In today's market "close" may or may not cut it.
While there might be some locomotives that share driver spacing, there are
subtle variations in most "mechanisms" that prevent much sharing of model
components.
That being said, Baldwing, Alco, etc.. certainly did not make a brand new
design from scratchh every time they build a locomotive. They had a
library of designs and
patterns that could be combined to meet the customer's needs.
In the case of the Q there was much standardization between locomotives.
The Aurora shops did not want to stock a totally separate parts inventory
for each locomotive class. There were standard domes, cylinders, springs,
drivers, pilot wheels, etc.. etc. that were common between many classes and
were totally interchangeable.
In fact, there was an article in Railway Gazette showing drawings of various
parts that were shared between 0-6-0s, 2-6-2s and I forget what other class
of locos on
the Q.
I have oft speculated that the Q M1 and M2 2-10-2 were either basically
stock Baldwin designs or vice-versa. They certainly shared many design
characteristics with the
O1, O2 and O3 locomotives (and of course they, in turn, shared details and
boilers with the S1 and S2), so I suspect it is the former. The CB&Q was
considered a very progressive railroad in design and engineering and may
very well have been the pattern-setter for Baldwin designs.
The Wabash had Burlington pattern 2-6-2s which differed only in boiler
front, cab and tender details. They also had 2-10-2s which look
suspiciously like Q engines but I haven't analyzed them or other road's
Baldwin 2-10-2s built around the same time to see if they are duplicates in
any way.
One of the main problems with finding common prototypes is that it costs a
lot to do separate boilers, cabs and tenders for steam and the variations
are for non-top selling
roadnames. For example, the MILW, CRI&P and D&H 4-8-4s were built from the
same basic plans. But the details, tenders, driver style, and valve gear
variations limit the common parts to the frame, drive train and not much
more. BLI did a similar project in the PRR J and the C&O T1.... locos that
were built from the same plan but that had totally different "looks".... and
the C&O engine did not sell well enough to justify the cost of tooling the
additional parts to make it.
Even "Harriman" locos, while "common" designs, present a problem as they may
have started out looking pretty much the same between UP, SP (both strong
selling prototypes) and IC, Alton/GM&O and maybe Erie..... but being older
machines they got heavily modified by each road by the time they got to the
era that most of us model ....and you might not even suspect they started
from the same set of plans.
And you thought these issues should be crystal clear to manufacturers!!
Charlie Vlk
Railroad Model Resources
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