Victor Shattock's B&O President Washington

Around 1934 Victor Shattock built a 1/2 inch scale, 2-1/2 inch gauge model of B&O President Washington class, 4-6-2, #5300.

Warren Weiss recently acquired the locomotive and provided the following photos. Here are the before and after views, after it was converted to Santa Fe and after being converted from COAL back to denatured alcohol by Warren Weiss.

Here is what Warren had to say:


 * I'm going to add to this thread with a photo of one of the locomotives that Victor Shattock built along with another live steamer who wanted a B&O President Class Pacific. I was lucky enough to acquire it about a year ago. Although Vic Shattock originally built the locomotive with his specially designed alcohol vaporizing burner, by the time I got it, it had been converted to burn coal. Coal is fun to burn, but the boilers that Mr. Shattock built were riveted and caulked with soft solder which one must not allow to overheat, and coal can cause overheating. So, one of the things that I did was convert it back to the original design by building an alcohol burner (following Vic Shattock's design). I might add, that design works incredibly well!. I also added a fuel tank to the tender and made some minor repairs.


 * Being a Western railroad fan, the B&O livery was not that appealing to me and upon closer examination, I noticed many details on the locomotive that did not accurately represent the President Class. The partial paint and partial brass also bugged me so I thought, since Vic Shattock also modeled Western railroads (Southern Pacific), he wouldn't mind if the locomotive became AT&SF. While it also varies from the AT&SF 3400 class in several areas, it does come close enough that I can live with it.


 * Like others here on trainorders.com, I was curious about what happened to all the fabulous equipment that those very skilled people built in the early days of the hobby and why we don't see them anymore. So I feel it is my duty to not keep this locomotive "under glass" in a private display cabinet, but to let all those interested see the magnificent workmanship that went into this loco. Therefore, anyone who would like to see this locomotive in person, has an open invitation to come to my house in the Los Angeles area to see it.