and new pix of NYC 2x120-ton prototype.
Super Garratt, BW-UP Garratt Boy, and
BW-UP Bigger Boy.
On the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 3:
BW Climaxiii (moved here from page 1 on 19 Apr 03)
Double-Sided Shays.
Piker and Oscar (moved from main BW
Apocrypha page 12 Dec 03 and again to page 3 on 18 Jan 04).
On the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 4:
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.
* - in addition to Karen's wild and wonderful fancies, you might also enjoy Andrea
Luigi Meneghini's fantatsic
Da Vinci Rails site (and see my version of his BR 53, the
BR 35.3).
(19 May 07)
Before I start, 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.
Also, many of the images on succeeding pages are adapted from Joshua
Moldover's Railroad Paint Shop;
that site is active as of this writing (19 Nov 2005/14 Apr 2009) but
has not been updated in many years and e-mail to some of his
contributors can not be delivered. If anyone knows how to contact
them, please let me know or let them know that I can not reach them.
(14 Apr 2009)
Two of the best perpetrators of similar apocrypha (atrocities?) are
Karen Parker (Pixel Magic/Parker Parodies) and
Richard Leonard [(Fantasy Steam Page)
and (
NYC Fantasy Steam).
(14 Apr 2009)
EERIE MULTIPLEX
2-4-6-8-10-12, "Old 9999"
Original Date: 22 Jan 72 Effective Date:
30 Sep 97 (ever so slightly revised)
The "O. D. Ball" Malllet Articklllated, Class Y-2b (or not 2b)
Another little-known engine originally developed shortly after the turn of the century
by Wiener Berliner's Berlinerwerke was the ill-fated 2-4-6-8-10-12 Multiplex. In
1891, the Eerie Railroad was begun, to bring coal from the northeastern corner of
Pennsylvania across into New York at Matamoras and Port Jervis. Eerie
management quickly realized that existing drag-freight locomotives were no match for
the severe grades and tight curves of the Shawangunk Mountains. Accordingly,
after consultation with the Norfolk & Western's Y-series design team, they contracted
with the Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona Works and the Berlinerwerke to develop the
most powerful, flexible steam locomotive ever built.
Originally conceived by the Northfork & Wetson's Burgher Line [part of Commodore
Vanderbuilt's Patroon System (you've gotta be a true New Yorker to understand all
this)], as Class Y-12b, later Class Y-0z, for the Cape May-Lewes (Cape Henlopen)
Chesapeake Bay Tunnel service, the design later was transferred to the Long Island
Rail Road for the Orient Point-Old Lyme (Hatchett Point) Sound Bridge service.
These projected lines were never carried forward and the design was temporarily
shelved.
Taking Anatole Mallet's articulation and compounding to an extreme, the Multiplex
moved exhaust steam from the two inner sets of low-pressure cylinders out to its
gargantuan front and rear cylinders (by the time the steam got out there, it was really
exhausted). In order to provide adequate steam to the cylinders, boiler
pressure was increased to an unheard-of 350psi. Twin stokers fed an
enormous firebox and the rear set of drivers had to be located under the tender.
The boiler was an elongated version of the USRA design used on the N&W Y-series.
As experience with the Y-6b 2-8-8-2 on the N&W showed that an increase in weight
on the front truck caused curved track to straighten out, a passenger-style two-axle
pilot truck was originally intended to bear the weight of the huge front cylinders and
to be guided through curves by its own single-axle pilot truck! This design, the
Eerie Triplllex, would have looked like this:
However, the free-steaming boiler and tremendous pressure would have over
whelmed the single pair of high-pressure cylinders and a fourth engine truck with two
driver axles and its own cylinders was required. The dual-guidance lead truck
configuration was dropped, with near-fatal consequences as we will see later. Thus
the forward pair of low-pressure cylinders was moved forward and a second pair of
high-pressure cylinders moved in between, thusly:
{Standard graphics characters aren't available on the Net; I had to
upload the figures!}
The Berlinerwerke's Cresson facilities were strained by the sheer complexity and size
of this huge engine. Endless hours were consumed in designing and fabricating
the monster engine and tender. Finally, the whole was complete and she was
steamed and run up and down on the test track. All tests were completed
successfully and an appointment for delivery to the Eerie was made. The big
engine was named for famed Eerie engineer O. D. "Odie" Ball.
