keywords = Berlinerwerke railroad model stories tall tales apocrypha PRR Pennsy Pensylvania S. Berliner, III's Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 3
Updated: 03 Oct 2006, 21:35 ET
(Created 19 Apr 2003)
[Ref: This is bw-apoc3.html (URL http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/bw-apoc3.html )]

S. Berliner, III's

(Berlinerwerke)

Apocrypha Continuation Page 3

Consultant in Ultrasonic Processing
"changing materials with high-intensity sound"
Technical and Historical Writer, Oral Historian
Popularizer of Science and Technology
Rail, Auto, Air, Ordnance, and Model Enthusiast
Light-weight Linguist, Lay Minister, and Putative Philosopher

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THE BERLINERWERKE APOCRYPHA

(continued)

BW Key

This page sponsored jointly (lots of 'em) by the
National Railway Hysterical Society
and the
National Muddle Railroad Association.

(Lighten up - they're spoofs!)

[See also the main Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page and Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation page 2, as well as the HO (1:87.1) Berlinerwerke saga or the Z (1:220) Berlinerwerke-Z saga
and Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha (for taller tales?).
Also, see the fabled BW DDP45 and other EMD engines EMD may never have dreamed of!]

Insanity doesn't run in my family, it just sort of dawdles along.

Because the Apocrypha and Guest Apocrypha indices exceeded the capacity of the individual pages, they are now presented in full on a separate Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Index (including the Guest Apocrypha Index).

(03 Oct 06)

INDEX

On the main Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Page:
Eerie Multiplex 2-4-6-8-10-12, "Old 9999".
PRR/BW DD3 Boxcab Triple-Power Diesel-Electric Locomotive 2-B+3-3+3-3+B-2.
PRR Z6s Arctic 4-2-2.
Berliners Bessere Biffi und Biffisch.

On Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Page 1:

GC&E #13 13-truck Shay! (19 Mar 03) and (moved to this page 23 Mar 03)
4-Truck Heisler V8
Steam Motorcars

On the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 2:
PRR V1 Rocky 4-14-2 {moved from preceding page 07 Mar 99}.
BW V2 Hiss Bomb.
PRR Genesis Engine (unlikely!).
PRR Centipede Engine 4-D-D-4 (even more unlikely, but oh, 'tis true, 'tis true!).
"Big Hooker" double-ended 250-ton Tunnel Crane

and new pix of NYC 2x120-ton prototype.
Super Garratt, BW-UP Garratt Boy, and BW-UP Bigger Boy.

On this Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Page 3:
BW Climaxiii (moved here from page 1 on 19 Apr 03)
Doubled-Sided Shays (19 Apr 03)
Piker and Oscar (moved from main BW Apocrypha page 12 Dec 03 and again to this page on 18 Jan 04).
.

On the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 2:

Soviet Class AA20 4-14-4!
Parker Parodies - loco research by Karen Parker

(moved to BW Guest Apocrypha Page 2 on 16 Jan 04).
Pennsy Multiplex - the fabled Wopsononock Class YNOT 2-4-6-8-10-12.
BW/Lima/C&O T-6 4-14-6 Doppelgänger.
BW/PRR Zoo 4-14-6 Doppelgänger.
BW-EMD F-45 and FP-45 Variations.

Before I continue, I should note that all this started with a secret project that is still unfinished and the next major development of the Berlinerwerke was their fabled DDP45:

For more about her and her family, see my EMD page.

Berlinerwerke Climaxiii (moved here from Page 1 on 19 Apr 03)

I finally located the original BW drawing of a three truck Climax; not only that but also one of a four-truck Climax:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(17 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

As if that wasn't enough, the Ersatzs were obviously in prime form, because I also found a drawing of the long-lost, but rumored, V-4 Climax!:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(17 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Not content with perpetrating the V4, the Ersatz brothers went on to design 13-truck and 14-truck V4 Climaxiii:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(17 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Wait, you aint' seen nuttin', yet! We're not through with Ersatz designs, not yet! Just look at this one, a 14-truck CAB FORWARD Climax!:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(17 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

There doesn't seem to have been any limit to what George and Ira Ersatz could come up with if not held back! No wonder we had to sack them.

