I know that N scale steam needs help sometimes with grades. Some guys buy a diesel loco and replace the shell with a boxcar shell to make a “cheater”.
How prevelent is this practice?
What scale are you doing it in, you cheater?
Just curious. [:D]
“Cheating” like that is a good way to get N scale steamers to pull scale sized loads. And, they also put less of a strain on the locomotives, as there is an extra motor to help it along, useful in large unit trains. I have been thinking about doing this when I build a layout, it will be N scale.
I don’t have any cheaters, but of course I model HO. Plus I have a small layout so I don’t need to long of trains to make them look protoypical. My brother and I are crrently building a N scale layout, maybe I will try this out…
I seriously thought about it once I realized thatt he new plastic HO steam on the market wouldn’t pull nearly as well as my old Mantuas. But then I thought about it: I’ve only got a layout 25 feet long on one side, and had to design a layout with steep grades (2.5%). While I could run prototypically long 69 car long trains, they looked rediculous snaking their way through two to three towns at once. So I minimized the grades I had to a minimum, figured out how many cars my best plastic puller could lug uphill (P2K Berkshire: 22 cars with free-rolling P2K metal wheelsets), and designed my passing sidings around that 22 car maximum.
My trains now roll along nicely with their 15-20 cars, and look better than longer trains since they’re only in one town at a time. And I didn’t need to hide GP mechanisms in 50-footers!
At least one modeler around where I live hides SW mechanisms in steam tenders and wires them in parallel, making every steamer a 2-unit lashup. It works for him, but you can tell that the tender trucks don’t belong with the engine!
Yeah, I do realize that some compromises are usually made when it comes to the trucks.
Any way to easily change the sideframes to fix that?
Usually, the sideframes are just painted black, and being mostly in N scale, it is harder to tell the difference.
I admit it, I cheat on my boxcars. I go to other peoples houses and couple into their boxcars. Sometimes I even swap boxcars with other people.
Next on the Ricky Lake Show…
Dave H.
You dont have to cheat in HO.
I tried that once on an old Bachmann 4-8-4 that I had. Put an Athearn Baldwin switcher mechnanism in the tender (okay, okay, once I had a diesel!), and until the Bachmann pancake motor creamed itself about a year later, I had quite a handsome puller. I then put the Baldwin diesel shell back on the mechanism, gave it to my nephew, junked the Bachmann shell and saved up to get a Rio Grande brass northern. But it was kind of fun while it lasted, LOL!
Tom [:P][:P]
You are one sick, twisted individual! [:D] I’ll bet you were scheduled on the Jerry Springer show, but it got cancelled ( SEE, PROOF POSITIVE THAT THERE IS A GOD !!! ). [:D]
Putting a drive in a boxcar to help engines pull more…I’ll bet someone puts one of those with their Lionel HO Challenger.
May need a few of them if you are running that Challenger…[B)]
Did someone get burned by one of these maybe? [;)]
Hmph. And here I thought I had too many boxcars. I reach for additional BLI power until the train moves.
However, planning train lengths so that they go thru one town at a time; around your weakest puller (Helper division anyone?) is a neat idea.
I’m sure that we would all like to have a locomotive roster that is dripping with motive power. I’m also sure that all of us would like to have enough space to justify a six locomotive lashup and not look rediculously out of place.
What I’m getting at is that some people have very little room for their layout and yet they desire grades on their layouts, like for an up and over or something. Sometimes those grades are fairily stiff. Be it by a lack of room, a desire to pack more operation into a given area (maybe more then we should, but it’s our RR isn’t it?) or whatever the reason, I’ve heard that some modelers use this trick.
On a small layout you are probably not going to have Challengers and Big-Boys because of the sharp curves on those layouts in general.
You also may want to move more then one or two cars at a time with your 4-4-0 or whatever.
Two 4-4-0’s can look kind of silly [:p] pulling three cars up a grade. (Not that the prototype didn’t do this in places)
I’m just wondering how many of you use this as a method of easing the lack of pulling power that you need for a given situation?
Thats all… [8D]
There was an article on this in Mainline Modeler a couple years back. The modeler powered a tender of a steam locomotive in HO scale.
I have some Kato RSC2 trucks, worms and frames from a parts sale that Kato had awhile back. It turns out that the RSC2 trucks have the same wheel spacing as N&W’s Plicher trucks used under the A-tanks…
So…from what I’m seein’ here it looks like there are a few who might give it a try, but its not real popular.
What sparked this question was a post I saw on another forum about a guy who wanted to make these things and sell them. He wanted to know if there was any interest. The response was overwhelming! 90% or so were al for it.
That got me to thinking, is anyone doing it NOW?
Since this IS my favorite forum (you guys are truely top drawer) I thought I’d see what you’d have to say.
So far you guys don’t seem all that enamoured with it.
Maybe I’m wrong but I thought it sounded like a great idea for someone in a pinch for some extra pulling power.
Yes…No…Maybe?
I’ve seen this done with steam loco tenders though It’s not common over here - the one I saw was intended for an exhibition layout with some fearsome grades and long trains of heavy brass/whitemetal kit built rolling stock. The main problem would be with getting the motors synchronised, I have a Hornby 2-car railbus set with twin motors that have never worked well together - one always starts up before the other and there’s noticable wheelspin while on the move.
Matt; in a word: DCC.
I’m just curious but does anybody knowwhat chassis would fit comfortably under a 50ft boxcar? I’d like a little wiggle room as I’d want to get a decoder in there too.