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<TITLE>Jaap Horst History of Technology page: Aristocraft USRA Articulated 2-8-8-2 American Steam locomotive</TITLE>
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<H2>Aristocraft USRA Articulated 2-8-8-2 American Steam locomotive
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G-Scale - 2000's, with Vanderbilt tender, Chesapeake & Ohio<P>

Axle code: 2-8-8-2 (2-DD-2), locomotive number 1586
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This is by far the biggest locomotive I ever owned. The locomotive alone must have been about 80 cm, or almost 3 feet! Added to that was the Vanderbilt tender, making the total far more than a meter, probably about 4 feet.<Br>
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The American Aristocraft company was one of few companies (apart from LGB) who commercially makes locomotives bigger than 1-Scale. And this in fact is the biggest one they produced. And; it is heavy; despite having a plastic body of both the locomotive and tender, the metal chassis, motors, and it's sheer size makes it difficult to handle!<P>
Aristocraft, produced several different models, including and not limited to diesel and steam locomotives, track and turnouts, they choose to work in 1:29 scale, also commonly called gauge 1, the advantage of this scale is that they could make prototypically large locomotives that would run on what is commonly called G gauge track. allowing their trains, the ability to run on the classic code 330 rails spaced at 45mm, it also made their track and turnouts interchangeable with LGB.<P>

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The USRA standard locomotives and railroad cars were designed by the United States Railroad Administration, the nationalized rail system of the United States during World War I. 1,856 steam locomotives and over 100,000 railroad cars were built to these designs during the USRA's tenure. The locomotive designs in particular were the nearest the American railroads and locomotive builders ever got to standard locomotive types, and after the USRA was dissolved in 1920 many of the designs were duplicated in number, 3,251 copies being constructed overall.<P>
The USRA 2-8-8-2 was one of the USRA standard classes of steam locomotive. A total of 106 locomotives were built to this plan for the USRA; postwar, it became a de facto standard design.<P>
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