the prairie project
This site will chronicle the building of this particular live-steam locomotive, with drawings, construction pictures and prototype source photos. The drawings will be developed by scaling from prototype photos and the official diagrams from the CGW.
Otherwise, this website is mostly for the Hell of it, and to quote Mark Twain in the Notice on the opening pages of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: “PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
That being said, you, Gentle Web Surfer, will find some pictures that I’ve taken over the years at work and at leisure and still like a lot, or have rediscovered and decided I liked after all. You also will find photos of the products of my hobbies. Enter at your own risk by clicking MY ALBUMS at the top of the page.
— Berne Ketchum
cgw85(at)wmtel.net
bringing a cgw 2-6-2 back to life in miniature
The Chicago Great Western, otherwise known as “The Maple Leaf Route” and later on “The Corn Belt Route” bought a series of 2-6-2 Prairies from Brooks in the early 1900s, about the time Brooks was being absorbed by the American Locomotive Co. They were modified and rebuilt over the years, finally as the F7B class in 1944. Our model in 1/8th scale will be of CGW 292 as she emerged from the shop that year.