An undated early design drawing turned up; I have no idea when it was done
(probably ca. 2000):
(undated drawing from Berlinerwerke files - collection of S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Unfortunately, the extreme length and flexibility of the Eerie Multiplex were its
undoing. After being towed dead to Altoona for further testing at the PRR's
engine test facility and a shake-down run up to the Eerie headquarters plant at
Matamoras, the big engine was run across to Port Jervis and put on its first revenue
run. Shortly into the Shawangunks very early on a dark, foggy dawn, it started
around Corkscrew Curve, a famous loco killer. No one on the Eerie had
foreseen the obvious. The engineer and fireman jumped clear just in time as
they saw the gleam of the headlight on their own engine's pilot coming up behind
them and were saved, but as the lead truck came all the way around the curve, the
pilot collided with the tender, throwing the entire locomotive off the tracks and into
the ravine below, where the huge boiler exploded under the tremendous pressure
with enormous force! The experiment was deemed a total failure and the
wreckage was subsequently cut up on the spot and removed. An exhaustive
investigation into the accident exonerated the Berlinerwerke of any culpability; the
Eerie had never advised them of the incredible curvature at the Corkscrew.
There are tales that persist in the Shawangunks to this day, however, that on certain
moonlit nights, dedicated railfans can still spot the glint of steel moving down in that
ravine and hear the anguished wail of a wet steam whistle in its death throes.
Now, it just so happened that the BW was not about to give up so easily on such a
powerful loco design, so they teamed up with Altoona again and built a second 9999
for the Eerie, which by that time had eased Corkscrew Curve. In order to get
even more starting tractive effort, the BW team added a steam turbine booster under
the rear of the tender, driving all six truck axles! The only limit to what this
beast could drag was the tensile strength of drawbars and the shear strength of
coupler knuckles and knuckle pins. Karen Parker, loco pictoriographer, dug
around in the BW files and came up with this photo (only ever-so-slightly retouched by
the redoubtable BW Art Dept.):
(11 Dec 03 photo by K. Parker - all rights reserved)
[It turns out that there was a BW/Baldwin predecessor Multiplex (on the Virginian),
see Apocrypha Page 6.]
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD/BERLINERWERKE Class DD3 Boxcab Triple-Power
Diesel-Electric Locomotive 2-B+3-3+3-3+B-2 - moved to
BW Apocrypha Continuation Page 0 on 11 Oct 2004.
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD Z6s ARCTIC 4-2-2
(Feb 1999 photo of 1987 model, both by SB,III)
Note that because there is only one main driver axle, the valve gear had to be reversed to run FORWARDS to the wheel, with links foreshortened appropriately.
[Article printed on front cover of NMRA/NER/SRTD CANNONBALL, Spring
1992, Vol. 22, No. 1. Hub Div. threatened to reprint it, as did
NRHS/STC SEMAPHORE.]
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
Z6s ARCTIC 4-2-2
(So called because it'd be a cold day before you'd ever see one)
[Drawing by Bob Gatland{?} in Spring 1992 CANNONBALL (after SB,III sketch, below) -
WOW! - I never before noticed he'd left off the steam dome!]
This unusual engine is little known outside certain circles on Wrong Island. In fact, it is so little known that even the vaunted Ron Zeal missed it entirely in his two books, "STEALIN' RAILS IN THE SUNRISE" and "PENNSY ERROR ON WRONG ISLAND". Not even the famed Don Would or Edwin Alec Sander or the late Don Bawl ever got it on film; it isn't even mentioned in "I FORGOT PENNSY" or "The PENNSYLVANIA RAILRODE - 1940s -1950s". Al Stouffer missed it in "PENNSY POOR" and "PENNSY POOR II". Not even Rod Durkes, Charles Chainey, Jim Burkul, John Krowse, Vince Seafood, Hal Fullertown, nor Colonel Hal Cartoons nor Jim Boid snapped it. No picture ever appeared in NRHS or RLHS journals nor in RAILFUN & RAILROAD, RAILROAD MUDDLE CRAFTSPERSON, TRANES, or MUDDLE RAILROADER or anywhere else before that anyone knows of.
Fabricated (and how!) by the Berlinerwerke in cooperation with the Pennsy's Altuna Works as a high-speed commuter engine for duty on Wrong Island, the acceleration of the 80"-drivered Arctic, with its enormous, superheated boiler and excellent draft, was so great that it often departed a station before it arrived! No wonder it has been so little photographed or remembered. It was one fast, if slippery and rough-riding, engine! The official name of the WIRR train pulled most often by the Arctic was the CANNON BAWL (it WAS enough to make you cry), but it is best remembered as the Patchawg Squat.
