Chippewa Hiawatha in MTH Catalog

Mich,

    Even an old back woods PRR guy knows that is one cool Western Train!

PCRR/Dave

Hi Michigan RR714

• When it comes to Steam Power, I have put this MTH / RailKing on my bucket list.

Just great, streamlining, & paint design.

 Click each photo to enlarge.

Great looking steamer, a must have for Milwaukee fans.

    Bill T.

Nice looking paint job that appears to be prototypical or close to it. The MTH USRA Pacific sort of resembles the Milwaukee F3s in general outline. The two biggest visible discrepancies are the trailing truck and the enormous 12-wheel tender. All the Milwaukee Road Pacifics had inside-bearing trailing trucks with large spoked wheels. Like the original USRA engines, the Chippewa Pacifics had rather short tenders with four-wheel trucks. MTH appears to have gotten the large tenders from one of the postwar copies of the USRA engine - maybe the Southern Railway. The engine would look more like the Milwaukee prototype with a regular USRA tender. Swapping out the trailing truck for an inside-bearing truck would make it look more like a Milwaukee Road Pacific, for anyone who wanted to go to the trouble. 

Another point of difference is the sand dome. Milwaukee Road Pacifics generally had small, round sand domes. I have one photo of a Pacific with an oversize dome that looks more like the USRA dome, but that appears to have been removed before the engine was put on the Chippewa.

K-Line did a similar paint job on their semi-scale Pacific. Like the MTH scale-size engine, it was a USRA Pacific with a 12-wheel tender. 

There were a number of variations on the Hiawatha paint job used on unstreamlined locomotives. The first version was painted to lead the Pioneer Limited in 1927. One engine was painted in Hiawatha color and converted to oil burning to be used as a backup for the original pair of Hiawatha 4-4-2's; when the second pair of Hiawathas went into service, that engine was moved to the Chippewa. Similarly painted engines also were used on the Midwest Hiawatha. The smokeboxes were later painted black. 

Thanks for all the info; I too am interested in the model. Is there any chance MTH would use a smaller tender? 

I too will have to looking into getting this model. My mother used to tell me stories years ago about her and her sisters riding the Chip between Milwaukee and Channing, MI. just before WW2. 

Ditto......I looked at the MILW loco in the new catalog.....good thing it's expensive!! My RK Hiawatha will have to do! 

Sidewinder and Me had discussion about this last night.  I downloaded this picture from the bay where this photo is up for auction.  Comparing the artist rending in the MTH catalog to the actual photo of the Chippewa, the bell is in the wrong position too.  I assume that MTH is using the tooling that would be more prototypical to the Chesapeake & Ohio 4-6-2 since that is the engine that is focused on in the catalog?

To me the MTH photo looks similar to the Southern Crescent 4-6-2 tooling minus some details.   

The real loco was beautiful , the MTH model is beautiful....the problem is; for a premier model, it is way off the prototype. Looks like the drivers are too small and the boiler is different and the tender is waaay off....Still a handsome model.

It really needs a smaller 4 wheel tender. And a inside bearing trailing truck. Hopefully MTH final version will be more scale like, and not like Rivarossi's HO version.

 Also, shouldn't the top of the tender be Black, and not maroon red?

I would be a buyer if it was a reasonably accurate model, but the MTH as pictured is way too far off for me to even consider it.

Has anyone at York talked to Mike or Andy about the tender issue?  That should be easy to fix if production hasn't started.

  I assume that MTH is using the tooling that would be more prototypical to the Chesapeake & Ohio 4-6-2 since that is the engine that is focused on in the catalog?

Not really. This was discussed in another thread. The MTH model is a generic USRA Heavy Pacific, with a long 12-wheel tender substituted for the correct 8-wheel USRA tender. The C&O had some similar engines, but with front-mounted air pumps, Elesco feedwater heaters, and other differences. Only 20 original USRA Heavy Pacifics were built, all of them for the Erie RR. The B&O, ACL, and L&N bought the light version. The design was widely copied in the 1920's. The USRA Heavy Pacific is popular with model train manufacturers because it shares a boiler with the very popular USRA Light Mikado, and because most model railroaders consider it a good-looking locomotive. 

Lionel did a beautiful model of the C&O F-19 Pacific a few years back. 

Yes - this MILW loco is a product of "re-paint engineering"; it certainly is MTH's USRA

4-6-2 (which is actually a USRA Light, not a Heavy, as MTH insists on calling it), not

a MILW loco at all.

Having said that, this practice is one that enables us to have odd prototypes -reasonably-

represented; the other options are: build it yourself, or not have it at all. There would

be few takers on a true Chippewa Hiawatha - I'm not sure I even new about it.

Several years ago, using this same USRA tooling, MTH offered a beautiful, red/black/gray GM&O Premier 4-6-2, reasonably depicting the GM&O's ex-Alton Heavy Pacifics, which the GM&O re-lettered and kept the paint scheme. It wasn't "accurate" (the paint scheme was dead-on), but it was all that I was likely to get.

Lionel's "Alton" 4-6-2 is yet another inaccurate representation of these same locos earlier in their lives.

The MTH Southern Ps-4 is also the same loco; essentially accurate, in that case.

Your upcoming Hiawatha 4-6-2 is the same tooling as my GM&O 4-6-2. Enjoy it; it's

-far- better than nothing.

(MTH mis-represented the tender on the GM&O loco in the catalog - it depicted

a 12-wheel tender; the loco came with an 8-wheel - which is more accurate, BTW.)

There's a good color shot of a MR Pacific in Chippewa colors in Morning Suns book "the city of Milwaukee". Looks like the MTH model requires a few changes to be correct.

Joe

Charlie, are you asking Santa Claus for this one?  

Nice, Charlie. I still have my Rivarossi Chippewa somewhere....it was my very first steam locomotive. I'm hoping that MTH will at least change the tender....

Strange I ran into this today.

So, did you add it to your stable?