Just wondering, does anyone make n-scale dummy locos? I’ve been out of n-scale for quite a while & i’m trying to get back up to speed. Used to no one made them that i knew of, seems like a waste to ruin an expensive loco just to get a dummy. Mike H.[:(!]
Not many available:
Model Power - F9 that comes with a maintenance building
Life Like - GP38 that comes with a powered GP38 and a caboose
Life Like - F40 that comes with a powered F40 and a caboose
This subject came up several months ago.
There was a time - when Custer was a cadet - when there were dummy units in N-Scale. These usually were part of an AA combination of E or F units. I don’t remember any other although Atlas’ C-liner b-A1A units may have been offered in an AA combination with one of the units a dumy.
If I recall correctly when Con-Cor introduced their first Alco PB1 units to accompany their PA1s they were dummies but they were soon upgraded to powered units.
According to my Walthers N-Scale catalog, Con-Cor offers their PA1s and PB1s as dummy units; Life-Like used to do the same with their PB units but apparently all their lokes are powered now.
This issue has become of some importance as more and more rails decide to investigate sound. N-Scale locomotives are very small for the configuration needed for good sound quality. A dummy locomotive would allow a larger - and therefore more efficient - speaker to be used. There is an active topic floating around whch deals with this very subject.
Now I never met a dummy locomotive I didn’t eventually grow to hate; if, however, you just absolutely, positutely have to have one for some wayward reason there is really only one way this can be accomplished. Remove the motor and drive shaft/flywheel; then remove the trucks and associated gear tower. Next remove the worm, worm gear, and spur gears from the gear tower eliminating the prime source of drag. You can now reinstall the (dummy) truck which is now devoid of any gears in the gear tower. Remember what you did because if you ever want to sell this you are going to have to reinstall everything.
The other issue that is prevalent in N-scale is that the powered locomotives generally lack the pulling power of their larger scale cousins. I used a 2% grade to get from a lower staging area to the layout above as a test, and found the bulk of my road switchers pulled between 12 and 15 freight cars with decent trucks and wheels up the grade, at best. These are all Katos and Atlases, so we aren’t dealing with bottom end stuff. As a result, I wind up double-heading anything longer than about 8 or 10 cars most of the time. I don’t mind that, but it does not lend itself to using a dummy in the consist.
The exception to that is the covered wagons (Kato E8s, Fs and PA/Bs, Intermountain FTs, etc) that because of their carbody can take a larger weight and thus have more tractive effort.
But as a general rule, unless you want to give the appearance of double-heading short trains or your layout is flat, dummies in N-scale have somewhat limited usefulness.
Like the man said “N” scale locos can rarely pull more than 10-12 cars up even a modest grade so there has been little demand for dummies. The only reason people use them in larger scales is because a single unit can usually pull a lot more than is prototypical.
Actually its because they don’t have the space to run long trains, so don’t need the extra power[swg]
Whew – here I thought another HO guy was calling us N-scale guys dummies again. [;)]
To echo what has already been said, you won’t find many dummy units in N-scale because there is little need for them. This scale lends itself more to using multiple powered units because there is typically more room and the extra power is actually needed - which is closer to how it works in 1:1.
At any rate - I’d much rather run with the extra power than to remove the guts of a perfectly good loco to make it a dummy unit.
E-bay has them all the time,there S.P.and are numbered 9725,some people on E-bay don’t even tell you they are dummies,and you can get burned.(don’t ask me how I know)
JIM
Jim
Those are meant to be used as a display model only. It came in a set with a few freight cars from Reader’s Digest. It was a promo thing.
Thom
[:I][
]Thanks Thom,I found out the hard way,But like I said E-bay sellers don’t tell you that all the time,I changed out the trucks on one and the hand rails It works good for an dummy.[:)]
JIM