Re: Miniature Trains

It sounds familiar. The F7s had the Wisconsin drive shaft going through a hydraulic clutch.
It's been 5 years since I last saw it, but as best I recall, the output of the clutch went to a gearbox that basically lowered the drive shaft from above the frame to below the frame. Internally it was a chain drive I believe.
Then there were two drive shafts (just like auto drive shafts but shorter) oriented like a Climax (front and rear) that went to a gearbox on the axle. This gear box would both change the power direction 90 degrees to actually power the axle and wheels and pass through the box, under the bolster and to the gear box on the other axle of the truck.
I do remember that servicing these gearboxes was the worst task on the whole loco. To get the truck off the loco was a bear of a job using a modified and cut down Allen wrench that could only turn about 1/8 of a turn and about 8 turns per bolt were needed to remove all 8 bolts.
Except for the power trucks, the train was easy to maintain and ran like a charm once adjusted correctly. Only once did we need to send one of the Wisconsons out to a shop for repairs - we found out someone had put sand in the gas tank.
As far as the 4-4-4, it sounds very plausable. Modeltec Magazine has a column titled something like "larger gauges then and now". I seem to recall they mentioned a short lived MT steamer that is your 4-4-4 and maybe even a 4-4-0 (5-10 pieces). I also seem to remember that they tried an actual steam loco on their 4-4-0 but it was too difficuult to maintain for an amusment park type setting.
My speculation (with no real evidence) is that they had a steam powered 4-4-0 to start with using a steam ejector for the vacuum brakes. They then went to the 4-4-4 with F7 trucks and used the drivers and cylinders for the brakes and eventually evolved into the 4-2-4 C.P.Hintington style.
One other interesting item was that the passenger car trucks were unpowered F7 trucks. It made the number of parts needed to maintain the train a lot less.
If I'd known the selling price of the 16" gauge Zoo train was so low when it was abandoned, I'd probably tried to buy it. It was a great train.
If you're interested, I'll scan some pics I made of the Zoo train two weeks before the end and post them on my web site for you. Contact me back channel.
One other trivia tidbit, the two F7's were (in the 1960's) painted for Southern RR's SOUTHERNER passenger train and the two locos were carried on SRRs official roster until the mid-1970's. I guess SRR could be said to have had narrow gauge in the 1960's albeit 16" " />
Doug