LGB Orenstein and Koppel Industrial Switcher - to be used as a Guinness Locomotive

The Orenstein and Koppel Industrial Switcher by LGB is a great little industrial switcher, but often it is altered into another type of locomotive. In this case 2 of these were bought to alter them into 2-foot gauge, 2/3" scale Guinness Locomotives.

Some large-scale railroad modelers like to model in 2/3" to the foot scale so that their #1 gauge track (G gauge) works out to a prototype 2-foot gauge. This makes the scale super large! A human figure stands about 5 inches tall!

The Orenstein and Koppel Industrial Switcher can be hard to find. Originally it sold for $250 but often sells for more today on eBay.

As for the Guinness tramway:
From the web:
The steadily increasing output from Guinness’s Dublin Brewery in the Victorian era had reached such proportions by the 1870’s that the movement of large quantities of heavy and bully raw materials and waste products within the brewery was proving. a serious obstruction to any future projected expansion. The existing methods (horse tramway, and horse and cart were both slow and cumbersome and very inefficient. With the acquisition of land between the existing brewery and the River Liffey, further expansion was able to tale place and some activities previously carried out in the old brewery were transferred there. Moreover, as this land was situated near the Kingsbridge terminus (Great Southern & Western Railway), a direct connection with the Irish railway network could be effected, with barges working to and from a quay on the Liffey.

The solution to the transport problem lay in the construction of a narrow gauge railway network serving the entire brewery. Much of the basic system was laid between 1873 and 1877 under the supervision of Samuel Geoghegan who joined the brewery engineering staff in 1872 at the age of 28 and rose to the position of Head Engineer in 1875. Mr Geoghegan set himself certain limits on the size of the narrow gauge lines and rolling stock. The track gauge was settled at 1ft 10in, the loading gauge was to have a headway of six feet and a maximum width of five feet, and the maximum gradient was to be not steeper than one in forty. A difference in levels of about 50ft existed between the old brewery and the newer land which sloped sharply down to the Liffey, the two areas being separated by James’s Street.

To connect the two halves of the works and overcome the difference in levels, Mr Geoghegan constructed a spiral tunnel in the old brewery and tool the narrow gauge line under James’s Street. The spiral section replaced a short-lived hydraulic lift, a clumsy and slow apparatus which could only manage to tale one wagon at a time, causing trains to be broken up and re-assembled on different levels. The single track spiral tunnel contained the line’s steepest gradient, 1 in 39, and, in 2.65 turns raised the line about 35ft, with a spiral radius of 61.25ft.

The narrow gauge track was largely laid in granite setts, for the benefit of road vehicles in the brewery yards, and this also applied to lines laid on the quay. The permanent way itself, where laid in setts, consisted originally of 56lbs per yard iron tram rails fastened to longitudinal sleepers which were laid on cross sleepers. When laid in concrete the rails were set directly in the ground, using wrought iron cross ties. Later, 76lb steel rails having a web and flange were brought into use, being laid on cross sleepers. Narrow gauge points used the tongued, pointed rail found on many early tramways. Two noteworthy features of the narrow gauge network were the marshalling yard (officially known as No.10 Vathouse Yard in the lower half of the brewery which was still in use in September, 1964, together with the tunnel, and also the quay on the Liffey, started in 1873, but demolished in February, 1963. The quay was extended at various intervals until 1913, but nothing remains of it today.

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