1:20.3 0-4-0 Side Tanker - Seeking Prototype Information

[jimbo35]

I'd like to find out more about the prototype, particularly  "year(s) of manufacture".  A websearch has revealed that that nine 0-4-0s and 165 0-4-0Ts went to Italy near/after the end of WW1 (aka "The Great War")  Were some if not all of them just like this model's prototype ?
Second question :although this one is 45mm gauge (= 3ft), were any made for 2 ft gauge ?

[on30gn15]

Second question :although this one is 45mm gauge (= 3ft), were any made for 2 ft gauge ?

As far as Porter 0-4-0 locomotives in 2ft gauge, in 1905 the Chicago Tunnel Company was using a pair of 2ft gauge Porter 0-4-0 saddle tankers. That makes it highly probable someone somewhere had 2ft gauge side tankers.

[on30gn15]

Found something maybe worth reading.
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/porter.Html

The H. K. Porter Co. was the leading exclusive builder of light locomotives in the U. S. Until its surviving construction records became available not many months ago, little was actually known of the Porter output, although observers could safely guess that the greater number of Porters were industrial-type 0-4-0 tank engines. A study of the records now at hand bears out the guesswork—and it comes as no surprise that the very first Porter was an 0-4-0T. If "dinky" was the root term, "Porter dinky" became the term in practice among hundreds of contractors and industrial customers, for it was the four-drivered saddletanker, quality-built in numbers, that made the Porter reputation. Tiny, homely, dirty, and as faceless as the thousands of obscure, ofttimes temporary railroads on which it ran, the dinky nevertheless deserves some study and recognition, if only for the job it did.

Possibly the greatest deficiency is the records' general failure to separate tank engines from straight engines. With information added from other sources, about 12 percent of the 0-4-0's have been identified as tank engines; obviously, many more were really of that type—a point that holds in varying degree for other wheel arrangements given in the accompanying table.

Experience has proved that wheel arrangements given in the original records for certain engines were entirely incorrect. In some cases confusion results from the difference between Porter's unique classification system and the Whyte system, the former reading from back to front of an engine, the latter from front to back, so that a 2-6-0 might sometimes appear in the Porter records as an 0-6-2.

Also, Porter did some 2ft gauge 0-4-2 side tank locos for Australian sugar cane operations http://www.zelmeroz.com/album_rail/qld/jf72/jf053.jpg
A 2ft gauge 0-4-0 side tank is certainly within the realm of likely for porter to have constructed.

[on30gn15]

GAUGING THE CUSTOMER

Although Porter built some engines for common carriers and not a few for export, its production was so largely for domestic industrials, and so representative of industrial orders, that an analysis of the gauges to which Porter steamers were built gives a fair impression of the ups and downs of industrial gauges. During the last three decades of the nineteenth century—and despite a fever for narrow gauge—the great debate over widths between rails was nearing an end. The private industrial railroads, then just coming into their own, were the last to pursue the old custom of choosing gauges by local whim. Having no need to interchange cars, the average industrial could build to any suitable width.

Porter arrived just in time to become involved in the confusion. It built steamers for 78 different gauges—and there was at least one Porter made for just about every half-inch of measure from 20 to 49 inches, with a few other fractional gauges in between. A better sense of order prevailed after the turn of the century, and demand for odd-gauge engines receded.

Unremarkably, 36 inches was the most popular gauge; about 3000 3-foot Porters were out-shopped. Standard gauge stood next in popularity, with about 1800 units built—but except for the World War I period, production of standard-gauge engines did not top the output in 36-inch gauge until after 1925. By then the era of the industrial dinky was drawing to a close.

Other popular gauges ran far behind the leaders. In the order given, only 30-inch, 42inch, 44-inch and 24-inch were important. And Porter itself turned out only about 130 24inch steamers—which may explain why there are today more would-be owners for 2-foot-gauge engines in operating condition than there are engines.

Some industrial gauges were regional favorites. Most 18-inch engines went to mines in the far West, while 20-inch gauge came near to being the exclusive choice for copper diggings in Arizona. At one time 56¾ inches was the favored width of many industries in western Pennsylvania and adjoining areas. Some odd gauges ignored geography; e.g., the four known adherents to a span of 40½ inches were in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ontario and New Jersey.

For export Porter built engines by the metric scale or in equivalent inches for 60 cm., 650 mm., 750 mm., 1-meter and other gauges. India ordered some 66-inch-gauge power, and 5-footgauge Porters went to Russia and Panama. The narrowest width was 17¾ inches—for three engines shipped to Austria.

NOTE - 60cm, aka 600mm, is pretty near 24in gauge, which is about 60.9cm, aka 609.6 mm.

[jpipkin]

To answer your original question, the Bachmann Porter 0-4-0 has a late 19th. early 20th. century wooden cab.  It has an oil headlight with a steam turbo generator which indicates it was converted at a later date to an electric headlight.  Pictures I have seen of similar locomotives show the forward sand dome in front of the bell (to sand the front of the first set of drivers) and no turbo generator.  So, it appears to be a modified locomotive originally built around 1900. 

Jim

[glennk28]

NMRA republished an H. K. Porter locomotive catalog.  Check their site. 
Glenn Joesten