Model Railroading > What Kind of Coil and Who Makes it in HO?

I need these in HO to make my Wabash F7s authentic. Also, what is it and what did it do? What other railroads used them?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

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This is a cooling apparatus between hot air coming out of the compressor before it is sent to the main reservoir. It is assembled from common threaded steel pipe and couplings. NP was another railroad which used them and there were others.

Details west makes a casting.

Thanks much.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Part number is CC-318. The photo shows this in an elevated poosition though many railroads like the Wabash unit in your photo mounted them closer to the roof top.

Sure looks like a lot of automobile or truck frames got damaged in the gondola in the background. I wonder if they could be salvaged or if they went straight to the scrapper?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/18 17:24 by fbe.

Fbe and all:

The wreck involved two Wabash F7s (1141 and 1141A), cargo and cars (23) that reportedly amounted to over a million in 1958 dollars damage. It was caused by the collision of No. 89 and a truck on highway 5 near Topeka, Indiana, October 10, 1958. The train was reportedly doing 47 mph at the time of the collision and the area in the vicinity had a clear view. It appeares that the truck driver tried to outrun the train as there were no skid marks on the road. The Wabash didn't have any flashers here but rather just a pair of crossbucks.

Needless to say, the truck driver was killed when his truck loaded with glass jars exploded and caught on fire. "Wild Bill" Ferguson was the Wabash engineer and the fireman was Lorin Wohlford. Lorin suffered a back injury, scalp cuts and shock. (David Beach was the conductor.) Wild Bill was known for running his trains fast. It must have been a wild ride in the cab as these two F units derailed and rolled into the field past the crossing.

No. 89 was a hot train that carried Acme and Atlas merchandise plus automobile traffic from the DT&I forwarded to No. 89 at Montpelier from the Delta Turn.

Sixteen years earlier in 1942 another spectacular derailment at the same location with a steam loco was caused by a truck driver broadsiding a freight.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/18 21:32 by wabash2800.

Thanks for the story. In my 33 years in the cab I never hit a semi though I did come close. The interface between two modes of transportation is a dangeroue unpredictable place.

fbe Wrote:
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> Part number is CC-318.

Details West. http://www.detailswest.com/images/coolingcoils.jpg



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/18 09:01 by CPR_4000.

The linked photo of the castings on a Highliner shell shows how the prototype might have been designed to apply on locomotives. Most photos I have seen show the coils rotated clockwise 90 degrees and bolted directly to the roof as your Wabash loco shows. The end pipes then turn directly down into the roof and the other may run a ways along the roof before entering the body.

Overland made a brass casting for such a mounting but it is no longer available except maybe at swap meets. Perhaps if someone has an Overland F unit with this cooling coil attached they could send a photo of the front edge with the piping connections.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/18 10:19 by fbe.

This is the Overland part, top and bottom. I don't think it is as accurate as the Details West since it seems there are more coils of thinner pipe than shown in Victor's Wabash photo.

Looking at the Overland part photo, it would be possible to narrow the casting by 3 coil pairs on the closed end to be 4 pairs wide if you think the DW pipes are too large in diameter.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/18 10:33 by fbe.

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Rock Island also used them.

Brian Ehni

I have since ordered a few of the Detail West ones from Walthers. Thanks Fbe.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/18 18:37 by wabash2800.

Victor, I am glad you could use them. I ordered a couple for the MILW F7s used with the slugs out of Tacoma. My order goes out from the local hobby shop tomorrow, I hope Walthers is not sold out. You will probably get yours before I install mine the way things work around my shop.

I hope you can share photos of your project.

Alan

Southern Pacific used a similar EMD part when they addressed overheating air compressor fluid couplings on the 1964 Krauss-Maffei "Series Units." They were installed on brackets over the forward cooling fans on each radiator group. (My illustration, done for Union Terminal Imports HO scale model of SP 9120 -- one of four "Modernized" 1966 rebuilds and one of five Series Units which received the external coolers.)

These heat exchangers could typically be found inside F-unit carbodies, cooled by the main generator blower. (Excellent photo courtesy Howard Wise of Western Pacific F7A 918-D.)

~ BZ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/18 17:00 by Notch16.

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Bob,

Thanks for the information and photo of what the cooling coils look like inside the F un it carbody.

Welcome! It was quite a light bulb moment, realizing that this is what was up on the KMs, obscured by shadows, piping, and soot in every backlit B&W photo we could find!

~ BZ

Thanks Bob. On another note, I did receive my Details West coils. They look great but have separate brackets that don't seem to show in the Wabash photo. I suppose I might need another overhead photo. I'll also have to match the gray paint on my Genesis units when I install them. I tried that a while back to install some Mars lights on my Atlas GP7 without much success. I think there is something to the expression: "Many shades of gray". But I've been doing some research on matching paint and will probably have to do it methodically starting with a darker gray and keep adding white and making documented samples on a card until I get it. (The Atlas Wabash gray seems to have some blue in it.) I think just weathering it is a cop out. A friend said to punch a hole in a card, paint around it and then hold it up to the model with the paint on the model showing through.



Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

I have never seen the coils mounted with the stand off mounts DW provided. The mfr might have provided them to get open air underneath the coils for better cooling. The railroads looked at them as extra parts and decided the steel roof was a pretty good heat sink.

Ace Hardware paint departments have scanners to match paint colors. They don't need a very big swatch maybe 1/4" square. You could scan the roof of the locomotive then several samples of model paint then determine what mix you might use to match the model.