GSBW Standard Class A

Official GSBW catalogue stats are as follows:


Class: SA (“Standard A”)
Type: 4-6-0
Year: 1952 (based on designs from 1945)
Fuel: Coal
Gauge: 4’8.5”
Driver diameter: 64”


In early 2009, the Granite Street Boiler Works sketched up a draft for a new 4-6-0-type locomotive intended to be marketed as a “standard” design. After some initial pre-production revisions, however, the design wound up filed away and the project was put on indefinite hold.

Then, during the summer of that year, the Works took some interest in the concept of automatic train control. A new design was drawn up for a locomotive that could, in effect, “drive” itself through the aid of track sensor apparati. Unfortunately, unless the railroad wishing to use the engine had these aparati, the automated function was rather useless. The GSBW folks noticed, however, that the new engine shared much of the same universal usefulness and adaptability of the abandoned “standard” project. With finished plans and prototype production already underway, the Works rebranded the design and created the GSBW Standard “A” Class.

This engine just about embodies the GSBW design philosophy. (In fact, besides being slightly longer, it looks almost exactly like the older design it wound up replacing. Completely coincidentally!) The engine can be set up for either American- or European-style operations, and a full range of cosmetic fixes is available. The engine shown here is a prototype being tested on the Granite Street Traction Company in Massachusetts, complete with original track signal equipment (not being used), filling in for 4-8-0 No. 500. (And the back of the cab roof already has a dent in it! Can’t a designer get any respect for his decorative but practically-awkward design elements?? Yeesh...)



Hope you like.



See alternate schemes and (the many!) variations of this locomotive here:

European prototype: [link]
Alistar Creek Railway: [link] ; [link]
Mesa Desert Railroad (primer paint only): [link]
Minnesota and Western Railroad: [link]
Railroadishian National: [link]
WOLF Railroad: [link]
Sierra Pacific: [link]