After watching Joe Fugate’s video series, I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of putting sound decoders in N scale dummies. Such a great idea for consists. Then I went looking for good quality dummies, and I didn’t find any. Do manufacturers not make these anymore?
To the best of my knowledge not anymore. I don’t recall having seen any dummy N-Scale stuff in the better part of twenty years if not longer.
All is not lost, however, for you can create your own dummies. Remove the motor and driveshafts - and the worm - from a power unit. You are going to want to eliminate as much friction as possible so the next step is to remove the trucks and gear towers. At a minimum remove the worm gear from the very top of the gear tower; its been a few years since I disassembled one of these turkeys but they usually come apart without too awfully much trouble and if you can see just what you are doing you should be able to remove all of the spur gears leaving you with the same type mechanism as used to be found in those N-Scale dummies of yesteryear.
Take all the loose parts - motor, driveshafts, worm/worm gear, spur gears - and put them in a clear baggie and label it with the identification of the unit from which they came; after all, you may want to sell these things one of these days and you are going to want to reassemble them at that time.
Lotsa!!!
I haven’t seen dummies of N-Scale equipment in a long time. I also don’t recall seeing to many HO dummies either but that is another story.
Given that many of us N-scalers are using DCC, and being able to easily consist locomotives, we can easily use multiple units like they are used on the real railroads so whay do we need dummies? While sound would be a good thing to add, most of the N-Scale locomotives I’ve seen and operated don’t have room for a sound decoder as well. And of those that do, sound is something one can’t readily hear all of the time. At some point, this is going to be a readily available and important option for an given locomotive but as of now it’s not a realistic proposition.
Irv
For first generation diesels, sometimes manufacturers will offer the B unit as a dummy (the LifeLike N scale E7 A/B comes to mind). I thought about doing that too.
I think you can still find them in the starter sets from Bachmann (I think) or Life-Like (one of those two). I remember just recently seeing the CSX train set with several cars, a caboose, a powered GP-38 and a dummy GP-38.
I have an old Minitrix F7B dummy I repainted in CGW colors paired with my hand-painted Atlas CGW F7. I wish there were more!
All because someone models in a smaller scale than yourself is not a reason to call them dummies![X-)]
Life-Like did indeed offer sets with dummies. To be honest, I never tried one in N scale and never was very fond of them in HO, they seemed to derail and just didn’t seem right. With most modern equipment there is little reason for them when you can easily run multiple units with out damaging a power pack.
There defnitely isn’t a need for having a dummy, it just seemed like a good way to add a sound decoder in a consist that would have space available for a decent speaker. I’m sure sound will be an option in virtually every N offering in the next couple of years, but I just wondered if I was missing something not finding dummy engine offerings.
I was waiting for that one!
MRC makes drop in sound for a lot of N scale locos.[:-^]
Con Cor N scale PA/PB still make dummy units I believe everything else they had has been retired or you might find them at LHS if you can or train shows.
That’s the one that comes to mind.
Of course you could take a smart loco, and make it a dummy!
PCM’s one successful offering in N scale was also an E7, which had As and Bs offered as dummies.