Vintage OO Layout Photos IV: Fred Schorr, 1948
Today in the vintage photos series I have a great line up of kitbashed locomotives by Fred. E. Schorr, Jr. This particular photo is dated on the back 5-1-48 and has three similar locomotives on what must have been near a key junction on his layout.
Fred Schorr was an OO manufacturer and imported brass models for American OO from Japan. The models in this photo however are all based on Nason or perhaps Star-Continental 4-4-2 boilers with other Nason (and Lionel) parts. The Star-Continental 4-4-2 was sort of an odd model in a way, of its time. Introduced in 1937, it was a freelanced version of a PRR K-4/K-5 Pacific but built as an Atlantic. After 1939 it was produced by Nason, until WWII.
Starting at the front in the photo we have an unmodified version of the boiler mated with the running gear and tender of a Nason 2-8-0. Next up, based on the M1 marking, is a 4-8-2 also along PRR lines built on the same Nason 2-8-0 running gear but with a Lionel Hudson tender. In the back we see finally a 4-6-2, the model Star-Continental perhaps really had in mind when they created their 4-4-2. The 4-8-2 and 4-6-2 models have lengthened boilers and other modifications that can be spotted with a close look (click on the photo for a closer view). A lot of hours of work are on display in the 1948 photo!
To close, from one of the first articles on this website we have this very similar model. It was also built by Fred Schorr, probably I would guess a bit later than the models above. This model is also based on the same 4-4-2 model but this time with the original tender and with the boiler mounted on a Scale-Craft 4-6-0 frame. It is a very fine model but as noted in an update to the original article, it needs a bit of work at present as the gearbox is worn out. One quirk of this model could be noted as well; it runs (or ran) backwards from normal standards. I don’t know if this was intentional or not; the other locomotive I own that was built by Fred Schorr, a 2-8-0 camelback (also using the Nason 2-8-0 and 4-4-2 parts), runs beautifully in the right direction.