The model was originally intended to be finished and shown on March 21, 1987, at a meet of the Sunrise Trail Division of the NMRA in honor of the great and famous Col. Cartoons, pulling a Walthers' Piker and Oscar. Unfortunately, at Midnight on March 20, a screw holding one side of of the valve hanger snapped off in the zamac frame and, at 3 a. m. on March 21, a valve gear rivet fell out. So, the model never got repainted and the cars never got finished (still true today) in time. Nothing daunted by a night without sleep, the redoubtable crew of the Berlinerwerke slapped on a patch coat of paint (thank heaven for Polly-S) and did a lightning-fast lettering job so that the Sunrise Trail Division regulars could at long last see this fantastic example of the steam locomotive builder's art.
The Piker (a 21' long Pullman car) will be named the "COLONEL CARTOONS" in honor of the honored (?) publisher (he's a real sleeper) and the Oscar (a 21' long observation car) will be named the "SHORT HALL"in honor of his famed Wrong Island summer home. The Hall is where the Colonel keeps a framed, autographed copy of Harry Truman's picture inscribed with the famous observation made by Franklin Delano Roosevelt when maddened model railroaders were demonstrating on the White House lawn for the establishment of National Model Railroad Month. Reliable sources say that Roosevelt told Truman, "Give 'em Hal, Harry!".
As always, it is the pleasure of the Berlinerwerke to bring you models of the world's most unbelievable engines and rolling stock and to present little-known bits of history for your edification.
[Reproduced and updated 05 Aug 1991, from original copy of 21 Mar 1987]
From a bad xerocopy of my original (missing) sketch dated 31 Oct 73. It is annotated that I acquired (the late) Chick Bade's Penn Line E6s Atlantic (used) on 17 Jan 87 and cut it up around 22 Feb 87 and that I cut up the tender on 04 Mar 87:
(I hope to find the original)
It 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've moved coverage of them to
BW Apocrypha page 4.
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
Z6s ARCTIC 4-2-2
SPECIFICATIONS
Z6s E6sb K4s
Arctic Atlantic Pacific
4-2-2 4-4-2 4-6-2
Cylinders 23½" x 26" 23½" x 26" 27" x 28"
Drivers, diameter 80" 80" 80"
Boiler, inside dia. 76-3/4" 76-3/4" 76-5/8"
Steam pressure 205 lb. 205 lb. 205 lb.
Firebox 6-3/8" 110-3/8" x 72" 126" x 80"
Flues & Tubes, diameter 5½"-2"-1½" 5½"-2"-1½" 5½"-2¼"-1½"
" " " , number 5½" - 36 5½" 36 5½" - 40
2" - 242 2" - 242 2¼" - 236
1½" - 144 1½" - 144 1½" - 160
" " " , length 11' 3" 15' 0" 19' 0"
Grate area 41.3 sq. ft. 55.1 sq. ft. 70 sq. ft.
Water heating surface 2,169 sq. ft. 2,892 sq. ft. 4,050 sq. ft.
Superheating surface 605 sq. ft. 806 sq. ft. 1,215 sq. ft.
Wheel base, driving 0' 0" 7' 5" 13' 10"
" " , tot. engine 22' 2½" 29' 7½" (9") 36' 2"
" " , " " 56' 5½" 63' 10½" 71' 10"
& tender (64' 0") (74' 8")
Tank capacity 7,000 US gal. 7,000 US gal. 9,000 US gal.
Fuel " 18,000 lb. 25,000 lb. 35,000 lb.
Wt. on Rail, Engine Truck 57,200 lb. 55,200 lb. 53,200 lb.
" " " , 1st Drivers 70,000 lb. 68,000 lb. 68,400 lb.
" " " , 2nd Drivers - 68,000 lb. 71,100 lb.
" " " , 3rd Drivers - - 69,800 lb.
" " " , All Drivers 70,000 lb. 136,000 lb. 209,300 lb.
" " " , Trailer Truck 47,300 lb. 52,400 lb. 57,500 lb.
Wt. of Engine, Working Order 174,500 lb. 243,600 lb. 320,000 lb.
" " " , Empty 145,500 lb. 215,000 lb. 284,500 lb.
Starting Tractive force 19,060 lb. 31,275 lb. 44,460 lb.
