VIRGINIAN 2-8-8-8-2 TRIPLEX STEAM LOCOMOTIVE & TENDER
New HO scale factory painted and assembled 2-8-8-8-2 steam locomotive and rectangular tender by Mike's Train House (MTH). Painted black with a graphite smoke box and fire box and yellow lettering for the Virginian RR. Road number 700. MTH product number 803110-1. This complex locomotive has been inspected and track tested. (NOTE: we are affiliated with Sommerfelds Trains which is an authorized MTH dealer and warranty repair center).
CAN BE OPERATED 0N DC OR DCC LAYOUTS; SOUND & SMOKE WORK ON DC
Like M.T.H.'s O-Gauge and One-Gauge product lines, the company's HO locomotives will feature the firm's highly acclaimed sound and command control onboard electronics. The Proto-Sound system, Proto-Sound 3.0, includes battery-free operation and a wireless tether between locomotive and tender. The electronics will operate with any DC power supply and can operate in command mode using any DCC command control system or M.T.H.'s own state-of-the-art DCS Digital Command System
Model features include:
Die-Cast Boiler and Tender Body
Die-Cast Metal Chassis
Authentic Paint Scheme & Cab Numbers
RP-25 Metal Wheels Mounted On Metal Axles
Constant Voltage Headlight
Prototypical Rule 17 Lighting
Detailed Truck Sides
Detailed Cab Interior
Powerful 5-Pole Precision Flywheel Equipped Motor
(2) Scale Couplers
Metal Handrails and Decorative Bell
Decorative Metal Whistle
Sprung Drive Wheels
Synchronized Puffing ProtoSmoke System
Locomotive Speed Control
Locomotive Cab To Tender Deck Plate
Detailed Tender Undercarriage
Interchangeable Traction Tire-Equipped Drive Wheels
Proto-Sound 3.0 With The Digital Command System Featuring: Freight Yard Proto-Effects
On-Board DCC Receiver
Operates On Code 70, 83, & 100 Rail Curves
Unit Measures: 15-1/4" x 1-9/16" x 2-1/4"
Operates On 22" Radius Curves
THIS ENGINE IS IN STOCK AND READY FOR IMMEDIATE SHIPPING
PROTOTYPE HISTORY:
P. T. Barnum would have loved the Triplex. It was an engine of superlatives: more drivers than anything before or since, too big for the shops of its owner, the Erie Railroad, powerful enough to pull a train nearly five miles long. Ninety years ago, in the days before multiple-unit control allowed one throttle to control several locomotives, the Triplex was the ultimate attempt to put as much power as possible in the hands of a single engineer. In the end, it proved a noble, flamboyant, but less-than-successful experiment. Baldwin Locomotive Works built three triplexes between 1914 and 1916 for pusher service on the Erie Railroad's daunting Susquehanna Hill (also known as Gulf Summit) near Deposit, N.Y. The cylinders of the Triplex's middle engine were powered by high pressure steam direct from the boiler, while the front and rear engines used low pressure steam exhausted from the middle cylinders.
Each triplex replaced three ordinary helper engines, and the new locomotives worked well enough to stay on the Erie roster for more than a decade. But the design proved a bit over the top and only one more Triplex was ever built, for the Virginian Railway. Even with their huge boilers, the locomotives could only make enough steam to go 10 mph. One reason was poor draft in the firebox, because only the front cylinders exhausted through the smokebox and created draft; the rear cylinders exhausted through a separate smokestack on the tender. Another inherent problem with the design was that traction from the rear engine decreased as the boiler used coal and water and the tender got lighter.
The M.T.H. Triplex recreates the flamboyance of the original design but runs much better than the prototype ever did. MTH engineering will make this complex model run smoothly and steadily at speeds from a barely perceptible crawl to wide-open throttle. For 2008 the Triplex joins MTH's HO lineup, complete with a full range of engine sounds, puffing smoke, speed control, full Rule 17 lighting, and ready to run under conventional, DCC, or M.T.H. Digital Command System (DCS) control.The Triplex was engineered to haul 640 fifty-ton cars in a train almost five miles long. But the couplers and draft gear of the early twentieth century could not have handled such a load, so the 2-8-8-8-2 was used as a pusher and never put to a full test.
