Nope. The K5a tipoff is the Delta cast trailing truck. The K5 (20 locomotives, 2915-2934) was built as a pure USRA design in 1918, with the USRA fabricated trailing truck. The K5a (10 locomotives, 2935-2944) was a K5 copy, built in 1923, with the Delat cast trailing truck. The K5b was a single unique locomotive; one unique feature was the large vanderbilt tender. It had a cast Delt trailing truck. The trailing trucks never changed durin any rebuildings. The vanderbilt tender went to K5 2918 fairly early on. Why? I don't know. Erie rebuilt all the K5as, three K5s and the K5b with cast engine beds. The rebuild moved the airpumps to the front deck and incororated a separate cast valve gear hanger. Before, during and after the rebuilds, the railroad replaced spoked drivers, axle by axle, with the lighter, better balanced BoxPok drivers -- a cast design with a hollow spoke with a box cross section. Some of the big 4-6-2s had one, two or all three axles replaced at various times. That history is quite complicated; an accurate model would depend on a photograph of the specific locomotive showing its configuration on the day you intend to model it. However, I venture to say that a model of 2960 with BoxPok drivers and the vanderbilt tender would be totally inaccurate. Randy Brown - -------------------------------------------------------------- K5 drivers were 79" The single K5b, 2960, was heavier than the basic K5. . . Summary, the K5b was slightly more powerful, but slipperier than the K5. Incidentally, Box Pok drivers do not correlate, as some think, with the rebuilding that made a K5 in to a K5a. the tip-off to a K5a is the valve gear hanger. If it's a cast hanger, without rivets, it's a rebuild. If it's a fabricated hanger bolted together, it's a K5. SGL The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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