Jefferz_mz’s topic “Major Surgury” got me thinking about some things today. After alot of thought I felt compelled to write. I have concluded that I’m a model railroad Dr. Frankenstein. I love rebuilding equipment. Got more than eneugh to keep me busy till I am an old man. When a unit goes down It goes to the shop to be rebuilt. It will keep getting rebuilt till the parts that keep everything held togeter get so wallowed out, that they have to be glued back on to stay. Then when they die after everything is glued together. Retirement they go. Depending on what I do. They can iether be scrapped and salvaged for useful parts. Be “Stuffed and Mounted” in some city park on my layout. or retired to the display case. But dismantling it over the course of several years in a scrap yard on my layout looks like it would be fun. Puting them at the bottom of a fi***ank could be fun to. I always thought that if I had an aquarium. I would build a model sailing ship. But model it as though it has been wrecked and sunk to the bottom of the sea. Maybe I can have some tall bridge piers with maybe debris from one or two wrecked ones and arrange a sunken train on the bottom. From a long ago forgotten derailment… Possibilties Possibilties.
Last Frankenstein Project. Mating a new upgraded Bachmann GP-40 Chassis to a Tyco GP-20 to make run again. Next Project. See if I can turn two Tyco Chattanooga Choo Choo 0-8-0s into something Resembling a UP 2-8-0.
Let me know how the GP-20 conversion goes, I have two of the old GP-20’s sitting on my display shelf. SP and Cotton Belt. Never really thought about a re-power like that.
Well I did it because my GP-40 shell fell off the table while I was working on it. and standing up to get it, I triped on something and steped on it and crushed it. So I had a chassis to work with. So far I got them mated OK. But I am trying to figure out the coulers.
Does it fit well or alot of modification ? I have an old Bachmann gp40 that I really don’t run that much, But I love the old gp-20. But that old drive in the tyco was awful.
I mainly had to trim a little plastic off both ends of the drive and a bit from the shell. Mainly its just a matter of setting the GP-20 shell on the GP-40 Frame and cutting little bits of plastic off one or the other till it sits right on the GP-40 frame. Since there is no way to lock the Frame and Shell on. I made some Locking tabs out of some shaved down styrene rod. (THough if you can find the right sized styrene squre shape It would probably be better) and locked the shell on to the frame by wedging the peice through the Step wells on the front and back pilots. The tabs go all the way across the the shell-frame assembly and lock into the foot well across from it so there is no way for the frame to drop off the shell. The only thing I havn’t figure out yet is Couplers. Mainly because I want to fill in the wide open pilot. I am sure if you just wanted to mount some Kadees, it would be pretty striught foward.,
I want to get an 0-4-0 and convert it into a 2-4-2 … based on a particular Wabash 0-4-2. (I have a copied photo.) I want it to have working Kadee couplers on both ends. I want it to have smoke and sound. I want the sound to automatically match what the engine is doing. I want to be able to release the couplers with the touch of a button on a remote control.
Oh, and I want it in HO scale. [:-,]
Unfortunately, when it comes to changing things I am rather [X-)] .