Nostalgia & History > Sierra Railroad Saturday

Sierra Railroad Baldwin S-12's 42 & 44 arrive in Chinese, CA to switch the mill on the way back to Oak dale on 5/18/1990.

Tom

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Nice photo! Does anyone know if there’s a good HO model of those units in that scheme?

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

Nice photo, thanks for sharing it!

No commercially produced models of these locomotives have yet been produced, however Bowser has announced they plan to release models of the #42 and #44.  The less good news for the prototype sticklers amongst us is that Bowser uses the old Stewart molds, which are only accurate for S-12s produced in the 1950- late 1952 (edited to correct dates) time frame and therefore should be correct for the #44 but not so for the #42.  The bad news is the latest Bowser production schedule, released in late January of this year, have a "TBA" for expected date on this run, and this was before the upheavals and disruptions the on-going tariff situations caused, so who knows when/if we will ever see them. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/25 09:34 by JDLX.

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JDLX Wrote:
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The less good news for the
> prototype sticklers amongst us is that Bowser uses
> the old Stewart molds, which are only accurate for
> S-12s produced in the 1952/1953 time frame and
> therefore should be correct for the #44 but not so
> for the #42

What are the visual differences between the two locos, Jeff? Being a Balwin nut, this is potentially vital information for me.

- EO

Two Baldwins - Excellent.
Bob

EO- At the risk of thread drift....the S-12 went through at least three distinct carbody style changes during the 1950-1956 production run.  

The back story is kind of interesting for Baldwin fans.  When Baldwin got into the diesel manufacturing business they were building two switchers, the 660-horsepower VO-660 powered by a six cylinder engine and the 1000-horsepower VO-1000 powered by an eight cylinder engine.  This practice carried over when the 600-series engines replaced the VO engine, with the 606-engine (six cylinder) powering the DS-4-4-660/DS-4-4-750 models and the 608 engine (8 cylinders) used in the DS-4-4-1000.  In 1948 Baldwin determined they could reduce construction costs by replacing the 608 engine in the DS-4-4-1000 with a turbocharged 606 engine, the biggest visual changes this inflicted to the locomotive were the reduction in exhaust stacks from four to one and the addition of a prominent bulge on the fireman's side underneath the stack to accommodate the turbocharger.  Around the time Baldwin replaced the DS-4-4-1000 with the S-12 in their catalogue near the end of 1950 they made a design change that reduced the bulge down to a triangular shaped protrusion from the side of the carbody, as evidenced by the Bruce R. Meyer shot of the Apache #600 in Holbrook on 6 March 1962.  This configuration appeared in S-12s built from the start of production up to late 1952 when Baldwin replaced the large conical stack with a smaller oval shaped stack.  This second phase lasted until late summer or early fall of 1953 when another design change eliminated the triangular protrusion completely, and S-12s built from then until the end of production in 1956 had smooth sides as shown on the former SP #2148, seen here in an uncredited shot on the California Western in Fort Bragg, California.  Edited to add Baldwin made one other significant visual design change, specifically that the pre-1953 carbody design had two tall louvers on the fireman's side only (none on engineer's side), one on either side of the triangular protrusion, while the post-1953 carbody had one tall louver on each side of the carbody.  

Stewart when they created their molds for their S-12 diesel chose to go with the first design phase built from late 1950 to late 1952, with the conical stack, triangular protrusion, and two louvers on the fireman's side.  Bowser continues using those molds today, and while they have been making efforts in their recent RTR runs to add prototype specific details such as conical or oval stacks or full length handrails as appropriate they really can't do anything about the basic carbody molding, thus models they have produced depicting locomotives built after late 1953, such as this US Steel model, have the pre-1952 carbody style.  To land this plane, the SERA 42 (built 2/1955) has the oval stacks and smooth sides while the SERA 44 (built 7/1951) had the triangular protrusion and the conical stack.  Bowser has generally shown a great deal of prototype fidelity in their recent models, to that end I'd expect that the two planned models are likely to have the correct stacks for the number, but unless they redesign the molds both models are likely to have the pre-1952 carbody style. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV           



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/25 10:56 by JDLX.

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Thanks for the info, Jeff. Now, if Bowser would release the green paint formula for touch-up, I would tackle the detail changes for #44. Tom's great photo is certainly inspirational.

- EO