Age of the Decapods: A Review

The Colorado Railroad Museum has released its much-awaited (by me, at least) Rail Annual, "Age of the Decapods." This book, which is Bob LeMassena's latest, is a very good effort, nicely produced and worth the money. The title is a touch misleading, but not in an annoying way, for it's the rare misnomer that promises more than it delivers. "Decapod" to most people means "2-10-0," but Mr. LeMassena extends it to cover every five-coupled steam locomotive class used in America - including a pair of narrow-gauge Decapods built for Mexican service, the Virginian's massive 2-10-10-2s, and a unique 1903 Baldwin 2-10-2 with slide valves and Stephenson valve gear.

In arrangement and content it is a perfect companion to his Articulated Steam Lcocomotives of North America, and it should be understood as a sort of primer on the topic - not the last word. Just as in the earlier effort, he catalogues each class of engine on the basis of design and road of ownership, recataloguing them when they switch owners or the road changes identity - a feature that will require the casual browser to resort to other publications, perhaps, for the details to fill in the blanks, but one that ensures room is conserved for the photos that tell their own story of transition and change.

It would be easy to criticize it for the things it omits, but it's important to understand that a work of this kind takes an extraordinary amount of research, and that it's meant to be a catalogue, something that can cue the interested reader or modeler to look for more detailed information in other sources. He made a deliberate decision to omit the dimensional data that he included in the earlier work in favor of a simple statement of weight on drivers and tractive effort, which I rather regretted, but apart from that, my biggest complaint was the cursory treatment of the Baldwin standard light and heavy Decapods of the 1920s. As a class and an idea, these got a shorter treatment than they received in Kalmbach's Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, while the Pennsylvania's I-1s got a lengthy essay. In LeMassena's defense, it's only fair to point out that something like 598 of the 700-odd decapods built in America were I-1s, but their existence and traits have been thoroughly documented elsewhere; a guide like this could profitably have dwelt a bit on the reasons why Baldwin decided to try to develop the market with the light and heavy designs in the Twenties, and it could also have noted the class distinction between light and heavy Baldwin decapods in the individual entries. The dimensional data that was provided certainly comes in handy, for a glance at the weight on the drivers will suffice to reveal the distinction without further reference, but I would have liked to see a bit more - for that brief criticism aside, more of anything Mr. LeMassena does is always welcome on my bookshelf.

Modelers and buffs alike will find this an interesting book, and an excellent reference to the topic.

Progress!

And here it is - with the toughest part done (the tender is still a substitute, but that will change as soon as I get the body shell weathered and assembled). The real challenge with these models is the chassis, valve gear, and motor; get those working (and more importantly, working once they've been painted), and you're in business.

There are always some challenges, and this kit was no exception. The valve gear was generally easy to get together, but some of the punchings were too small to accomodate the rivets, so I had to bore them out. Once it was all together, it was just a process of assembly, testing, disassembly, fixing, reassembly, retesting......and eventually it all went together. The crossheads gave some trouble, but a lot of filing (of both the crosshead and the rails) and a little lubrication finally put things right.

Once the mechanism was perfect, I tested it with the boiler and cab, which will provide most of the weight. While wheel arrangements are really not a good indicator of anything, this engine did have some prototypical qualities: like a real Atlantic, it had "too much git, and not enough dig." It did have power - but it's so light on the drivers that the engine slips very easily, and I don't expect it to start a heavy train. I may try to remedy this by pouring some low-melt alloy metal into the boiler to add weight. As you can see in the picture, it still has the stock trailing truck. This has a surprising importance - it's not just decoration. The rigid wheelbase is very short, and there's a definite tendency to tip backwards if the trailing truck isn't installed. The stock truck comes with a flat plate atop the truck structure, which serves as a slide bearing for the rear of the frame. It looks like I'm going to have to do something with the Hodge truck to ensure it can bear the frame, perhaps install a small u-shaped brass plate, which may take some doing if it's going to be kept inconspicuous.

All the paint on this engine is Scalecoat; I put on a base of loco black, weathered it with Bragdon's powder, and then added a flat varnish layer. The rods were done in graphite, and the results are subdued, and with a light dusting of reddish and yellow powder give the appearance of road grime. I masked off the driving wheel tires, and I'm pretty happy with the results; the look is of a well-maintained engine that's been logging a lot of road time.