Nickel Plate Road H6 Mikado

Nickel Plate Road H6 Mikado

Thank you, Kilroy & Inewyorkcentral for the fantastic screenshots!
Hello folks, and welcome back to the USRA era! We have the Nickel Plate Road version of the United States Railroad Administration’s (USRA) 2-8-2 Light Mikado known as the H6.

READ THIS PLEASE!
As a heads-up folks, you will find this locomotive in your buy menu under “multiple units” under the steam category. The reason you see it under the multiple unit category is the Random numbers mod. For it to work, the locomotive must have a cargo space. That cargo is 1 passenger. So no, you are not crazy if you see this on your freight trains. This is the workaround for getting the random numbers to work. Honestly well worth it! Normally I’d say you must have a dependent mod active for the random numbers to work, but Meatballhero has allowed me to include the files! No dependents necessary for this one!

Slight history
During the first world war the federal government enacted the USRA as an experiment to nationalize the railroads during a wartime emergency. This lasted from December of 1917 to March of 1920. They introduced standardized locomotive and rail car classes known as the USRA Standard.
Changes occurred quickly as once President Wilson issued the order for nationalization. All the railroads were organized into 3 divisions, East, West, and South. A reduction in passenger service occurred to help with decongestion of freight. The current number of locomotives and rolling stock was augmented by new production of up-to-date and standardized types/designed to be the best that could be produced to replace outdated equipment.

Enter the USRA Light Mikado! These locomotives were considered well-designed, modern, and successful. The mikado type locomotive was the most numerous across the country. They worked all the way until the diesels started taking over. A total of 625 light Mikado’s were built during the time of the USRA’s tenure with 641 being built afterwards. During the second world war the railroads started referring to the mikado’s as MacArthur’s after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. At the conclusion of the war the name Mikado soon returned.

These locomotives are excellent in freight work and mountain passenger service.

The Nickle Plate
I have 4 Mikados here for you to enjoy.

Mikado
– 2 different Tenders – 1 with a 3×2 axle arrangement, and the other from the Berkshire 3×3 axles. Provided by Meatballhero!
– MC Couplers
– Excellent sounds by Mrcheesecake as always!
– The H6 will have random numbers in the 6##’s range.
– All Locomotives have an asset version with a fixed number.
– 2 Generic Versions with no name or logo.
– 8 different camera views
– The difference between the 2 main version of the locomotive is the Tender.

Stats
Availability- 1918
Speed – 59 MPH
Horsepower- 3500
Tractive Effort – 65,200 LBF – These Mikado’s had trailing truck boosters. Second-Strongest Mikes after SAL
Weight- 238,700 lbs.

What’s next with credits
I want to thank Scott Brunner – This locomotive model was originally made for open rails. With taking the model as a solid base I transformed and updated it significantly to almost a brand-new model; well practically. Thank you very much for providing a solid foundation to build on. This helped significantly with timing and movement of this model.
Beyond Scott Brunner this is also a mash up of my models, and Meatballhero’s meshes. The nice part is during this time a lot of locomotives used very similar parts so using mesh that is already done, and tweaking them to fit the needs of this model was a breeze! Cisco for providing me the Bettendorf trucks with some edits.

So this is 6 packs down of the USRA Light Mikados. Next up will be the Grand Trunk Western (for a new tender!) & NYC (because I like the NYC). All packs will have a generic version with no names on the side, so you can run them with any consist.

The USRA locomotives are also ones in which is you simply google USRA and the type of locomotive, you get so many hits on model locomotives. So if you are wanting to reskin these into your own road, you can ask me on the TPF American Modding discord for the PSD’s and create a dependent mod if you wish for the community.

After the Mikes…. I’m working on the USRA Light Mountains!

HEADS UP
From this point, please understand that my mods are rather heavy in poly count. Sorry, I enjoy the detail. I put a lot of effort into these, to make them as best I can to be enjoyed. Sorry, if you don’t have enough disk space or computer power to run these. The models have LOD’s on them to help reduce poly count as you zoom out.