Which one do you have? I discovered that there were two different 2-6-0's.

I know how they're decorated.  Is there a known prototype of these? I'm more interested in the 62" driver version than the one with smaller drivers, but both are interesting.

Good point, Mark.  Again, the three-cylinder locomotives are a little different, since they can be set 120 degrees apart and never be stuck in the same way.

The simplest answer is that Kadee offers some knuckle couplers that will fit pretty much anything and everything. But precisely which one of their dozens of offerings is the most appropriate I have absolutely no idea.

Conventional steam locomotives exhaust twice per cylinder per rotation of the driving axle. So a two-cylinder exhausts four chuffs per driving axle rotation, and a three-cylinder such as a UP 9000 or SP 4-10-2 yields six chuffs.

Mallets - ie compounds - sound like larger versions of a two-cylinder, even though there are four cylinders. The high pressure cylinders exhaust into the low-pressure ones, where the steam expands again before going up the stack. Since it's the exhaust beats that we hear, a Mallet like the C&O 2-6-6-2's sound like big 2-cylinders. A simple articulated such as an N&W A or UP Big Boy/Challenger is effectively two two-cylinder locomotives, so eight exhaust beats.

There are some exceptions to all of these rules, such as the N&W class Y 2-8-8-2's, which were fundamentally compound locomotives, but which were often started as simple locomotives. Once the train was started the Y would be switched back to compound operation for the run.

There were also various oddball locomotives, such as the Baldwin 60000 4-10-2, which was a 3-cylinder compound, meaning high pressure went to the center cylinder, which exhausted into the two outside cylinders - hence it sounded like a conventional 2-cylinder locomotive. (The UP 9000's were three-cylinder simple locomotives.)  D&H and B&O each produced a number of odd duck compounds in the 20s and 30s, but they're obviously not Bachmann models.

First, my favorite supplier has some 56514's in stock that are clearly labeled both there and here at Bach-man's site as having smoke units.

Second, unless I misinterpreted the diagram, it is generic to the 2-6-0, and does not clearly indicate the differences between, say, a 56514 with smoke and another unit advertised as having no smoke but DCC/sound.

Finally, and I didn't mention this before, but already have a QSI Titan sound decoder on hand, so I really am preferring to buy a DCC-ready unit and plug in the decoder and speaker.  (Titans come with speakers, and I prefer to standardize on them for any sound that I install. So far I haven't found it necessary or even appropriate to replace a Tsunami or Loksound unit.)  Because I have an appropriate full-function decoder on hand - it even is loaded with the small steam sound set - I would prefer to avoid a DCC/SoundValue unit.

So... a more direct question: is the 56514 - the one with a smoke unit - DCC ready?

Is it safe to assume that all current production locomotives are at least DCC-ready? In this case the specific question is about the Alco 2-6-0. Are units equipped with smoke still DCC ready? I presume that there's no major issue with disconnecting the smoke unit in such a model. The web site is anything but illuminating about such details.

In my case the paint scheme doesn't matter (it will have to be repainted entirely anyway), so all I really care about is how much effort goes into making it ready for use on a DCC layout. Obviously I'd get a DCC/sound unit if I can find one, but they're hard to find.

1970s also means at least two very different things, namely pre-Amtrak and Amtrak.  For the most part, after Amtrak formed, most of the trains were still relatively long, as only the relatively successful (least unsuccessful?) routes survived. The few independents - such as the Southern Crescent - also were relatively long. From memory I remember the mid-1970s Crescent being at least 8+ cars, long enough to be "a real passenger train." So were the primary Amtrak routes.

Pre-Amtrak, there were a considerable number of "stubs" running as pale ghosts of their predecessors. Some of the once-great trains were sometimes running as a single car with a GP-9, particularly some sections. For example, the C&O's flagship, the George Washington, had once rated two sections across the whole railroad, and even after WWII some of those were 18 or even 20 cars. By 1971 but still pre-Amtrak, the George ran west to east in a single section of at least 3 cars and usually a bit more. When it split into the Washington and Newport News sections at Charlottesville, VA, the Newport News section went on as a single car with a GP. Other sections ran similarly, if they had not yet been discontinued. All of these "runts" were discontinued by Amtrak. The situation was similar on other railroads pre-Amtrak, although I don't know the details.

Excellent, very helpful. It would have 56" drivers and a 30" pony truck. The major dimensions are about right, although the C&O engines had evenly spaced drivers and the GB&W apparently has an extra 6" there. The major thing that would have to be corrected is that the GB&W apparently had Baker valve gear while the C&O engines carried Stephenson slide valves throughout their careers. The tender is all wrong too, but that's a relatively straightforward thing to build, especially since it's only above the frame.

Roundhouses and turntables take up a lot of space.  My engine terminal - which actually models a relatively small prototype, but which caters to the largest steam locomotives - consumes nearly all of a 4x8.

