Railworks America

... now the fun part begins: blueprint work!

Cheers!
Michael

Oh. Awesome!

I relalize that you keep on going backwards in history.
When was this baby built?

EDIT: In the eyes of a ranger the unsuspected stranger...

well it was in the early 1800's i think

are there going to be rolling stock for this or is it just because it looks cool?

Ooh, very nice.

Thanks,

Yes, this is almost as far as one can go back in time modeling a train. A few years earlier than that and you'd need to animate a horse.

This little engine, the Norris 4-2-0, dates back to a design of the mid-1830s. It was a really groundbreaking innovation, if I understood that correctly, this was the first engine design with seperate truck for the pilot wheels. Before that, as it seems, all engines, be they 2-2-2, 0-4-0 or whatever configuration was in fashion, had all of their axles built into the engine's main frame, making them quite rigid. The 'new' design that Norris introduced helped decrease derailments quite much. However, it also came with a disadvantage: having only one driven axle, it was prone to wheel slip. Still, engines based on this design were in service for several decades, until finally the much better 4-4-0s first sent them to lower priority duties and finally out of service completely.

About the model... it is really still a long ways off. The shell is somewhat done, but I still need to do a few more animations too. And the tender. And the coaches and freight cars, oops. And the blueprints for steam engines are still black magic to me. I'll get there, some day.

Cheers,
Michael

That is just toooooo coool!! Hope to drive it someday. Wonder what the top speed is? 15? LOL

Speaking of early 1800's.... I assume people know about these, but then maybe some don't...... http://frontiers.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/ ... rhome.html

Fascinating reading. If you don't like maps, go up a level for textual materials. I was just reviewing one of these maps of 2 proposed railroads here in/near Loudoun County, VA that was drawn up in 1835. Thinking that the B&O was barely out of Baltimore with their RR, little steam poppers like these would have been what they intended to drive on the "Loudoun RR" and the "Manassas Gap RR".

Tori

i think the top speed was somewhere around 20-30 MPH running light on a level grade and would only be able to haul about 5 small cars at speeds over 15MPH. maby after this loco you should make a 0-4-0 "Grasshopper" to have some variation with it. the 040 was bult in the 1930's, not too much younger than the 4-2-0 norris.

uh michael you do know that the era that the norris engine was in used the british style of cuppelers! (can't spell right) you know with the chains! but no buffers between cars. i am pretty shure the first norrisis did not use knuckles but maby the late version did? if you really wanted a loco progect you should do the "planet" locomotive. it is truley the oldest of the old for running on rails! (quick fact: the norris and the plannet were both used in the UK and North America!)

any updates?

micaelcorleone wrote:Oh. Awesome!

I relalize that you keep on going backwards in history.
When was this baby built?

EDIT: In the eyes of a ranger the unsuspected stranger...

Yea his clock may be broke But i for one am lovin it !!!! Who's with me?

thecanadianrail wrote:i think the top speed was somewhere around 20-30 MPH running light on a level grade and would only be able to haul about 5 small cars at speeds over 15MPH. maby after this loco you should make a 0-4-0 "Grasshopper" to have some variation with it. the 040 was bult in the 1930's, not too much younger than the 4-2-0 norris.

ts[1].jpg

Um isnt it the 1830s?:P

thecanadianrail wrote:i think the top speed was somewhere around 20-30 MPH running light on a level grade and would only be able to haul about 5 small cars at speeds over 15MPH. maby after this loco you should make a 0-4-0 "Grasshopper" to have some variation with it. the 040 was bult in the 1930's, not too much younger than the 4-2-0 norris.

ts[1].jpg

Umm, it wasn't built in the 1930's, it was built in the 1830s. It was around the era in 1930 that steam use on the railroads was coming to a end.

i know.......it was a typo lol! and jpetersjr steam didn't come to an end until the 1940's, and not the 1930's. (it actually depends on where you were actually, some places still used primarily steam into the late 50's)

Oh, the Norris thread is still alive.


I'm afraid it'll be a bit longer until I can complete that model, I made a bit of a (major) error building it, correcting which is a bit of an issue (at least for me). Guess I should've exported a test version much earlier, before adding all the small stuff (and animations).

Anyway, one day will be 'Railworks Norris Day', and I'll be able to see this engine in action outside of Open Transport Tycoon.

BTW, just for your interest, here in my home country steam engines were in regular main line service until the early 1980s!
If you want to read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_R ... Germany%29

Cheers,
Michael