Paneled, Unlettered 0-4-0T - The Porter company made many hundreds of custom-built locomotives that were so small, many railroaders called them "teakettles."

Porter's "tank" engines had no tenders. Instead the water they needed was carried in tanks right on the locomotive. On this model, the tank wraps around the boiler, giving the locomotive a "potbelly" appearance. Without a tender, an engineer could switch cars much more efficiently, and the weight of the water over the axles gave tank engines additional traction. This helped make Porter's tank engines mighty for their size - they could fit almost anywhere, pulling heavy loads over hastily-laid track. Though the earliest Porters were build well before the turn of the century, many stayed in service until well into the 1950s. This model has vertical panelling to represent a wooden cab. It is painted a soft black color but has no road name in case you want to add your own.

Features of this model include:

• precision can motor
• metal motor bearings
• operating headlight
• completely hidden drive train
• gear drive
• separate detail parts, including die-cast water tank and boiler, bell, whistle, pop valves and handrails
• separate sanding lines and piping
• detailed cab interior with operating cab light
• diecast, finescale drivers and spokes
• magnetically operated E-Z Mate couplers, front and rear

To check price and availability, click on a vendor button to the right.

A Pennsylvania version of the Porter 0-4-0T also available. Its cab represents a slightly different construction, which could represent "all-metal," however.

To check price and availability, click on a vendor button to the right.

Paneled, Unlettered 0-4-2T - When a Porter might have to go beyond easy access to fuel, the Porter company recommended these 0-4-2T locomotives. The non-powered trailing wheels supported an extra-large fuel compartment. A special counterbalancing design kept most of the weight on the drivers, though. Like their little 0-4-0T brothers, these Porters could run on almost any kind of track. This model has all of the same features as the 0-4-0T described above. The cab on this version represents a wooden panel.

To check price and availability, click on a vendor button to the right.

Two-Truck Shay - Ephraim Shay was scholar and logging company owner who solved a decades-old problem: how do you build a small, but powerful steam engine that doesn't literally pound the rails (a real problem on light, hastily-laid trackage)? The answer was to move the pistons to the side and use gear shafts to drive the wheels. This not only spread out the force of the pistons, but it "geared down" the torque, allowing a relatively small boiler to provide a great deal of pulling power. Yes, you couldn't go very fast, but it wasn't safe to go more than a few miles an hour on most industrial railroads anyway. Shays were favorites on 30" logging and mining railroads in hilly regions.

To check price and availability, click on a vendor button to the right.

To check price and availability, on the deluxe version, unmarked, with built in realistic Shay sound, click on a vendor button to the right.

This model is an upgraded version of the locomotive included with most Bachmann On30 Starter Sets. Features of this model include:

• operating headlight
• completely hidden drive train
• see-through clearance under boiler
• precision, 5-pole skew wound can motor (with hardened carbon brushes)
• numerous metal detail parts
• finescale pilot
• sprung center axle for superior tracking performance and electrical pickup
• short-coupled tender with hand-tooled coal load

Bachmann Spectrum DCC-Equipped Outside-Frame Consolidation, Little River Logging - The Consolidation, which has one pair of pilot wheels and eight drivers (2-8-0) was a logical step beyond the mogul (2-6-0). Most consolidations were used for freight or switching duties, and this locomotive will perform both admirably on your On30 railroad. But wait, this isn't an ordinary consolidation. This is a model of one of the few locomotives ever built that had the drivers inside the locomotive frame instead of outside. But there was not enough room within the frame for the counterweights, so those were placed at the end of the axles outside the frame, which makes for a very unusual site as the engine steams slowly past you, counterweights spinning away just inside the equally active Walschaert valve gear. If you haven't seen one in action, I can only describe it as looking something like an egg-beater coming down the track. Don't run it too fast, though or it all becomes a blur. Slow and steady operations are the best for this model.

This model is also equipped for DCC, a technology that allows you to control more than one train on the same track. The train will run fine on ordinary DC current, such as the kind that comes in the On30 Starter Sets. But with the Bachmann DCC Controller, you can add many operational possibilities to a relatively simple railroad.

Features of this locomotive include:

• DCC-equipped for speed, direction, and lighting
• 5 pole, skew-wound motor
• die-cast chassis, boiler, and tender frame
• see-through clearance under boiler
• spoked, solid, or outside bearing lead trucks per prototype
• operating headlight
• separately applied detail parts

The need for larger and larger boilers eventually made the outside frame Consolidation obsolete, but many of the individual engines were in service for forty years or more. Click on the photograph if you want to see more detail.

To check price and availability, click on a vendor button to the right.

A Painted, but Unlettered version of the outside-frame Consolidation is also available, in case you want to add your own railroad name. Click to see a larger photo.

To check price and availability, click on a vendor button to the right.

Bachmann Spectrum Climax - For industrial lines that needed maximum power with minimum stress on the rails, "geared" locomotives seemed to be the solution. This locomotive built by the Climax Locomotive Works, has diagonal cylinders that drive a flywheel attached to a gearing system. Underneath the locomotive, a system of gears transfers power to all four axles. Although this system increases the number of moving parts, it has two distinct advantages over standard locomotive drive mechanisms:

• The system "gears down" the cylinder's output, so that speed (which isn't necessary on industrial railroads anyway) is traded for tremendous pulling power.
• The locomotive no longer "pounds the rails," a problem with conventional steam locomotives that led most mainlines to upgrade their rail systems every time they got a bigger locomotive.

This model represents a 28-ton engine that was produced until 1904 and continued in scattered service into the early 1950s. Features of Bachmann's Climax models include:

Three cab styles (double panel wood, single panel wood or steel) depending on the prototype To check price and availability on the Greenbriar and Big Run Lumber Company Climax, click on a vendor button to the right.

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A California Mining Company Climax is also available. Click to see a larger photo.

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Bachmann DCC Gasoline Switcher - Sooner or later, every industrial railroad that stayed business had to go to a power source that required less maintenance than their old steam engines. Four-wheeled gasoline and diesel-powered locomotives were built by locomotive companies like Baldwin; they were also sometimes "kludged" together in the industry's welding shop. Bachmann offers this locomotive with DCC, so it can be run on the same track with other DCC locomotives by adding the Bachmann DCC Controller. In fact, if you wish to experiment with DCC, this is probably the locomotive to start with. Featured include:

• DCC-equipped for speed, direction, and lighting
• die-cast construction
• die-cast side rods and counterweights
• skew-wound motor
• low-speed gearing
• prototypical metal detail parts
• E-Z Mate Mark II couplers

To check price and availability on a DCC-equipped Colorado Mining Company Gasoline Switcher, click on a vendor button to the right.