I took some photos this weekend of my H10sa kitbash (with apologies to both Gregg Mahlkov and Ray Henderson, who blazed the trail for me). It’s a Minitrix K4 boiler with a Minitrix B6sb cab on a Bachmann Spectrum chassis with a TCS decoder.
The purists, I know, are not impressed. It’s not an exact match of any H-class engine. But, she’ll pull the bumper off your car and meets the 3-foot rule with a foot to spare!
Just throught I’d share… Oh, and for the N-scale impaired (that’s all of you in HO and above), the boiler on this engine is no thicker than your finger.
Awesome job; I enjoy your work! How hard was the decoder install on this unit? I am in N scale, but am hesitant to do steam due to the difficulty of decoder options. If you can provide some details, I would appreciate!
You’ve got to stop this madness! You keep modeling these great loco’s and stuff that I have all the parts for to do myself. I won’t allow you to convert me to a Pennsyite!
Seriously, it looks great.
How tough was it to get the cab to boiler fit correct?
Hardwiring the decoder was the hardest part. The decoder comes with instructions. Now, the wires that connect to the frame (black and red) are soldered to a tall post that fits into the dome on the Spectrum boiler. Since the dome on the Pennsy boiler was much shorter and didn’t line up exactly, I had to trim the post off and solder the the red and black leads directly to the frame. I also had to trim some of the frame away with a Dremel.
I’m good at soldering track, but my electronic soldering leaves much to be desired. Still, the engine works, so it can’t be that difficult. Use a low-watting pencil-tip iron if you can.
I burned up a TCS M1 decoder on the first try. TCS has a no-questions-asked free replacement policy on their decoders, so I got a do-over!
Actually, that part was easy. I built a new front wall for the cab from styrene and sanded it flush. A little thick ACC was all it took to merge the two together.