Factor of Adhesion 3.67 4.35 4.71
[Reproduced and updated 05 Aug 1991, from original copy of 21 Mar 1987]
Don't think there isn't any precedent for the Z6s Arctic, witness this PRR Z1 #0 ca. 1898:
[Photo courtesy of Berlinerwerke Archives (and that alone should tell you something!)]
Actually, there were a number of relatively-modern American 4-2-2 locos in the late 19th Century (see Abdill - 20, 23, 70, and 161).
See my Model Railroad page 3 for a matching caboose.
At long last, a photo of the Z6s, taken at the Trenton (NJ) enginehouse in 1947, has
surfaced from the cavernous files of the BW Art Dept.:
(27 Dec 06)
("Photo" courtesy of the BW Art Dept. - all rights reserved)
{"some" liberties were taken with an E6s photo from
Gary Mittner; I trust he'll forgive me}
The Biffisch
- moved to BW Apocrypha
Continuation Page 0 on 11 Oct 2004.
The Incredible Dizzying Heights Railroad on Jim Wells's fabulous Fantasonics site
noted below (and on all these pages) needed a more powerful loco than old #1 and
the Fantasonics Engineering people turned to the BW for help. Operating on
the proverbial shoestring, the IDHRR could not afford new power but had #1's sisters,
#2 and #3 available for trade in. The BW's George Ersatz ran this by his
brother, Ira (read subsequent pages for more about this amazing duo), the BW took
in both old locos, combined them, and the result was second #2:
("Photos" courtesy of Fantasonics and the BW Art Dept. - all rights reserved)
{I have to assume Jim will forgive me}
Ohmygosh! Ira went even further than I ever dreamed! Diligent
searching of the BW files, looking for the fabled Burdick Nightmare 0-2-0 of
NMRA '60s-'70s fame, not only turned up Ira's version of the Burdick Nightmare 0-2-0
for the IDHRR BUT it also turned up Ira's incredible IDHRR Duplex
Burdick Nightmare! I'd never even heard of such but here they both are
(and pictures never lie):
(07 Apr 2005 "photos" courtesy of Fantasonics and the BW Art Dept. - all rights reserved)
{Guess what? Jim not only forgave, but encouraged, me (foolish fellow)!}
What a fantastic find! But, you ain't seen nuttin', yet! Jim and Christie
Wells started Fantasonics Engineering in 1980 as a design consulting group (The
Enginears {sic}); that odd name caught my "ear". I seemed to
recall a reason why they called themselves that; sure enough, Ira had been at it long
before:
(08 Apr 2005 "photo" courtesy of Fantasonics and the BW Art Dept. - all rights reserved)
{I warned Jim!}
"Ear, 'ear! George had heard that there was something smoky going on in the
IDHRR tunnels and let Ira lose on the problem. I understand that the extreme
height of the stack made the ears ineffective and that they were quickly removed.
Eeek! That second #2 was far too rigid for some of the IDH curves, so
Ira tried the old Santa Fé concept of a hinged boiler; that only allowed for
right-hand curvature, so he substituted a double hinge:
(08 Apr 2005 "photos" courtesy of Fantasonics and the BW Art Dept. - all rights reserved)
{Poor Jim!}
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).
[See also the HO (1:87.1) Berlinerwerke saga or the Z (1:220) Berlinerwerke-Z saga.]
I always wondered at the incredibly tight security at the Berlinerwerke during WWII; now it can be told! See, for starters, the wild site of Sig Case, Rails to the Stars - Steam in Space, files from the National Aeronautics and Steam Administration and the tie-in to the Berlinerwerke V1 on Apocrypha Page 2.
See also the HO (1:87.1) Berlinerwerke saga or the Z (1:220) Berlinerwerke-Z saga
and Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha (for taller tales?):
NORTHEAST CORRIDOR FREIGHT ENGINES.
LEWELLEN NORTHERN GARRATTS.
CSXT AC100CBW and NSC CB100W-10 10,000 horsepower locos!
Also, see the fabled BW DDP45 and other EMD engines EMD may never have dreamed of!
If you like this sort of nonsense, take a gander at Jim Wells' incredible 
[The AW NUTS Magazine
site of the A.W. N.U.T.S. Garden Railway Society
is no longer available.]
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)!
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
of this series of Berlinerwerke Apocrypha pages.
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2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,
2009
- All rights reserved.
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