[MOC] Erie L-1 0-8-8-0 Camelback Mallet

[ProvenceTristram]

Proto:

 

Model:

Edited December 16, 2018 by ProvenceTristram

[Pdaitabird]

Lovely engine with lots of nice details, like the pipework around the boiler and how the high- and low-pressure cylinders are slightly different. Looks very accurate to the prototype!

[ProvenceTristram]

37 minutes ago, Pdaitabird said:

Lovely engine with lots of nice details, like the pipework around the boiler and how the high- and low-pressure cylinders are slightly different. Looks very accurate to the prototype!

Thanks. IRL, I'd have better represented the piping just forward of the cab on the right side, but it's impossible in LDD, so I just did some greebling there. I try to keep my designs accurate, but allow for running, too. It may not look like it, but the front wheelset can actually swing almost 30 degrees. I wish I could have powered it, too, but there was no place to put a second motor.

Edited December 16, 2018 by ProvenceTristram

[3D LEGO]

ProvenceTristram,

Excellent work on your design. I know it takes a lot of work and patience but your efforts have been paying off in the results. The unfortunate reality that many of us can attest to, myself included, is that things do not always translate well from 3-D model to real bricks and so we are forced to make compromises. We can all dream. But on the flip side, sometimes you just have to mash out an idea and digging into the pile is too much of a hassle so CAD it is!

That being said, you have got to love those locomotives that are all about power. Whereas others threw on axles here and there to guide around curves and distribute weight, brutes like these come along and throw it all out the window. If it is not powered, then off with it.

I was pondering little design changes that you could make but decided against them as they are so minute. If building, one suggestion would make is on the placement of the blind wheels. You would want to utilize a flanged-blind-flanged-blind approach with consideration to the articulation as it would greatly reduced binding on tighter curves. But on the flip side, your design is perfectly acceptable in the logging railroad realm. Below is a link to a picture of a locomotive in my area that I have seen on several occasions. It does indeed make use of the flanged-blind-blind-flanged configuration that you used.

Polson Logging Co No 70 - Mount Rainier Railroad and Logging Museum No. 5

3D LEGO

Edited December 16, 2018 by 3D LEGO
Fixed typo in locomotive name.

[ecmo47]

Wow, that's a weird one! Nice work on the Lego representation. Historically, I wonder what the selling point of a camel back was? The design would limited the engineer to being only able to see one side of the track and the fireman would still be stuck in the back.

 

[Daedalus304]

2 hours ago, ecmo47 said:

Wow, that's a weird one! Nice work on the Lego representation. Historically, I wonder what the selling point of a camel back was? The design would limited the engineer to being only able to see one side of the track and the fireman would still be stuck in the back.

 

Camel back Locomotives were generally made that way because they needed an exceptionally large firebox that made fitting a cab in the usual spot unworkable. I believe in the Erie's case it was to work with a Anthracite Coal, which burned very differently.

Why they sat the cab on top of the boiler instead of doing it more like a cab-foreward design I'm unsure of, but I imagine it was for safety concerns relating to accidents not smashing the driver.

[ProvenceTristram]

3 hours ago, ecmo47 said:

Wow, that's a weird one! Nice work on the Lego representation. Historically, I wonder what the selling point of a camel back was? The design would limited the engineer to being only able to see one side of the track and the fireman would still be stuck in the back.

 

It allowed for an enormous firebox. And, theoretically, it also gave the engineer a better view forward. However, they were regarded as widow-makers due to the fact that, when driving rods broke at speed, they would rotate upwards into the cab like a scythe and kill the person inside.

Edited December 16, 2018 by ProvenceTristram

[zephyr1934]

That is definitely an interesting prototype... for lack of a better word I'd have to say "bulldog pretty" (I like it). And as per your norm, lots of juicy details in your MOC. I like how you mixed a few normal slopes in with the curved slopes on the firebox to get the vertical edge lines.