Lobaugh Mikado 2023

[bob turner]

Yep - all of these photos are posted elsewhere. It is rainy outside, with reported ceilings of 300 feet, so I am postponing my airport endeavors for a few minutes, and rather than clean up the train room, I shall bore some of you with repeated photos. If you have had more than your fill of my photos, please skip this thread.

My first Lobaugh model came from Harold Peters in the early 1980s. It looked to me like a museum piece - I admired it daily, having it placed on my desk in Monterey (I was flying Metroliners for Golden Gate Airlines at the time).

Here it is, modified by me in the early 2000s with an open tail beam and a re-angled cab. All the rest was Harold's work. It taught me a lot about driver quartering and crankpin throws.

[bob turner]

[J. S. Bach]

Nice. Serious question about the tender trucks; I presume that they are correct but they look to me more like they belong under an express reefer or such.

[bob turner]

Here you go:
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/steam ... stwick.jpg
Later, I will post a photo of this style tender. SP used variations of this truck behind Consolidations, Mikes, Ten-wheelers, and Mountains. Maybe others - I will check Dunscomb.

[bob turner]

Here is one I got from Bob Janzen. Probably paid too much - loaded with lead. Gearbox is kinda funny but it runs. I added the open beam tailbeam, and gave it a dusting of grimy black. Otherwise, it is just a 1939 Lobaugh, no frills. Not even boiler bands.

[bob turner]

This one is the definitive SP Mike. It has its beginnings in Lobaugh and Ray Waller, and in the 1980s was in the possession of Frank Bay in the San Francisco area. It was refinished by John Fisher, and is now in the possession of Howard Hansen. This is a John Fisher photo, and I have his permission to reproduce it. I personally think this might be the best O Scale model . . . opinion, please.

[J. S. Bach]

I do not see enough difference between 3216 and 764 to say which looks better; different, yes; better, ????

[bob turner]

Interesting. 3216 is my least-good Lobaugh Mike. It is primitive in comparison to the ones I will post later. None of mine are as good as the 764.

[De Bruin]

. duplicate unable to delete, I used be able to edit dups here but apparently no longer.
Thanks

[De Bruin]

764 is to my eye the infinitely superior version, as in no-brainer.
Nice model, but then 3216 wasn't bad, just nowhere near as good as the former.
Opinion only.

[bob turner]

3216 is ok. Here is my #3 attempt at scratchbuilding - I think maybe 1986? I think you can see the quality picking up a bit. Lobaugh Berk frame, so it qualifies here (I may sneak in a Hines Lines somewhere down the line):

[R.K. Maroon]

I do like those long, lean, lanky SP Mikes. Maybe someday a Lobaugh version will roll onto the interchange track here, but for now this as close as I currently get to having one:



It's a combination of a General Models/All Nation USRA light Pacific boiler on top of a Lobaugh chassis:



It arrived without a tender. It was labeled as a Harriman 2-8-2. As best I can tell from an internet search, there were no Mikados among the Harriman locomotives at the UP. I would be interested if I am missing something here.

Jim

[bob turner]

A couple notes on Jim's Mike above. First, the mechanism appears to be Lobaugh "Lost Wax" ca. 1953 or so. Note the quality of the rods and tail beam.

The All Nation boiler is as close to USRA as you can get for a doorstop, so this is a plausible model of the 2400 series UP "MacArthur" class. These came from NYC with tenders similar to the medium All Nation cast aluminum tender.

Not sure of the trailing truck - the USRA photos in Kratville's book show either a Delta or a Cole - but one photo seems to show a Hodges truck. I have to admit - I would grab that frame and stick an SP Mike boiler on it in a heartbeat - but still, a credible model.

The UP had over 500 Mikes - they called them MacArthurs because they were not about to use a Japanese word - and most were Harrimans. They were almost identical to the SP Mikes when delivered, with close to "straight" boilers. Sunset made them with cylindrical boilers, but they had a slight taper front to back, as did most SP and UP Atlantics and Pacifics. The earliest Mike deliveries were used in passenger service.

On to the Lobaugh Mikes - this one is one of my favorites. It is a copy of the Austin Mike, before it was retrieved and restored the first time. It has lots of pieces from Henry Pearce, who in turn had acquired most of the "lost Wax" Mike patterns. I can safely call it an "almost Lost Wax Mike."

[bob turner]

Whoever inherits this model should know that the rear driver crankpin needs to be re-set. For some reason I was unaware that mixing drivers from Hines and Lobaugh would result in different crankpin throws, and even a few thousandths difference will cause problems. It runs ok, but not perfectly. I could fix it, but I am happy doing other things.

I measured a lot of parts while on Austin overnights - our crew hotel was less than a block from where this beauty rested for a half century. Then my friend Joe Dale Morris grabbed it and restored it to running condition. It ran for a while, then cracked its cylinder block. As far as I can tell, the current restorers have the frame assembled with a new cylinder casting, and await another couple million to finish the second restoration.

Kratville says these things originally cost less than $25 grand, brand new! I bet the cylinder casting cost more than that before machining!

Edit June '23 - Jim sent a good Lobaugh mechanism, so I could repair this one without having the locomotive off the display shelf for long. Last night I mounted Jim's mechanism and set about to plug and re-drill the offending driver. For the life of me, I could not measure the crankpin throw difference, no matter how hard I tried. So it is back together, and the new mechanism gets a new SP boiler next week.

[bob turner]

Here is one of my more recent efforts. I think I have several like this, awaiting some paint and decals.