From the sound of it, you have a disproportionately large amount of space dedicated to the terminal. The other tracks that it seems that you have moved elsewhere are probably almost illogical if set too far away. Tracks such as the ashpit/inspection, wash rack, coaling tower and water plugs, etc are always found very, very near the roundhouse and turntable in the prototype. (I'm sure there were exceptions, for example in very narrow river valleys.) But consider carefully how far you want to go here. Many smaller layouts simply don't have the space for a large steam-era engine terminal.

Years ago I realized that I liked engine terminals better than almost anything else, so I built a small layout that was essentially ONLY engine terminal! Everything else was staging! But I got to show off lots of steam locomotives!

I discovered that my prototype (C&O) had a whopping TWO 2-6-0's that survived into the 1940s, and which served in my territory. I wonder if the 2-6-0 could be used to model one of these E-5's.  A few questions:

• What size drivers are on the model?
• What is the spacing?
• It appears that the model is equipped with Walscherts valve gear?
• I presume that all of the various versions are at least DCC ready now. Presumably even the smoke-equipped versions? (I would likely disconnect the smoke unit.)

You might want to have a look at this: http://issuu.com/mr-hobbyist/docs/mrh12-06-jun2012-ol?viewMode=presentation&mode=embed (in one of the sections they discuss scratchbuilding crossheads and valve gear).

Quote from: Johnson Bar Jeff on July 11, 2012, 12:07:58 PM
I'd actually like to backdate my Baldwin by installing the older style domes, but, for me, the model is too expensive too much of an investment to risk damaging it swapping the domes.

What's the worst that can happen?  You destroy the boiler?  You can buy a replacement boiler casting for a whole lot less money than the whole locomotive...

Bridge routes came to be known in the late steam age as fast freight lines, such as the Nickel Plate. But not all freight would be manifests - if you can come up with a logical reason for bulk transfers, the 2-6-6-2's can be quite at home. Basically they are big, slow freight mashers that can handle relatively light and twisty track. That's the purpose for which C&O operated them. Originally they were the heavy haulers to replace double- and triple-headed 2-8-0's over the mainline grades, and they operated that way for about ten years (roughly 1913 - 1924). When giant single-expansion 2-8-8-2's replaced them on Allegheny, the 2-6-6-2's gathered in the hollows of the coal branches. A bridge route that has similar traffic patterns - such as a good offline source or destination for coal, iron or wheat - could readily support that same kind of power.

I agree that 600 feet of mainline run is well past what almost any of us can fit! In fact as near as I can tell, most clubs don't have a 600 foot main line.

I think you'd agree that running a 60-car train (about 32 feet at minimum other than perhaps ore drags) on a mainline run of 90 feet isn't really that practical. One can barely get two trains onto that main, there's a limit of one passing siding, so only one place to have a meet, and except at that one spot the cabeese of the trains are more or less just touching. I guess I did not allow for the possibility of a double track main, but...

If I assume a passing or yard track length of 32 feet, and I want, say, five towns, that's 150 feet by itself. If there's any non-trivial amount of run between the towns - that is, not merely through a scene divider - I assumed 3x as much track.  3x between towns plus x in the towns is 600 feet where x is 150 feet. OK maybe we don't really need the full 3x but surely we want more than the length of the train between passing sidings, right? It strains credibility if the train is visually in two towns at once, or at least it does to me.

Admittedly I had formulated this for my much smaller idea of trains, and perhaps the formula does not scale up so well. Clearly for, say, a shortline sized train of 8 cars (minimum almost 5 feet with motive power?), you're not really an operating road if there is only six feet of track between stations. That's more of a moving display case. A display case is a valid layout too, but it's a different kind of thing. On the other hand, a moving display case doesn't seem to scale up to the notion of a 32 foot long train.

Trains of that size, at least in HO scale, just don't seem to be very practical to me. My impression is that my layout space - roughly 20x 32 with a helix in a completely separate space - is considerably more generous than average, and it's pretty much inconceivable to me to have even the single longest yard track at 32 feet in length. Even if the yard is arranged as a double-ended semi-staging yard, that's still the entire longest dimension that I have, and even then that 60-car train only barely fits. In fact I found it very, very hard to fit in 14-foot passing tracks and only two yard tracks are that long.

Anyway, on the matter of the couplers, I now won't be surprised if I have a coupler failure, although I doubt I will have many on my own layout. I have only allowed for "only" 14-foot sidings, my grades are not all that steep (one at 3.4% at least in theory) and at least for freight trains my road (C&O) essentially never double-headed so even the heaviest freights with helpers get pushers. Only the passenger trains have all the power at the head end. NMRA RP20.1 suggests that my heavyweight passenger cars (nominally 85') should weigh 7 ounces, so that 12-car train weighs over five pounds... Hmm... never thought of it like that. Maybe I will put the Kadees in the passenger cars as they get built from now on...