# Comically Oddball Freight Motor



## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

The Washington & Old Dominion RR used to run near our house. It was a very marginal operation, barely profitable over its roughly 100 year run, and they operated with a motley collection of cast-off and homemade rolling stock. One of my favorites is this, freight motor # 26:



















This oddity ran into the 1940s, shuttling freight back and forth around Arlington, VA.


Years ago I started on a model of this thing and set it aside. yesterday and today i got back to work on it




















It's made from a USAT wooden reefer car with porthole frame made from PVC pipe slices. Everything else is styrene with the exception of one wooden door. The hard part will be the railings--I'm not very good at that sort of thing. I'm planning to solder wire together using a jig--alternative suggestions welcome.

Eventually it will have motor blocks and sideframes from a Hartland interurban.

I'll paint the roof silver. The original #26 was either black or a faded "pullman green." I'll go with the green. I really need to model the guy with the beret!


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## hcampbell (Jan 2, 2008)

Wonderful! Great prototype and model. 

Thanks 
Harvey C.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

That is sooo cool. Appeals to my wacky whimsical nature.


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Great job, Note...







Follows the prototype very, very well... Super...


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## s-4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Oh I like it! I've always had a soft spot for wooden traction! Great work so far.


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Very interesting model. It amazes me that traction modelling gets little coverage in any scale especially when there is interesting stuff like this, and the trackwork including tight radius/return loops lend themselves to modelling. Great work! 

I wonder if you could find a square metal mesh/grid large enough for the railing?


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Thank you all. Number 26 was apparently nicknamed "the Chinese Pagoda" and was locally kind of famous for a while. There's a scale drawing of it available and the railroad historian Herbert Harwood actually rode in it before it fell apart/was scrapped in the late 40s. The W&OD had a similar freight motor built out of an old boxcar, but with less panache to it. 

I tried soldering wire tonight and the results were less than impressive. Hardware cloth--the wire mesh--is starting to look pretty good.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Lo and behold I found some reasonably appropriate wire mesh around the house and made some rails, and tried some lettering on the Cricut machine. I painted it silver roof and rustomleum camo green












I'll probably re-do that lettering!

I can't finish it yet--called Hartland Locomotive works, and they said the block that fits best, the block and sideframes from their interurban, is out of stock for a month. I might try to cobble something together using sideframes from a Bachmann coach, which are very similar


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## Dave Ottney (Jan 2, 2008)

There's a desciptiive phrase "pretty ugly". I think it applies here but it has some serious cool factor to it. Great job!! 
Dave


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## van buren sl (Jan 4, 2008)

That is a neat model! The WOD had some fantastic equipment. A few years ago I built a Baldwin Westinghouse freight motor similar to the WOD # 50. I notice that you used Hartland trolley poles. You may wish to order some spares since they will occasionly break getting carried back and forth from the house.
Keep up the good work.

Bob


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## up9018 (Jan 4, 2008)

Very neat loco...it's nice to see the odd prototypes being modeled. Keep up the good work. 

Chris


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## Ted_Roy (Jan 2, 2008)

Traction modeling does not get any better than this! Great prototype! Great looking model! Well Done! 

Ted.


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Great work, and good use of the Cricut (my wife is using hers as I type this). They are amazing machines for their cost and flawless cutting!


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## chaingun (Jan 4, 2008)

Great job! Ya gotta love any rolling stock with that kind of caricature! I really like the pvc port hole frames! 
Best, Ted


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

The W&OD ran A LOT of comical stuff, like this:










Someday I'd love to try that 


I found a picture of an old single truck caboose and decided to modify an old aristo track cleaning caboose to sort of fit 





















The lettering on the caboose was done with the Cricut. I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Now #26 has something to pull at the end of a freight train


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## Richard Weatherby (Jan 3, 2008)

Great stuff!! Nice work.


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Beautifully odd machine! Looks like a combination of a submarine and a train... 
It will be an eye catcher on your layout for sure!


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

The pictures have vanished--resubmitting


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## ohioriverrailway (Jan 2, 2008)

The place looks like it was a real treasure trove of odd-ball equipment. Nice models!


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Old #97 looks familiar to me? I've got a shot someplace fo the Coudersport & Port Allegany "Hoodlebug" that was an early "road-railer" being a bus looking rail vehicle with both rubber tires and flanged wheels that dropped down. #97 looks like it might have been rubber tired at one point long ago but was strictly stuck to the rails now. Thought I'd scanned it! Found it in my first class files.

Thanks for sharing! 

Chas


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Obviously those two road railers were cousins!


I've only ever been able to find two pictures of this W&OD monstrosity:










Another freight motor built from an old boxcar. It looks to me like it should have been fighting in the Civil War. They had one more freight motor which was more straightforward. The W&OD lasted until the seventies, when it hauled construction materials for Dulles airport. A friend remember shopping the slow moving freight trains as they rumbled through town


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## SteveF (Jan 2, 2008)

The "Potlatcher" of the world famous Washington, Idaho and Montana Ry Co seems to have been made from a similar mold, too.








I guess the photo won't load. Go look here. http://www.wimryhpg.com/Photos/websize/Potlatcher leaving Palouse on run No 2 Sept 1949.jpg


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## peter bunce (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi Steve, 

Still having trouble with that photo! 


Here is a link to another one http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/wim_railbus.jpg

Please copy & paste - for some reason though it shows on the Edit page as active, it then refuses to be so when submitted!


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)




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