The Sakai HO Gauge 2-6-2 "Hudson and Pacific", Sort Of In An Overview (and Pieces)

I had been after a Sakai HO Hudson & Pacific "Prairie" for some time, so imagine my excitement when one turned up a few weeks back for a song.

Sadly, it was damaged. 

(My cat Gwynn bumped my arm, sorry)

In the above, slightly out of focus picture, I had dismantled the locomotive to evaluate where the problems were. The seller, to their credit, was honest, and said that the locomotive was for parts only. 

I just took it the rest of the way.

Anyway, the major problem is right here - 

From the motor mount back, the frame is missing. Gone. Vanished. Simply not there. You get the point. 

Yet, the motor still defiantly runs. 

Sakai has often been compared to America's Marx trains, and I suppose that's logical. Their O gauge stuff is very similar, definitely inspired by the American company. Their HO stuff is similar, though they do have a tinplate 2-6-0 I would love to get my paws on (I'd need to sell an organ, I suspect, if I ever did find one). By the time Sakai moved on to plastic bodied trains, their output improved. I'd go more into the history of Sakai, but instead the folks at the TCA Western Division did a better job - 

Seki/Sakai/et al

This locomotive is lovely, but why 2-6-2? 

In my desire to get this locomotive was regardless of the odd wheel arrangement. After all, Lionel and numerous HO gauge manufacturers used it as well. Yet, 2-6-2s were really not that common in North America... or were they?

As it turns out, there is a prototype for this locomotive, the Milwaukee Road's K-1 class Prairies, right down to the cab shape and the domes. 

Courtesy Big Bend Railroad History

Meantime, I need to scheme a way to rebuild this locomotive. If I can find a parts donor, probably best. If not, well, that would be a major undertaking, one that only a fool might try. 

And I'm that fool. 

The Nomura/Rosko HO Scale New Haven F7 - An Examination Of Sorts

 I had spent the better part of September waiting for this to arrive. Somehow, between the time it was purchased on the 3rd and when it finally arrived on the 19th, it was lost in the postal system purgatory, apparently stuck in Indianapolis. What normally would have taken three days took more than two weeks.

Once it arrived, I was very relieved. 

This is a Rosko brand, Nomura manufactured HO scale EMD F7. By the time Nomura manufactured this model they had moved away from lithographed tin and into plastics. This came with three cars which will be the subject of another review at some point in the future, but for now, I want to talk about the locomotive. 

This one has a small degree of damage. A tab that held the shell down broke off at some point, and some small pegs on the frame that kept the shell from slipping down were damaged as well. At some point the forward frame was cracked as well (old styrene becomes rather brittle). 

For a "toy" it looks rather nice. Internally, things get interesting. 

As with my previously mentioned Rosko/Nomura "Hudson", this uses a rather robust Mabuchi motor, apparently a model 45. These were popular with slot car enthusiasts back in the 1960's, and are frequently sought after for 1/24 scale Japanese kits. It's also a full twelve volts. 

The universals, though, are unique - springs. This isn't the first time I've seen this setup. It is an inexpensive and easy solution to the problem of transmitting power to the wheels. But while the universals might seem cheap, the gearing in the power trucks are anything but. 

Machined brass gears, again rather robust, if slightly noisy. 

I had assumed that like many of these inexpensive toy trains from the 1960's - 1970's, the locomotive's shell was a copy. The tab arrangement suggested Athearn, so I brought out my B&O Hi-F drive F7 to compare it, and indeed, it's pretty similar.

Yet it is not identical. Not only does it lack horns, it is very slightly shorter.

There are other differences as well. 

Nomura made these trains to go around very tight radii, 10" (25.4cm). This locomotive has to able to negotiate such tight curves. Nomura accomplished this without sacrificing detail by being rather clever - instead of deleting the steps, they moved them out slightly.  Here they are compared with their Athearn counterparts.

That solution is ingenious, and I think I might just copy it on some repair jobs.

As to how well the locomotive runs, so far tests indicate that it performs well, though I myself am not up to 100% visual acuity yet (one cataract remains to be removed). Hopefully in a few weeks this little diesel will be tested in full. 

For The Love Of Cheap Trains - The Cragstan/DIstler Set I Almost Had

 The time period between 1970 and 1976 was a very hard one for my family and I. My Mother struggled to keep us afloat. Being a single mother in the South at that time was very difficult. She had several mouths to feed, and to worsen matters we moved frequently.

