out it was a NYC tender that was used as a workshop and then turned into an oil bunker for a generator. The picture above does not look like the one at steam town. It doesn't have windows or a door. I tought the gentleman was from Canada. Anyways Harold saved the tender by paying the gentleman what the scrap man was going to take it away for. Seth Corwin who was an Engineer at steam town and a member of FLLS made the arrangements to take it to steam town where it sits today.
really? i don't remember that at all and do you still have the pictures? i'd like to see them and i know my dad would too. maybe my dad knows this story. but this is news to me. these were full size trucks this guy had in his backyard? i was so little then when all this was happening i probably didn't even pay attention.
little giant
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by little giant »

The gentleman was referring to the common wealth trucks under the tender that Harold bought. I still have the photos of your Dad’s loco somewhere in the house and will try to find them. At that time I was planning on building a Niagara in 1 1/2 scale and took close up shots. After seeing a 4-8-4 Boston and Maine at our club and decided not to build the Niagara.
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JBodenmann
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by JBodenmann »

Hello My Friends
Great info concerning the tender. I wish it was closer. I managed to get some time this weekend to work on the tender frame. Some Commonwealth cast steel tenders had corrugated portions on the underside. Here is a photo taken from the 1940 Loco Cyclopedia. This is a cool detail that I wanted to incorporate in my tender. A while back I talked about details and "who noticed". This is what I was talking about. Just about everybody appreciates a good model. But this is the sort of thing that only a model builder that has actually built a locomotive will take notice of.
Tender6 .jpeg
A die set was made up to form the corrugated strips and here is a sample. This material is .030" cold rolled.
Tender7.jpeg
Here is the die set. The round bars are 3/8". The bar across the top is for indexing. It holds the last formed corrugation in place when the next two are formed. This die set was just slammed together. I think it took about an hour to make. At first I was thinking of a complicated die with a spring loaded index and all the pieces fastened together with machine screws or welding. When I formed the test piece I realized that this was not needed and a very simple set up would do quite nicely.
Tender8.jpeg
Here we have the top die in place ready to be pressed.
Tender9.jpeg
And here is the whole mess after pressing. I have a twenty ton press, and it would only manage two corrugations at a time. The indexing bar will now be removed, and the work piece is moved over. The index is replaced, and pressing is repeated. This is a pretty slow process. I needed two strips 28" long and it took about an hour and a half to form each one.
Tender10.jpeg
Here is a mostly done corrugated strip. I was pleasantly surprised how uniform the strips were. They will fit into slots milled into the side and center sills and will be TIG welded in place here and there. I'm not sure how I will arrange the side bearings for the Commonwealth trucks. This corrugated bit is totally unnecessary but like I said I think it's just a cool detail. And it will be fun to see who notices :D
Tender11.jpeg
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rmac
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Re: 3/4" Scale J1e

Post by rmac »

These photos must be fake. There's no pencil. :D

-- Russell Mac
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