Model Train Journal

Hello Door Stop collectors

Who was the first to add a smoke unit to a model train ?
Any one aware of smoking engines ( non live steam) prior to September 1926 ?

Does any one have a Egolf engine ? one with a smoke unit ? Any clue how the smoke was generated ? Any Egolf catalogs, flyers, instruction manuals out there ?
Here are some ads starting with September 1926 from Model Maker .... the O scale world was still crawling

Egolf was certainly a pioneer in the field ..he later produced sectional panel track providing the track for PRR layout at the Chicago World Fair of 1933-4
Cheers Carey

Ha! I've been taking all the smoke units OUT of my steamers

Of course the oldest thing I have is probably early 1990s, but that IS last century, right!

I'm with BobD on the whole smoke unit thing...the only loco that I KNOW
has a smoke unit (virgin, never fired it up for any smoke production!) is a
MTH SP Cab forward. I'm not sure, but some of the MTH diesels that Joe
Foehrkolb 2-railed for me may still have the smoke units installed. He took
almost all the electronic "junk" out, but as I don't smoke any more, none of my
locos do either...I just haven't tried to turn that feature on. I just don't really see
the need (blessed with a vivid imagination, perhaps! ).

The only smoke I have is in the fireplace or at the grill,

OK, I'll have a go. I used to own an Egolf K4, and a few freightcars.



The K4 came from George Eschbach before me, and was one of two that ran for many years on the old Harrisburg Club's layout. Another old friend of mine, long gone, was a gent named Ben Peters. He was at the club one Sunday, a junior member, and was running this very loco when the news of Pearl Harbour came over the radio.

Both of them ended up being sold to Dan Henon (founder of the old 48/ft O Scale News magazine), then this one went to a mutual friend of Dan and George Eschbach when Dan's collection went to auction. Then George ran it for years on his Bald Eagle and Northern; it was in OST some years ago, #30 on Page 7.

There really was no sign of a smoke generator of any sort in it. It was said to have been made in 1929, so perhaps the later ones didn't have such a thing. The version Lionel came up with is reputed by the TCA people to have been a great breakthrough, the wax pellets being invented in someone's kitchen sink, &c. Like many TCA "history" stories, I imagine its either suspect in itself or the inventor knew of Egolf and perhaps lifted the notion from him. After all, the TCA people believe toy-trains begat the scale world using O Gauge, when in reality the scale world if anything grew in parallel. What was Lionel making that was remotely formative to the scale world even in 1929?

One might want to be just a little careful about the notion O Scale was "crawling" in the '20s, though putting the word "commercial" in front of your statement would be pretty accurate. O Gauge as a track gauge and modelling medium dates back much further, and was a natural progression from #3, #2, and #1 Gauge, being "naught" or #0 Gauge. Maerklin gets the usual credit for 0, though that's arguable, back around the turn of the 20th century, and gents clubs with a model engineering bent (the NYSME probably being probably the best documented survivor of that era in the USA) had people building scale models before WWI. I've seen precious few from that era in the USA, but there are many lovely scale models built to 0-Gauge still in existence I've seen in the UK that date to the late Victorian and the Edwardian era. People built models as "model engineers" then, and that really was the birth of the hobby, and might be why the scale still attracts railroad modelers (modelbuilders) as strongly as it does, while model railroaders (layout builders) are a more recent addition to the family.

Hello Sarge

Thank you for posting the lovely photo of the Egolf ...and the history behind it .

My "crawling" terminology was indeed aimed at "commercial" O Scale .. as it was beginning to be introduced and manufactures were lining up to serve in the mid to later part of the 20"s.

How was your Egolf marked ? nameplate ? stamped ? letters in casting ?

Egolf freight cars were cast ?

Thank you
Cheers Carey

Carey:

The loco has passed on to a new owner, so I can't confirm the marking method for you, but if memory serves it was stamped in various places. It had been updated many times in its long life, motor changed from a wound field and the reversing switch under the cab eaves rewired to be used as an isolation switch, lettering was early decalcomania, all the things you'd expect.

It was insulated for two-rail, as was the one Egolf X29 boxcar I had with original trucks. I would have guessed both the K4 and the X29 were converted sometime after they were made, but it is possible they were made that way. If they were converted later, someone did it neatly and the hard way using the original wheels on the loco. The boxcar is in the hands of a friend who could probably make an educated guess as to whether the wheels are original: the trucks themselves were marked IIRC. I don't think anyone can definitively say when insulated two-rail was introduced in the US, although I have in hand a couple handbooks explaining two-rail wiring that are prewar. I'll have to dig them out for publication dates.

The boxcars I had were both PRR X29s, cast frames, wooden bodies, paneling scribed on one and penciled on the other, details formed of wood and wire. Both were stamped underneath as to the type of car, Egolf, Phila., and one as a "test car" so perhaps the prototype of that particular model in Egolf's range. Lettering was hand-done, quite nicely, and a ball-herald on one of them done from thinned paper. I put them both in OST #74, pp 32-33 if you want to give that a look.

Hello Sarge

Thank you for your reply ...and pointing me to the issue of OST..... I'll be turning over a lot of cars and engines in the search for some Egolf marked cars and engines.
York here I come ...
Egolf was an early advocate of 2 rail .. I think he provided engines for one of the layouts at the Chicago World's Fair ..and they were 2 rail .
Cheers Carey

I think you are right - I have a nice set of Egolf trucks (stamped Egolf) and they came with brass insulated wheelsets. Big flanges, but insulated!

They came on a card stock car painted Tuscan with the name "Pershing Square" and orange window mullions. Black roof and olive green underbody. Dan Henon never quite forgave me for separating the trucks from the car.

For Bob from a post on OGR