When her money was good, though, she always managed to get my sisters and I gifts, toys or models for me, clothing or toys for the girls.
She knew I loved trains as much as anything space related, and at least she was more familiar with them.
Next to Art's Hobby Shop there was a five and dime store, that sold not only new items but a mix of odd used items as well. They had a decent selection of toys of varying quality.
One day, she gifted me with a train set she found there.
I was so excited. The box art showed a diesel switcher locomotive hauling several cars. It said it was in HO scale, so I knew I could eventually get more track.
I broke the tape seals, and was crushed.
Not only was it a different set, there were only a couple of pieces of track, it was very incomplete.
And it wasn't HO.
I made do with it as best I could, making a garden railroad of sorts with the damaged steam locomotive.
I lost interest. It would be lost. I wonder if the folks at the five and dime knew what the box contained. There would be other toy sets, but I had such high hopes here.
Recently, I found that box again. This time, of course, I'm wiser and know exactly what it is supposed to contain.
While this may have been imported by Cragstan, an American toy importer known chiefly for tin toys from Japan, this set wasn't one of them. For Cragstan, this was high quality - Distler, a West German toy manufacturer. While it may have been high quality for Cragstan, Distler was known mostly for cheap toy trains, though they were durable.
Naturally, I bought it.
And this time, nine year old Robert was happy.

To be sure, I am far more familiar with Distler now, mainly their O gauge equipment. Not too long ago, though, I picked up the locomotive from this set, and like most of my other purchases, was damaged. I love the design, its simplicity. It will be the subject for another post, but the point is, I had an idea what to expect. Recently, when I discovered the box art from that set I was given by my Mother, I began to keep an eye out for it.

And then one popped up.
This set is complete, lacking only the directions. In fact, it looks as though it has never been used.

The spare piece of track you see just below the locomotive is from my Fleischmann collection. I brought it out to compare it to the Distler track. I had read that Distler was supplied with parts from other companies, such as Fleischmann and Trix, but in this case, the track is different, and still labelled "Made In West Germany".

The locomotive is unusual and lovely by itself. It is obviously based on an American EMD SW1, though it has a cooling fan.

The cars look nice as well, though not particularly well detailed. They remind me of a mixture of Marx and Varney. This is the boxcar.

There is also a gondola. 

The caboose looks odd, in that it has only four wheels but is long enough to use trucks. 

Power is supplied by a battery box that uses two D sized cells, and utilizes a simple directional switch. There is no speed control.

It's complete, the whole set, and I have already lubricated and tested the locomotive.

I cannot tell you how this set makes me feel. The feelings are so deep. My Mom tried to make me happy, though, and for that, I will be forever grateful for the joy she could give us.

The Problem With Playart

Today's Subjects

As a model train company, Playart has left a mixed record. Their output was last carried by Model Power here in the United States before vanishing altogether (I really don't know when). 

My first exposure to them was in 1983, when I purchased a lot of their little European styled 0-4-0T locomotives. 

None of them worked.

While I may have paid only $4 a pop for them (I think it was three of them), I knew this beforehand, thinking, optimistically, that I might be able to get one usable model out of the lot.

That wasn't the case.

All three of them had the same issue - the gear on the drive axle was broken. 

As I recall, in one of the three the gear was literally in pieces. The remaining models gears were simply split. 

My lack of experience resulted in all the models being parted out.

The gears were made from a nylon. Notice, I said "a nylon", not "nylon". There are different grades of nylon, and the one they were using was a cheaper grade. This nylon had quite a bit of shrinkage. While it might be easy to blame this toy company for their choices here, it should be noted that other companies also had problems with poor nylon (one in particular, who while being a prolific manufacturer, I still refuse to buy from due to their gears suddenly splitting).

Which leads me to another "lost cause" locomotive, a "PRR" 2-6-0 Mogul. Yes, the Pennsylvania used lots of 2-6-0's, but I am unaware of them using mid-20th century German designs. No, I bought this locomotive expressly to see if, again, the Playart curse persisted after their acquisition by GATA. 

Of course, I already knew that the locomotive wouldn't run, and I had a suspicion it was the gear on the axle, and as it turned out, I was right. But this time, the shrinkage was in the other direction, so to speak - the shaft hole was now too large, and the gear was still intact.

I removed said axle, pulled one wheel, and examined the gear. No cracks at all. 

After thoroughly cleaning the axle I reassembled it, and used a carefully placed drop of thin CA at the point where the gear would sit. The idea was less getting the CA to adhere to nylon as it was to simply improve how tightly the gear fit.