- - - · - - -

Mark Laundry sent me another pair of unauthorized copies of Ersatz drawings; I had to dig 'way back in the BW records to find the real McCoys; the BW-Ersatz 6-cylinder Climax and the EMC² Diesel-Electric-Steam-Mechanical Climax:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(18 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 M. Laundry, corrected by S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

The former, the Climax 6, was unsuccessful because it proved impossible to beef up the frame sufficiently, while the latter was simply a maintenance nightmare, with its ludicrous propulsion system; a V2 567-diesel drove a generator, which powered an electric heater in a Doble flash steam boiler, which ran the two cylinders, which turned the drive-shaft!

Also, the Diesel-Electric-Steam-Mechanical loco was designed on BW time for the about-to-be-born Ersatz Motor Coach Corporation (EMC², later Ersatz Motive Corporation), and was one of the reasons the Ersatz brothers were canned.

Oddly enough, there actually WERE internal combustion conversions of all three major geared locos!

Double-Sided Shays

My friend Dave McConnell (of HO railduck fame - it quacks and turns its head) asked me about the double-sided Shays; well, I did some serious digging in the BW files and you just won't believe what turned up! It seems that, while George was the big, flamboyant, flash-in-the-pan public figure, Ira Ersatz was the more serious and studious. It was he who worked out the design concept for the double-sided Shay, a proposal that Lima rejected outright! By making the boiler very high and narrow, a keyhole-shaped cross section, heavily staybolted, he could shift it back to the center and hang a second set of cylinders off the left side! We know it was Ira because he very carefully initialled all his study drawings I.E., i.e.: Ira Ersatz (people's reaction was often AIYEEE!), and here they are (these were done by altering Lima patent drawings, as noted on the sketches); first is the rough layout, then a more refined version:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(19 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Next we have the cross-section:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(19 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Notice anything odd about those Shays (besides the double-sided aspect)? More on this below.

Here is a double-sided truck in plan and elevation:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(19 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Again, that odd feature - did you spot it? Lastly, a detail of a double-ended Shay axle and journals:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(17 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Now for the oddities; that early sketch is of a Shay with four-axle trucks under the loco and the later study is of one with four span-bolstered two-axle trucks and four cylinders(!)! Not only that, but the patent numbers are valid numbers actually on file in the U. S. Patent & Trademark Office (really!) and they were all filed variously by W. A. Austin, L. E. Feightner, G. L. Wall, and H. W. Snyder, and G. B. Thorburn, et al., assigned to Lima. Oh, 'tis true, 'tis true! And, especially in this case, truth is truly a thousand times stranger than fiction!

(20 Apr 03)

To make it easier, for anyone seriously interested in these real Shay drawings, to see what the original patents were, here are details of the two used for the studies:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(19 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

and here are linked thumbnails for the whole set of full USPTO drawings:

[Thumbnail images - click on the images for the full size drawing.]

Well, that was quite something; Ira wasn't so crazy, after all! Or was he? When the Ersatzs rejoined (were grudgingly allowed back to) the Berlinerwerke after WWII, Ira was definitely not with it, much. Whil(e)(st) digging in the files, I came across the very design that led to his dismissal, a double-ended Shay with a very serious design deficiency; when Ira was called on the carpet about it, he steadfastly maintained he saw no problem with it at all:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(17 Apr 03 Drawing by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Poor Ira! George was distraught, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

Actually, things were far worse than we ever realized; tucked away in Ira's old files, we also found these drawings of two more double-enders:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(28 Apr 03 Drawings by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)

Oh, my Gawd! Truth is a thousand times stranger than fiction, indeed! Doug Self has both V2- and V12-engined steamers on his Steam Motor Locomotives page, apparently real.

