Even though I’m a diesel type of guy, I’d love to have one of these locomotives. Anyone know of any 4-8-8-4’s in N scale and where I might be able to find one?
Greg
Con-Cor/Rivarossi made one in N a few years ago. You might want to check ebay.
I’d say Ebay is the only source for such a beauty but be prepared to pay dearly for it.They aren’t very rare but a lot of guys want them and owners tend to hold on to them just as bad.A nice running unit will easily go over $400 with some reaching $600. depending on who is competing with you in the auction and how bad both of you want it.
I’ve had to try my luck at bidding for over a year to get one at a decent price,and still,I had to satisfy myself with a poor running one.It is awaiting remotoring on a shelf and guess what…it’s not for sale.Challengers are even fewer available and when one is,you’d better be ready for sniping as these go real fast and expensive too.
Thanks for the advice, guys.
You’d think there’d be more demand for such a loco, those things are awesome.
Greg
Good running N scale Con-Cor/Rivarossi Big Boys are rare, even on Ebay… Be careful, there are few, if any, that truly run smoothly.
My wife bought three (2 brand new, never run) and has remotored them all so they run smooth. Takes a lot of grinding to fit the motor properly and lots of tweaking to make them run smooth. But they sure are terrific when she does run them!
Here’s a link that should give some idea of what Jacktal is talking about.
You could probably try for this one.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19123&item=5983965574&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
Later Gents.
Yeah, i saw that earlier. Chock full of cat hair and other prizes. I may be just picky, but if I’m going to shell out that kind of money for such a beauty, I’d like to have the satisfaction of buying it brand new to go with it.
Resurrecting this thread; I have an opportunity to buy an N scale ‘Big Boy’, but need to know if it will negotiate 9-3/4 radius curves. Anyone have any experience with this? A ‘4-8-8-4’ is a lot of axles around tight turns!
I would not be surprised to hear Genesis announcing the N scale Big Boy since they just shipped the Challenger recently. No announcements yet, but they have the drawings now and scaling them to N should be easy. I guess this might depend on how well the N scale Challenger has sold, but they do seem to be busy with UP products the last two years of so. The market for the N scale Big Boy would probably be great.
The old Con Cor Models were not the best of runners.
I don’t know when they plan on making it or how much it will be, but Key Imports has plans to do a brass Big Boy:http://www.keyimportsinc.com/n_future_projects.htm
I have never owned and probably never will own a Big Boy - ain’t my kind of locomotive; I did have a friend, however, who had a layout with a 9 inch radius curve and who attempted to run an old MRC Y6b around it. He had so much trouble with derailments at that point that he eventually stopped trying to do it and parked the Y6b at his roundhouse except for an occasional trip out to 9 incher and back.
I think that the old Con-Cor/Rivarossi Big Boy was engineered to negotiate 9 3/4 inch radius curves but it is going to look like aitch doing it.
A Big-Boy on a 9 3/4 radius curve?!? You’re kidding!?! It most likely will go around the curve, but will look ridiculous doing so. If you are going to run Big Steam Power, make sure your layout can support the engines. 15 inch radius curves, 20 inch even better, and NO #4 turnouts, #6 turnouts are a tight squeeze for Big Steam.
Please don’t get me wrong here, but just remember if you want to run big engines, make sure your layout can support them.
I own an N scale Con Cor/Rivarossi Big Boy. I bought it second hand at a train show in the late 80’s. It was the best $160 I’ve spent on my hobby.
It ran, and still runs, great. It will creep slower and more smoothly than many of my newer locomotives. It has pulled 64 freight cars on level track and, YES, it will negotiate a 9 3/4" radius curve. That’s all I had back when I first got it, an oval with tight curves.
Now it runs occasionally on my 10’ X 14’ layout.
And, NO, it’s not for sale.