Once the axle was reassembled, I quartered the wheels and reinstalled it. Testing proved that it worked well enough, and the locomotive was now running.

I am unsure how common this problem was after the GATA acquisition. I see Playart/Model Power locomotives listed frequently as "untested",  which for me has too often proven to mean "dead". Nor have I ever seen how well their diesel and foreign market models have fared. 

My final point has to do with that image way up there, comparing the older battery powered model (top) to the much later GATA/Playart version. Whilst the older battery powered version is a touch loud due to the nature of its spur gear drive, it still works. All three axles are powered, and there are 12 VDC motors out there the same size as that Mabuchi. 
As to why Playart simply didn't continue with that design will remain a mystery.

Building A Backlog

 Things are getting backed up here at the newly renamed "Conneaut, Ashtabula, & Trumbull" (CAT) Railroad (Ferrocarril de la CAT?). I just required some more "junk" rolling stock, consisting of cars and locomotives. Some run, such as a recently acquired Sakai 2-6-2 fast Prairie locomotive, plus another one for parts. 

The idea is to give me something to do for the winter months when I can't do astronomy or model rocketry. I do have other indoor hobbies, of course, but trains are great fun. 

The trouble is I probably am rapidly approaching several winters worth of projects. 

Aside from my Docksider project, plus that odd Playart unit, my next project is this little steamer, a second generation Lima Express "0-3-0" - 

This was one of my first acquisitions, a cheapie that didn't run. The tender is obviously not original, being a GATA/Playart six wheel tender sold with a Planters promotional train set. 

I should mention I'm allergic to peanuts. Anyway.

Right now the locomotive works, but it still needs work. I managed to get the rust off of the siderods. There is ancient dried contact cement on parts of the cab. Both traction tires on the rear wheel set need replacing (one has gone missing). The pickup contacts need to be replaced, and new ones added to the tender, which will need new wheels. 

All in all, I suspect that this will be a "next month" project.

But I want to see this small, underpowered steamer run.

I will get there. 

Eventually.

The Enigma That Was Playart - A Strange Battery Powered Mogul

 Recently, I purchased a little battery powered 2-6-0 "Mogul" locomotive off of eBay (Thanks Rick!) that was made by none other than Playart, whose history in model railroading seems to be forgotten. Aside from copying Lima models for their American market (unsure whom else they copied), and later being acquired by Gata in Macao and vanishing with that company, little else is known.

Put another way, if there are Playart train websites and fans out there, they are well hidden.

Playart did become a major supplier to Model Power here in North America, so in that way they carried on a little longer before completely disappearing.

But back to the locomotive at hand, a little battery powered Mogul - 

On the left is the original Lima Express DB style 0-6-0, and the right is our Playart Mogul.

Clearly, it's inspired by the Lima model, but not really a copy. There are plenty of differences between the two, but still enough similarity. The biggest difference, of course, are the wheels.

Aside from being plastic, the Playart version was always sold as a Mogul. The side and connecting rods are better looking in my opinion. Playart sold this under their own brand as both a regular locomotive and, by slapping a coal bin on the back of the cab, an erstwhile 2-6-0T tank locomotive.

For the North American market, they were initially sold by LifeLike with slope back American tenders with all sorts of road names. Later, Model Power would pick them up.

For now, though, let's look at this odd little engine. 

While I am certain there is a connection between the Lima copy various brand 0-4-0T and Playart, this one is far better engineered. The gear train is far more sophisticated, with all three drive axles powered. I am unsure how this compares to the 12 VDC powered version. 

The motor is your typical Mabuchi FA-130 can. My sample had a motor that was frozen, which turned out to be dried up grease. Even though I am having extreme difficulty with eyesight at the moment, I did manage to open it up, clean it out, and reassemble it, though it isn't soldered at the moment. 

The batteries are carried in the DB style tender that the model came with, power being transmitted through a clever connection in the tender draw bar. 

This tender was not common to the American market. Not only is it missing an axle (deliberate design decision, probably to keep the model simple), it comes with what appears to be an oversized Rapido style coupler, more common on N gauge - 

Another feature I found odd was the inclusion of a locking mechanism on the pilot wheels - 

Perhaps the model could double as a floor toy? I really can't say. What I do know is that locking the pilot wheels for regular running is probably a touch foolish. 

In the next few weeks, as my vision is restored, I hope to get this odd little locomotive running. I would really like to locate any of the cars from the associated set, and get a better idea as to when this was produced. 

Until then, it's a mighty eccentric Mogul.