This is a 1962 photo from our local newspaper. No info on about it. I posted it to our local facebook group looking for info, but couldn't find anything about the man or where it was taken at, like I had hoped.



Does this look like a little live steamer, or just a well put together scale model? I would think if it was a live steam model, it would be too heavy for the dining room table!

It looks extremely well done. We were a big railroad hub and had the big shops, round house and all supporting facilities... in other words we had our share of machinists back in the day. But, we were an MKT city, ATSF wasn't anywhere near.

I was trying to determine if this was scratchbuilt or a kit.... if there were even kits available back in the day.

I'm looking at it, and it looks to be a scratchbuilt model, though it might have some live-steam parts in it, such as tender trucks. I agree with the assessment that it's not live steam as such, due to the weight considerations pointed out and some other things.

One of the interesting things is the apparent prototype; overall, it looks like it could have been inspired by a PRR K2 or K3, with the Belpaire firebox that lacks the combustion chamber extension of the famous K4s, plus an overall slimmer look. The tender is undoubtedly from something else and is undersized. It wouldn't surprise me if the builder worked with only photos and published dimensions, not having drawings available; that was fairly common back then. If that's what he did, then he did quite well.

Interesting to wonder how the locomotive is painted; it sure doesn't look to be black! Looks to have multiple colors, none dark except for lettering, plus bare metal (i.e., brass) in some places. Pilot and front coupler, possibly at least the whole part of the frame forward of the cylinders, look to be made of wood.

Too bad you seem to have run into a dead end on the background of this, and the person who apparently built it. It would also be interesting to find if this model is still around somewhere today.

Good luck on finding that out.

It almost looks like it was made to fit the space available. I'd guess that it's a model that had to fit within a certain space and the tender was "compressed" to fit the space available, as compressing the locomotive itself would make it look goofy, while compressing the tender isn't visually distressing.

Overall, a very nice locomotive.

Definitely non-working models, though still nice. I also like what I see of the gentleman's house, especially all that woodwork in stain and varnish; probably a house from the 1910-1925 era (wonder if it's still around, too). Track in the shelf photo looks like wood. Seems he had an eclectic taste in models, which explains a PRR K2/3 lettered for ATSF, the CP Huntington, and a 4-4-0 in a town dominated by the MKT. It also looks like he might have had eclectic taste in scales as well; the 4-4-0 on the top shelf is definitely built to a smaller scale than the other two, indicated not only by the smaller size of the model but by what's visible of the track. In fact, it almost looks like the three models were in three scales. Again, this would not be too unusual for model builders in this style at the time and before.

How did these photos survive without data? I would think that the photo history would be one thing you would find in a newspaper file.

I wonder if he has any relatives at all who would recognize him? Any chance of running the photos in the paper today as a "look back" piece? Might turn up something that way.

I do believe you are correct. That 4-6-2 makes those other two look like 1880s narrow gauge engines in size.

These were negatives. Scanned and printed, no identification other than year.

I've had them on our local/city facebook page, and with over 3000 members no one piped up that they recognized him or the house.

A fellow bought years and years worth of negatives from the local daily newspaper... from the early 1950's on and is selling them on ebay. I just happened to run onto them and saved the images.

Our facebook page has a heyday identifying people, places and things that we find in the pictures. They see family members quite often. We are a small town and the paper ran lots of pictures over the years.

I've bought some of the guys negatives that were railroad related and had the local photo developer make 8x10's with them. The negatives range from 4x5's to 35mm....
Lots of car/train collision pics in his selection.... long before gated and lit railroad crossings.

Quite a few that show Katy president J.W. Barriger visiting the MKT loco shops back in the 60's.

But, like I say, sadly no one recognized this old man....

Below are a sample of some of the great pics that he had for sale.

They look like 3 1/2" gauge models. The first photo shows the loco and tender on two track sections but on the shelf there is no track under the tender. If he grabbed a track for the photo op maybe they are all the same gauge.
The 2nd photo shows what looks like hose connections for a live steamer on the tender, two hoses, pipe, gauge?, maybe a hand pump slot , and a bypass valve centered in the rear of the tender top. It's a bigger tender than the other two, maybe those are display locos and the largest is a live steamer.
Wonder what is in the wooden box on the shelf? Maybe tool kit for the live steamer.....

Bob D.

Looking through all the posts, I can find no clue as to the name of the town nor the newspaper they came from. This might help in identifying the builder of these very well built models.