HO S2

[doctorwayne]

@jwb: I've been looking around at other CPR rosters. Even more confusing.

Canadian Industrial Locomotives roster says a S2.
Mountain Railway's roster says S2. CPR paint scheme shows the loco with Blunt trucks, the Donohue one with Bloomberg. BUT, their database page says it should be a S4.
Trainweb.org's roster says S4, and picture of sister's unit 7099 is indeed a S4.

Any CPR fan can tell us more about that!

Now, for that matter, all I care is that Donohue's unit had Bloomberg trucks and I'll stick with that!

Matt

According to the CPR roster in Rail Canada Vol. 3, numbers 7096, -97, -98 were all S-2s (CPR class DS-10j) and were the last ones built. CPR 7099, also built in 1949, is shown as a separate listing and is an S-4 (CPR class DS-10k). The next listing is for S-4s 7100-7108 (DS-10k), 7109-7114 (DS-10m), and 7115-7118 (DS-10n).

It's my understanding that the main spotting difference between original S-2s and S-4s is the Blunt trucks on S-2s and AAR switcher trucks on S-4s - someone may have noticed the re-trucked version and mistakenly dubbed it an S-4. Evidently, the late version of the S-2 body was almost identical to the S-4 - obviously an evolution of the original design, as some early S-2s had horizontal intake louvres for the radiator.

It's also not unusual for the owner railroads to make modifications to locos over the years. Perhaps Merilees (a dealer in used locos and rolling stock and also a real rail enthusiast) had an S-4 with a clapped-out prime mover but good trucks/traction motors and the CPR loco needed only the trucks/traction motors to make it into a saleable loco.

Wayne