Great Northern G-3 4-8-0 Mastadon

[Dan Vincent]

Hi guys,

I was looking through my G/N Brass and wondered how many have ever heard of a Mastadon. Many old-timers know about them but this is mainly for the newer guys.

This is a PFM-Samhongsa brass model of the unusual 4-8-0. In the USA I only know of G/N and Northern Pacific using this wheel arrangement. They were also called "12-Wheelers."

 

[Dan Vincent]

Most railroads were happy with the 2-8-0 Consolidation.

Great Northern used them too.

Here is a brass Sunset F-1 2-8-0 Consolidation for comparison.

 

[Drew1125]

Wow!
Those are some really nice looking models, Dan!

The Norfolk & Western had some home-built 4-8-0's that were known as "Mollies".

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

Nice looking brass.

 

[davidstrains]

very nice looking brass, Don Do you have others to show?

 

[Dan Vincent]

Charlie, I didn't know 'bout the NW "Mollies"
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Thanks, Ray
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David,

Here is another consolidation...this is a PFM-Tenshodo Great Northern F-8. This paint job is pretty rare.

 

[Dan Vincent]

David,

Here is a side view of the GN F-8

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Dan, How were they usually painted?

 

[Dan Vincent]

The "Glacier Park" color scheme is very popular; green boiler, black cab with oxide red roof, silver smoke box and smoke box front. The Great Northern fleet was very handsome with most locos having Belpaire fireboxes, like the Pennsylvania locos.

The other paint scheme was all black but with the entire smoke box in graphite, or silver, while mine only has the smoke box front in silver.

This loco was also available unpainted. This is one of the most popular or all GN locos. Collectors go nuts over the F-8.

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

That's a beautiful locomotive Dan.
I just love the detail.

 

[Dan Vincent]

Thanks Ray,

It's hard to show the detail because I have to shrink the pictures to post them.

I have a Nikon Coolpix 5700 digital camera with 5.24 MP and usually take pictures on "Fine" which works out to 2500 Pixels wide. To post pictures here you have to shrink them down to 640 wide, so it ends up at about 25% of the original width.

They would be far too large to view easily.

 

[Bill Stone]

The Southern Pacific had a bunch of twelve-wheelers too. The first is said to have been (Central Pacific) built in 1882, and more were built through 1898.

According to the book, "A Century of Southern Pacific Steam Locomotives", forty of them survived in service on the SP until the 1940's and 1950's.

Beautiful old hogs.

Bill S

 

[Clerk]

Those were beautiful engines.

 

[pjb]

4-8-0s

Twelve wheelers were common occurrence although only in large numbers on select carriers in North America.
The NdeM had most modern, probably both the last built, and only ones built to move passenger trains specifically..
The CNJ had 50 camelback twelve wheelers that were only ones with that configuration.
N&Ws were back bone of mainline freight circa 1900-1910. They wound up ruling branch lines, such as Abigndon branch (where they were covered at length by O.Winston Link , Augie Thieme, and so forth) , and were not all made by N&W.
They were Monons main freight power until Great War began to bring in alternatives .
The SP's various 'TW' classes owned the Pacific Coast forest branches in California, Oregon, and Washington for over half a century. Fred Jukes' marvelous glassplate negatives are treasured history of the first quarter century of their dominance in the woods.

Besides roads already mentioned in these threads the following owned twelve wheel type locomotives (i.e. 4-8-0s):
Wabash;Illinois Central;Burlington;Pennsy;New York Central;Frisco;MoPac;Nashville, Chattanooga & St.Louis (ex BA&P). There almost certainly were small numbers owned by almost all the large carriers, either picked up when they acquired and merged smaller railroads into their systems, or gotten to test the efficacy of the wheel arrangement.

They were not perceived as an archaic wheel arrangements either,- for after the Great War , Chapelon built VHP compound super locos using 4-8-0 chassis , and so did the D&H on this side of the Atlantic in producing their experimental super locomotives.
Good-Luck, PJB