JUST LIKE ITS REAL-LIFE PROTOTYPE

I’d bought a 2-8-0 steamer,

“Consolidation-type” in N scale…

I had one train circle running

And delightedly put this engine on rails!

–

This BOSTON AND MAINE “2-8-0”

It didn’t travel far…

Before the engine stubbed its toe

And the front wheels went ajar.

–

My careful but quickly laid track

Was not perfectly smooth….

And like it’s prototype,

The engine wheels hit a cross-groove!

–

Rough track is anathema

To models with light pilot wheels…

Even the real ones suffered

From extra tight curve squeals!

–

–Jonathan Caswell

JUSTIFYING MY “0-6-2”

An N scale “2-6-2”,

The lead set of wheels he blew…

Pictured once

An engine thus,

Converted to an “0-6-2.”

–

Most steam engines of this type,

In foreign fields are ripe…

In the U.S.

Mostly tank engines are left,

Them with tenders as hard to find as snipe!

–

Some may have come from Birmingham,

Alabama, a modified plan…

No evidence there—

Or up in the air—

The Internet doesn’t do well with “rare”.

–

He thinks Indiana coal fields,

Was where a real engine congealed…

Now he cannot find

The photo in mind,

Not finding a prototype, his mind reels!

–

Worse yet, he’s lost his model,

Was it sold or just took a toddle…

Somewhere below

All the other stuff so,

His research continues in high throttle!

–

–Jonathan Caswell

Google Image of a live steam model of a European designed 0-6-2 + tender,

produced by ROUNDHOUSE, makers of small scale live steam models.