Danvers, Massachusetts: Lester Friend with son Joe Friend, behind the "Yankee Shop" 4-6-6T, about 1938.
This coal-fired 4-6-6 "tanker" was one of Yankee Shop/Friends Models' most popular designs. It is modeled after the Boston and Albany RR's 400-series class D1-A "tank engine", built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) in 1928. The full-sized engines saw commuter service in and out of South Station, Boston MA....to Riverside, Saxonville, Framingham, Milford, and Worcester (all being "commuter" cities and towns in Massachusetts)....from 1928 until the end of the steam era. The "tank" allowed them to run forward or backward without the need to turn around on a turntable.
The "live steam" version was originally developed by Harry Sait of Old Orchard Beach, ME, in the 1930s. It proved so popular among those who saw it and ran it, and was such an operational success (it was "a good steamer" in every respect), that Lester Friend marketed his own version of the engine....and made castings available through his "Yankee Shop".
Harry Sait's ORIGINAL 3/4" scale Boston and Albany tank engine. Designed and built in the early 1930s by Mr. Sait, this locomotive was the inspiration for the "Yankee Shop" version developed by Lester Friend.
The 3/4" scale "B & A Tanker" design was so popular in the 1940s and 50s, that Charlie Purinton used to say that there were more examples of the 3/4" scale version of it running, than there were full-sized ones!
As a 3/4" scale live steamer it is ideal. It is compact, yet powerful. It has a New York Central "Hudson" appearance when viewed from the front, and is nearly as large as one. This engine, when owned by me in the late 1980s, used to pull me....plus 3 adults....with ease. Lester Friend used to claim that his B & A tank locomotive could pull 8 adults around the New England Live Steamers (NELS) track at Danvers, MA.
The completed locomotive weighs about 150 pounds and can be lifted by 2 adults for placement on, or removal from, the track.
It has slide valve cylinders "dummied" to look like piston valves, and Baker Valve Gear. The 5-1/2" diameter copper boiler shell can be rolled from "flat sheet", or seamless tube can be purchased from suppliers in the United Kingdom.
Specifications
3-1/2” gauge
Coal-fired
Baker Valve Gear
Slide Valves
Copper boiler, silver soldered. (5-1/2” Diameter tube can be purchased from the U.K., or rolled from flat sheet)
Axle Pump on the engine
Injector or VanBrocklin steam pump can be fitted as options
A complete set of the Boston & Albany "4-6-6T" drawings, for those who would like to look the project over, is available. Cost, $175.00 plus USA shipping. For other countries, please inquire.
36-page booklet covers various aspects of the construction of the 3/4" scale Boston and Albany "tank" locomotive. Originally published in 1948 as a compilation of Lester Friend's 1930s and 1940s construction articles that were in "The Model Craftsman" magazine, it has been reprinted in exactly the same form as it was published prior, so as to preserve its content and integrity. This way, you can sit in your easy chair and have Lester Friend (1895-1962) describe to you in his own words, how to build a 4-6-6T live steam locomotive....without any changes or updates by me. You can read the very same words that all the "old timers" read back in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
With 3 major exceptions I can think of, most of the booklet's content from 1948 still applies today.
Exception #1, Lester Friend mentions that the locomotive can be built for less than $100. This is probably not so anymore. Next (#2), the then-common (but now-oddball) size of copper boiler pipe (5-1/2" O.D.) that was called-for in 1948, will now have to be purchased overseas (or "rolled from flat stock", screwed at the joint, and soldered); as it's no longer manufactured in the USA. And finally (#3), more modern & safe insulation than the asbestos that's called for (a common, "hardware store" item back in the 1940s, but now known to be unsafe) should be used for lagging. The days of walking into the local hardware or plumbing store and buying "asbestos sheet" are long gone.
Other differences between 1948 and today might be noted, but most are minor in nature; a matter of "semantics" or technique; or not critical.
Other than those 3 things that our modern era has made obsolete, with this booklet you can enjoy having it be "1948 again" for several enjoyable minutes in your chair!
This booklet's no-nonsense and homespun style is great reading, and it may perhaps be considered a predecessor to the more-thorough "step by step" instructions that other designers and authors published in the decades that followed. You'll be delighted to read it over and over.
Contents include:
Introduction; Engine Truck; Chassis; Axle Pump; Tender Truck; Cylinders and Valves; Baker Gear and Timing; Smoke Box and Exhaust Nozzle; Boiler; Oscillating Disc Throttle.Includes photos of the 4-6-6 under construction, and of various scenes at the old "Yankee Shop" at Danvers, Mass.
Cost is $25.00, plus USA shipping. For other countries, please inquire.
Baker Gear Frames Gear Connecting Rods Bell Cranks Reverse Yokes
Section 6; Boiler and accessories
Boiler (smokebox) Front Smokebox Door Headlight Headlight Bracket Bell, Bell Bracket, & Yoke Air Pump, dummy Smoke Stack Steam Dome Sand Dome Throttle. Steam dome, inner Dry Pipe Flange Firebox Door Frame
Richard Symmes runs John Kurdzionak's Boston and Albany tanker in 1987 at the home track of Charles A. "Carl" Purinton in Boxford, Massachusetts.
The late J. Drennan "Doc" Lowell on his Yankee Shop/Friends Models Boston and Albany "tanker" at the former Norfolk Street site of the Waushakum Live Steamers in the 1970s. This is the locomotive seen elsewhere on this site that John Kurdzionak bought in 1987 after Doc Lowell's passing. Doc Lowell was a world-renowned bone surgeon by day, and an avid live steamer on the weekends!
