The hovercraft variant is especially interesting in view of today's obsession with the energy consuming mag-levs.

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Just to start things off, we wish everyone here to have a great holiday season however you choose to celebrate. Our plans for Christmas is to be over at Pat's house (Packey) with the family. We're past the age of having enough energy to play host anymore. That's their Christmas present to us, no cooking, no cleaning up afterwards.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL:
   

I'm looking for an MDc/Roundhouse Old-timer cab for an upcoming project. Anyone have one kicking around in their surplus bin?

Subject pretty much says it all but what hoppers would carry certain commodities?

Hello,

here i will describe my activities with Santa Fe Diesel locos.





The first one was a second hand purchased Kato GP35. The pre-owner has done a lot of detailing like lift rings, grab irons, Mu hoses, beacon, air condition and horns. The only work done by me was plugging in an DCC decoder (ESU Lopi Basic) and fit Kadee scale hear couplers. Meanwihle the missing sunshade is refitted and the yellow paint on the handrails were touched up. That was a nice bargain nearly ready to use.





Last improvements was replacing the antique 1,5V filament bulbs against warm white LEDs. Here #738 has LEDs and #715 has stiil to get them. See the difference. Couplers were replaced with Kadee scale head whiskers.







The very last task was to syncronize 3 screaming EMD Diesels.
Second a GP9 from Athearn Genesis, a bargain with a 33% reduced price which i could not resist. This loco is factory sound equipped and got the same attention as decribed later in this post.






In spring of this year i picked two more GP9s on ebay. Also Athearn Genesis and like new. Both also equipped with factory sound.





Here the shell of one of the units was lifted.





The additional weight removed.





Wormshaft cover removed.





Pay attention to the very fine details.





Both loco were now in parts.





All 16 axle end got additional wipers as pictured. A preventive procedure to avoid hassle with a current unreliable pick up when the loco sum up running time. Here in the forum were some threads and discussions about this problem with an getting more and more unreliable current pick up.





Also the locos got a 3-point suspension. The left ruck has it's somewhat halfmoons removed, the right truck is unaltered.
Each loco got a unaltered and an modified truck.





As replacement for the removed halfmoons a pile of washers cares now for the correct height on this end of the loco.
The purpose is to allow this truck free pivoting. The other unaltered truck prevents rolling motion.
As a result the loco has now a 3-point suspension and has lost it's diagonal stiffness. Also an improved safety against derailing in not so good laid track like on module transitons (aka "Sprungschanzen" from ski-jump) and other cases as they are a lot more than we like it really.


Cheers Lutz

Hello,
here in this thread i describe in a nutshell the converting of 4 D&RGW to running condition in terms of DCC and sound.


The beginning was several years earlier when i purchased this Rio Grande Mikado. No Narrow Gauge, it's Standard Gauge D&RGW class K59.
A nice model mady by Samhongsa an imported by Key, has a simple boiler backhead, but still a open frame motor. It was also affected by the notorious red foam and therefor stained. This was also the reason to get it much cheaper. I thought that red staining does'nt matter because the modell will be painted lateron.





The open frame motor was removed ...





... and replaced by an Faulhaber coreless coil motor. The drive shaft is configured out og NWSL parts.





Electric cable harnesses were made in loco ...





... and tender.





Improved current pick ups.





Tender





The bell was rearward angled. Bell and bellframe were one castpiece. I disliked the angled bell.





The bell was cut out with a thin saw blade in a motor tool.





And resoldered in a normal position.





Front and rear light were cored an equipped with 0603 type LEDs of warm white tone.
In this stage the model remains several years.
Until January this year. At a Fremo meeting the decision was made to put the loco into working condition für the Fremo meeting in Riesa.





The loco hat to be painted therefor. The running gear was disassembled for brush painting by hand.





Loco and tender shell should be painted pro by airbrush.





Back from the paint shop.





The cab was glassed and a crew added.





Even the doghouse was glassed.





As decoder the brand new Econami 100 Steam was elected and paired with this Zimo Speaker. There are 2 Sugar Cubes in a relative 3-d printed box. Initially intended for G-Scale, and the 2 speakers are in series and have an impedance of 16 Ohms. This makes the speaker compatible to the Tsunami which needs speakers with a mimum impedance of 8 Ohms.
After some CV adjusting ( RTFM!) and familiarising with the new decoder and it's functions and thereof resulting possibilities, it sounds and runs simply great.
The notorius lurching when starting can be completely shut down to non-existent. Even with coreless coil motors no jerking und lurching.






The final test running was at the Fremo meeting in Mannheim between the sessions. The police in Clearwater Industries was not interested, they were distracted of chasing the Blues Brothers.

This was the first chapter

Cheers Lutz

It looks like I'm going to be using acrylic paint with my old air brush since I can't find air brush thinner or Diosol around here and I'm not going to Detroit to buy it . Can cheapo craft paints be diluted and used satisfactorily or to you need a premium paint such as Tamiya ?

T

After some attempts by dingbat I had found that it was more of a pain to walk around the design. So after some thought I figured it would be a lot easier to be in the middle of it all, I took some measurements and found that a few extra inches I could do that. Sure I had to check with the wife and agreed to move a dresser and I was in business. About the layout here you can see the blue lines into what will be conrails territory and the green will be owned by the reading & northern as to have a live interchange. All blue lines are ground level and the start of the green is a incline up to 3 inches. I have some structures on there as to what I like so far and perhaps to change???? Any questions or comments are welcome and still need to name it lol.

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