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Updated: 03 Oct 2006, 21:25 ET
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S. Berliner, III's

(Berlinerwerke)

Apocrypha Continuation Page 1

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

On the succeding 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 the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 3: (19 Apr 03)
BW Climaxiii (17 Apr 03)
Doubled-Sided Shays

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.

Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk #13 13-truck Shay

(moved here from Continuation Page 2 on 23 Mar 03)

Because of a typo, the list of damaged equipment in the B&O Museum Roundhouse roof collapse includes reference to "TRACK #16, BAY #16-17 - GC&E #13-truck Shay" (since corrected*); the Berlinerwerke made that loco in conjunction with Lima. As logging and mining loads became heavier and heavier, old Ephraim Shay was beleaguered by endless requests for more and more power. Finally, in sheer desperation, he bullied Lima into collaboration with the Berlinerwerke to produce the one-off (you had to be off to buy it) THIRTEEN -truck Shay for the Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk Railroad ("cheat" is the operative word, here!) as their #13. Fortunately, the BW was able to find an old erection drawing:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(19 Mar 03 Drawing by SB,III after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?},
based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

The loco was underpowered as designed and a newer tracing of the bigger design, with a far heavier plate frame instead of the truss rod design, was uncovered:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(19 Mar 03 Drawing by SB,III after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?}, based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

Well, along came my good buddy, Mark Laundry (of boxcab fame), with the bright idea that the #13 as actually built had booster engines on each tender to keep the drive line from twisting up like a pretzel (or, like a rubber band on the propeller of a toy airplane, as Mark put it). Mark actually dug up an old drawing:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(22 Mar 03 Drawing by Mark Laundry after SB,III after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?}, based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

Mark didn't realize that this was strictly a concept drawing, not one put into production (it could never have worked; you have to have two cylinders on an engine or else you need a giant flywheel and some means of starting the fool thing). There also has to be room for the drive shafts to expand and contract on curves. Using multiple single cylinders separated by drive shafts almost guarantees a pretzel, and the loco was FAR too small for the job, but it did get me thinking, so I rummaged around and found the real McCoy; the final unit had TWO cylinders on each main tender for the very reason Mark realized. BUT, it piped the exhaust steam back the length of the loco as a form of boiler feedwater heater and exhausted (whoo, was it EVER!) through a stack on the last tender; thus you'll see both a small, high-pressure line AND a large exhaust pipe between each main tender and also an exhaust manifold off the rear cylinder on each. Whoever the drafstman was who drew up the single-cylinder idea, he not only didn't understand recip-to-rotary steam, he didn't even draw the track correctly. That was also rectified on the final drawing:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(24 Mar 03 Drawing by SB,III after Mark Laundry after SB,III after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?}, based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

After all!

The final design also put back drive shafts between all the tenders to avoid massive wheel-slip on so many separate engines.

[Oops! What was originally shown wasn't the final tracing, after all;
a newer one was discovered that included the necessary cutouts
in the tender tanks for the engines and has been substituted.]

(24 Mar 03)

A THIRTEEN-truck Shay? And loco road number THIRTEEN?
Maybe that's what jinxed the B&O Roundhouse!

[* - Actually, just in case you don't realize, "GC&E #13-truck Shay" should have read
(and now does read) "GC&E #1 3-truck Shay".]

There actually WAS a GC&E #13, a huge 150-ton 4-truck Shay bought in 1923 from the C&O, used for long runs; its boiler failed test in Mar '42 and she was scrapped in '55. The GC&E operated at Cass, West Virginia, as part of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Co., a subsidiary of West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., and was sold to Mower Lumber Co. in 1942.

(source: Matthew's Railroad Mania Cass GC&E Shay Roster)

Uh, oh! Josh Moldover, hisownself, just got into this act! He claims he "couldn't resist"; I am NOT impressed. Grown people MUST have something better to do with their lives! Be that as it may, Josh sent me this 14-truck "Centercab" Shay:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(25 Mar 03 Drawing by Joshua Moldover after SB,III after Mark Laundry after SB,III after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?}, based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

It really ticks me off when people who should know better do a sloppy job of historical documentation! Josh completely missed the fact that this loco (how apt!) was preceded by the little-remembered 13-truck Centercab Unfairlie-Shay, so I dug around in the Berlinerwerke files and found a drawing for you:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(25 Mar 03 Drawing by SB,III after Mark Laundry after SB,III (again) after Joshua Moldover after SB,III (yet again) after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?}, based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

That Unfairlie-Shay had a really roomy cab but it just wasn't much good (most Unfairlies weren't), which is why they went to the 14-trucker that Josh found. HOWEVER, in looking up the drawing, I found the most amazing loco of all! Even with the lengthened firebox, steaming was a problem and logging roads just couldn't turn these buggers, so the Berlinerwerke staff set to work and came up with the ultimate multi-cylindered, multi-engined, multi-tendered Shay, the 14-truck^@ double-ended Cab-forward Shay:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(25 Mar 03 Drawing by SB,III after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?}, based on original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

^@ - Ha, ha! I missed it and no one else caught it; I had this noted as a 13-truck Shay!

Some people just can't count (like Einstein)!

That's about all the historical research I can handle for a while.

BUT, that didn't slow down Mark Laundry one jot (or tittle); see his latest "13"s on the Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha page!

