Compared
to the other tank locomotives offered by the major HO manufacturers in
the mid 1950's, the T3600 stands out in several ways. First
of all it appears to be based on an earlier prototype locomotive design,
perhaps from the end of the 19th century, based on it tall stack, and
lantern box headlight. It is also unusual in that there is
no cab entry from the right side of the locomotive. It was also
the only smoking tank engine on the market. Gilbert offered
smoking engines, but no tank engine in HO. Its smoke unit
used mineral oil based fluid, much like the Gilbert units, but it used a
different method of pushing the smoke out. While Gilbert
used a single piston in the boiler of the engine to create the puffs,
this locomotive had functional model steam cylinders. The
crossheads actually operated a very small cylinder inside the cylinder
body that alternately pushed the air over the smoke generating element
and since they did this at a 180 degree separation, this provided what
appears to be a continuous stream of smoke.
In addition to smoke, this locomotive included a mechanism to provide a
chugging sound. A look at two different service diagrams for
this loco indicate that there were two different designs for the sound
generating unit. The earlier one, (far left) one used a sound
chamber that looks like two blunt ended cones back to back. It was
filled with small steel balls and the chamber was raised and dropped
when a lever on the bottom was contacted by a lever mounted on the
middle of the center axle. The second (near left) was in the form
of a somewhat larger square box that was also filled with small steel
balls. It too was raised and dropped by the same contact on the
middle of the center axle. The sound of the balls rolling in the
plastic chamber makes a reasonable approximation of a steam locomotive
chugging. Revell called this feature "Chug-a-Chug" somewhat akin
to Gilbert's "Choo-Choo.". |