Piker and Oscar

[Moved from main BW Apocrypha page 12 Dec 03 and then from page 4 on 18 Jan 04]

Writing about the famed PRR Z6s Arctic 4-2-2, it had occurred to me that you might not really know the famed Walthers Piker or the lesser-renowned Oscar; they are (or were) Walthers's kit nos. 7812 and 7899, respectively, and I can't show you any photos since I still haven't built them (among so many unfinished and unbegun kits). However, I can show you the side views from the Walthers instruction sheets (06 Mar 99).

A year later, I found the Piker and Oscar boxes, discovered the Piker instruction sheet missing (I'd probably taken it out to photograph), and shot the Oscar sheet (Walthers has reissued these two gems, so look in your catalog):

(Walthers Oscar Plan View - Left Side - from xerocopied Instruction Sheet - see below)

The Piker is virtually identical but with both ends the same (no observation platform - AND no vestibules, either!) Hey, on 10 Jun 02 I found BOTH plans neatly filed in my Pennsy models folder instead of in the boxes so here's the Piker:

(Walthers Piker Plan View - from original Instruction Sheet dated 1959)

The Oscar plan is strange; the original (now in the file) is all marked up in color to send to Walthers to describe two missing pieces (the obs. platform gates) and returned by them with the parts. Reshot from the original (doctored to delete the markup):

(Walthers Oscar Plan View - Left Side - from original Instruction Sheet dated 1968)
[Image restored 17 Feb 04]

and both together:

(Walthers Piker and Oscar Plan View)
[17 Feb 04 montage by S. Berliner, III]

DDP-45 Drawing

(20 Apr 04) 20 Apr 2004 - I found it! After many years of fruitless searching, I stumbled on my ancient 11" x 17" Dietzgen drafting pad (with a 4x4 No-Print grid) and there, hidden under other RR drawings, was my final HO drawing of the DDP-45, dated 24 Jan 1974. Elsewhere, I note that the final form consists of an FP-45 front section, a reversed F-45 body, and an FP-45 rear; this sketch differs slightly form the model in that it shows an F-45 front section. Note the position of the rear door of front section and compare that to the photo repeated here:

It appears that I never detailed the rear deck handrails.

Burdick Nightmare

Back in the '60s and '670s, the NMRA had a big thing going for Burdick Nightmares, 0-2-0 locos (literally) with no visible means of support; I'd love to post one of the original concept drawings. I note one in the Fantasonics series on the main Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page as Ira Ersatz designed it:

(09 Apr 05)

Did you know that the C&O had a Burdick Nightmare running at the turn of the last century? Neither did I, but Ira and the BW did make one up:

The BW is working on a Segway switcher (shunter), thus creating the world's first modern, practical Burdick Nightmare (thank you, Dean Kamen); so far, only a roadable version has been completed and you can see it here, hauling a hi-rail vehicle:

(unprovenanced photo from the Net)

As soon as traction tests are complete and a 4' 8½" axle with flanged wheels is ready, a knuckle coupler will replace the towbar and we will actually have an 0-2-0.

See also the HO (1:87.1) Berlinerwerke saga or the Z (1:220) Berlinerwerke-Z saga
and Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha (for taller tales?).
Also, see the fabled BW DDP45 and other EMD engines EMD may never have dreamed of!

The Apocrypha exceeded the capacity of the original Apocrypha page
which you may wish to visit if you missed it, as well as the succeding Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation page 1 and page 2, and the Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha.

Have I ever told you that there are many Web sites and fora and chats and such that have very serious discussions about the relative merits of DDP-45, the Z6s, and these other loco locos vis-à-vis the Big Boy, etc.! Doncha just love it!

(03 Oct 06)

[See also the HO (1:87.1) Berlinerwerke saga or the Z (1:220) Berlinerwerke-Z saga.]

If you like this sort of nonsense, take a gander at Jim Wells' incredible

and at the AW NUTS Magazine site, "A Publication of the A.W. N.U.T.S. Garden Railway Society".

If you are air-minded (take that as you choose), you must see the Lion Air site! I'd be Lion if I didn't warn you to keep your tongue in your cheek on this one!

Take your tongue out of your cheek and visit D. Dickens' The Patiala State Monorail Tramway site; whooie (and it's for real)!