An old friend asked about a double Shay (engines on both sides), to which I retorted, "How do you know they're not?" and then added, "I know how you can tell! Print the pix out and turn the paper over!" Or, turn to the Berlinerwerke (which NEVER lets you down, eh?), on Apocrypha page 3!

Speaking of Fairlie double boilers, I remember this one from my youth (we cooked oatmeal overnight in it): (11 Apr 03)

(11 Apr 05 photo by BW Art Dept./SB,III - all wrongs reserved)

4-Truck Heisler V8

All this did get me thinking, though. The Berlinerwerke was never particularly fond of Shays, with their illogical and lopsided drive, favoring the V2-engined Heisler:

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

The BW did make one giant variation of this but it never caught on, the monster 4-truck V8-engined Heisler:

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

It could do wheelies on the track and hit 0-60 in 6 seconds flat but somehow failed to attract serious buyers.

Unfazed by the failure of this unique design, the BW engineers revised it to have lower track loading:

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

That didn't fly (literally or figuratively), either; all it did was slow down the lightning acceleration a bit. Oh, well; back to the drawing board!

Now, all I have to do is find that strange Climax drawing - - - ! Ah, see below.

Steam Motorcars

However, on 01 Apr 03, Mark Laundry sent (assaulted me with) yet another drawing, ostensibly after my own Berlinerwerke designs, plus a hystery of the Ersatz Brothers (which I hesitate to recommend to you - and see also the Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha page).

The drawing, which I reproduce here courtesy of Mark and his Yardlimit page, is of a steam railcar developed by George and Ira Ersatz¹ whil(e)(st) with Electro-Motive Engineering (after they left the Berlinerwerke and were sued for stealing designs)

[I guess maybe you'd better read that hystery, after all.]

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(ca. 31 Mar 03 Drawing by M. Laundry after Gas-Electric Motorcar drawing © 2003 J. Moldover
and original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

What Mark doesn't realize is that the car was developed for money laundering by his great-grand-uncle thrice removed, Wun Hung Lo (they were going to take him away a fourth time but they couldn't catch him!). In the event, it proved unable to handle the vast amounts of money and water involved and had to be rebuilt by the Berlinerwerke into a three-truck articulated unit:

[Thumbnail image - click on the image for the full size drawing.]
(01 Apr 03 Drawing by SB,III after Mark Laundry, after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?},
based on EMC Gas-Electric Motor Car drawing by J. Moldover,
and original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

I have warned Mark before about inaccuracy in writing hystery!

Actually, thinking about all this reminded me that the White Path & Yukon was briefly interested in this latter version for laundering Gold Rush money and the Berlinerwerke offered them this enclosed all-weather cab version; an Arctic articulated:

It took a while to find this drawing; there's no end to the amazing things that seem to turn up in the BW files when I look hard enough!

1 - I can't imagine why Mark refuses to believe that the Ersatz brothers not only survived Pearl Harbor, but were captured by the two mini-subs that got away and were interned at Yokosuka where they spent the rest of the war recovering from being crammed into the subs and dreaming up new RR stuff. On being liberated and repatriated, they rejoined the Berlinerwerke, where they worked until the incredible age of 102 (1998), when they were fired for gross incompetence.

Mark also failed to note that George and Ira were identical twins, except that an accident as an infant stunted George's growth (and mind? - perhaps explaining why he graduated two years later) slightly and that Ersatz was NOT founded as Ersatz Motive Corporation; it was originally the Ersatz Motor Coach Corp., with the logo EMC²; it was only when they found out how much it cost to register the trademark that they switched.

This investgation into the old BW records turned up even more; it seems that Maj. I. M. Frowzenthrew, a stuffy old ex-Guardsman, the Chief Operating Officer of the WP&Y, objected to the Ersatz brother's total lack of esthetics and demanded a unit with the connecting passage centered over the truck and that it be a full-width diaphragm (known as the "FWD") to facilitate passage of boiler heat, crew, and hot water lines into the laundering section:

Unfortunately, the entire White Path was buried under a massive avalanche, Major and all, and nothing came of this effort (the usual d�nouement of Ersatz projects).

Not willing to let ill enough alone, Mark Laundry dug up an unauthorized old drawing of an Ersatz brothers' idea for a Shay boxcab locomotive based on the tractor portion of the articulated motorcar:

(02 Apr 03 Drawing by Mark Laundry, doctored by SB,III, after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?},
based on EMC Gas-Electric Motor Car drawing by J. Moldover,
and original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

That never saw the light of day. The unit offered for sale by the Berlinerwerke (they seem to have done an awful lot of offering but not much selling) was this one:

(02 Apr 03 Drawing by SB,III after Mark Laundry, after Joshua Moldover's The Railroad Paint Shop - all rights reserved {but to whom?},
based on EMC Gas-Electric Motor Car drawing by J. Moldover,
and original 3-truck Shay outline by Brad Johnson and Jobst Brandt.)

Now, THAT's a boxcab!

{These credits are getting longer than the drawing files!]

[The funny thing here is that there actually were Shay boxcabs! See my Odd Boxcabs page for steam boxcabs, including New York Central Shay Boxcab #1896.]

Berlinerwerke Climaxiii

I finally located the original BW drawing of a three truck Climax; not only that but also one of a four-truck Climax. However, this page overloaded whan I tried to add even more, so I've moved the entire subject, and added lots more, on a new Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page 3.

(03 Oct 06)

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!

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)!