Apogee Locomotive Works Porter Fireless Loco

Over the past few months, a new model railroad supplier has emerged, Apogee Locomotive Works. At least for now, he specializes in 3-D printed bodies for unique prototpyes that fit on commercial chassis, primarily Bachmann.

He makes several fireless locomotive shells that fit on the Bachmann HO Porter 0-6-0T chassis. This model is out of production, but it's possible to find them as old stock in hobby shops or on eBay. Here is a stock Bachmann Porter 0-6-0T:

I was always intrigued by the idea that other types of locos like fireless locos, steam dummy locos, and so forth could potentially be made using the Bachmann chassis. Apogee finally ran with the idea. Here is the Bachmann chassis with the factory shell removed next to a stock loco:

The Apogee body is a careful slip fit on the Bachmann chassis. It's necessary to move the Bachmann decoder from its location in the side tank area to the top of the motor to get the Apogee fireless body to fit.

Here is the Apogee body test fitted onto the Bachmann chassis:

The prototype for the Apogee loco is a fireless loco built by Porter in 1923 for the Public Service Electric & Gas Company in New Jersey. It's currently preserved at Steamtown. The Steamtown site has a copy of the entry for the loco from a Locomotive Cyclopedia:

These locos were often used at power plants that had a steam supply from their boilers. A charge of steam would last a few hours. The locos typically switched hopper cars of coal to fire the power plant's boilers.

I painted my loco Scalecoat Southern Railway Green.

Both this loco and the stock Bachmann verson can switch about three HO cars.