I don’t know about the rest of you N scalers but after 8 years modeling and loving our scale I’m dieing for an affordable (or ANY) N scale Shay to be made available to us!!! After flying from my home in Arizona to visit friends in West Virginia I got to go to “Shay Heaven” and actually ride the famous Cass Scenic Railroad ( a true lumber operation with vertical grades you WOULDN"T believe!!! They’ve got MORE “working” Shay units as far as I know than ANYWHERE else in the U.S. and they still have the very first and last one ever built still functional. They were also refurbishing a Heisler when I was there 3 years ago and you can walk right inside the open boiler in the engines being full serviced for leak checks in the engine house while the crews are actually machineing and working on parts. Way too cool and where I’d like my ashes dropped when I leave this world. Truly heaven to feel one of those beauty’s taking off and watch the huge plume of smoke toasting the tree leaves draped overhead on the climb to the top. Pardon the drama but I passionately love these beautiful work horses and have a lumber operation which seriously needs a small fleet of these to sevice my operation. The only offerings I’ve seen are the white metal casting you marry over an existing frame without functioning drivers (what fun is that??) and a rough offering from an individual out there with a price tag similar to Concor prices (approx. $180.00) and with rough details and an undesireable dog-bone linkage from the cab to the tender for the power drive. Too much money for too little quality!! Anyway it totally blows my mind that Kato or Atlas hasn’t come up with an offering in all these years unless they’re just “chicken” about trying to come up with working prototype drivers??? I can’t believe the “market” for these is too small for them to bother? What do the rest of you think? Would you buy one (or a bunch) if they were offered???
As locomotives go, Shays are rather small, and designing a reliable, durable, N scale model with a working drivers and crankshaft, with provision for DCC, has got to be a major challenge. (And we all know “major design/manufacturing challenge” means major expense.) Shays were extremely specialized machines, and few were used by mainline railroads. And even though Shays are popular with fans, I don’t know if there is enough interest to justify the production costs.
I’d probably buy one if it were a quality model, and if the price were reasonable.
Shays and their ilk are far too delicate to be N-scale models; not that it can’t technically be done, but assuming that one was produced, you wouldn’t be able to really appreciate all of its clunking gears and slow speed. Personally, I think HO is too small a scale for shay modelling; I’ve seen logging operations in this scale, and have been frankly underwhelmed with the overall effect of seeing the lumbering shay trundle by. When you model a shay, you want to be focused in on that tiny engine, you want to be filled with the sense of it. That feeling only starts to happen at O-scale, I feel. What would be best would be to take it outdoors, into a garden railroad setting, in and amongst real 1:1 scale trees and dappled lighting coming through the leaves, ballast really crunching under the ties as the weight compresses it…
The answer must be to kitbash a plastic frame Lifelike diesel. Cut the frame to get the correct wheelbase. Bash a shell to fit. Maybe the cab can hide the real motor & driveshaft. Makeup some dummy cylinders. I’d like to see a boxcab made. It would be so cool to have a powered track cleaner.
Well, I’m kind of responding to my own original posting but YEA!!! Atlas just released their N-scale Shay offering which I found on the net today !!! www.internettrains.com is offering them currently for $159.00 each and I’m jumping in big time on that. I’ve always had good luck with Atlas quality and I can’t wait to be running them on my pike. Whew, thanks Atlas for fulfilling a dream for many of us. N-scale rules!!![:D]
Here is another N Scale Shay. This one is for experienced mode builders.
Atlas has one in the works. Its scheduled for release this August.
http://atlasrr.com/
Click on <Order/Ship Dates> and scoll down.
Click on
You can move your mouse over the photo to rotate the image.
Place preorders at your LHS.
Alas we won’t be buying any [:(] In order to make the side rod mechanisms work, the model won’t operate on tight radii the way the real ones do. I think the estimate is a 9.5" or 11" min. radius
–Mo
What!? Those are tight radiuses! The published minimum radius of 9.75 inches is 130 feet in N scale. In fact, 9.75 inches is probably a bit too tight for a 60-ton Shay compared to what the prototype could safely negotiate with a string of loaded skel flats.
Shays, while able to negotiate tight curves, are not streetcars!
I don’t know about the rest of you N scalers but after 8 years modeling and loving our scale I’m dieing for an affordable (or ANY) N scale Shay to be made available to us!!! After flying from my home in Arizona to visit friends in West Virginia I got to go to “Shay Heaven” and actually ride the famous Cass Scenic Railroad ( a true lumber operation with vertical grades you WOULDN"T believe!!! They’ve got MORE “working” Shay units as far as I know than ANYWHERE else in the U.S. and they still have the very first and last one ever built still functional. They were also refurbishing a Heisler when I was there 3 years ago and you can walk right inside the open boiler in the engines being full serviced for leak checks in the engine house while the crews are actually machineing and working on parts. Way too cool and where I’d like my ashes dropped when I leave this world. Truly heaven to feel one of those beauty’s taking off and watch the huge plume of smoke toasting the tree leaves draped overhead on the climb to the top. Pardon the drama but I passionately love these beautiful work horses and have a lumber operation which seriously needs a small fleet of these to sevice my operation. The only offerings I’ve seen are the white metal casting you marry over an existing frame without functioning drivers (what fun is that??) and a rough offering from an individual out there with a price tag similar to Concor prices (approx. $180.00) and with rough details and an undesireable dog-bone linkage from the cab to the tender for the power drive. Too much money for too little quality!! Anyway it totally blows my mind that Kato or Atlas hasn’t come up with an offering in all these years unless they’re just “chicken” about trying to come up with working prototype drivers??? I can’t believe the “market” for these is too small for them to bother? What do the rest of you think? Would you buy one (or a bunch) if they were offered???
As locomotives go, Shays are rather small, and designing a reliable, durable, N scale model with a working drivers and crankshaft, with provision for DCC, has got to be a major challenge. (And we all know “major design/manufacturing challenge” means major expense.) Shays were extremely specialized machines, and few were used by mainline railroads. And even though Shays are popular with fans, I don’t know if there is enough interest to justify the production costs.
I’d probably buy one if it were a quality model, and if the price were reasonable.
Shays and their ilk are far too delicate to be N-scale models; not that it can’t technically be done, but assuming that one was produced, you wouldn’t be able to really appreciate all of its clunking gears and slow speed. Personally, I think HO is too small a scale for shay modelling; I’ve seen logging operations in this scale, and have been frankly underwhelmed with the overall effect of seeing the lumbering shay trundle by. When you model a shay, you want to be focused in on that tiny engine, you want to be filled with the sense of it. That feeling only starts to happen at O-scale, I feel. What would be best would be to take it outdoors, into a garden railroad setting, in and amongst real 1:1 scale trees and dappled lighting coming through the leaves, ballast really crunching under the ties as the weight compresses it…
The answer must be to kitbash a plastic frame Lifelike diesel. Cut the frame to get the correct wheelbase. Bash a shell to fit. Maybe the cab can hide the real motor & driveshaft. Makeup some dummy cylinders. I’d like to see a boxcab made. It would be so cool to have a powered track cleaner.
Well, I’m kind of responding to my own original posting but YEA!!! Atlas just released their N-scale Shay offering which I found on the net today !!! www.internettrains.com is offering them currently for $159.00 each and I’m jumping in big time on that. I’ve always had good luck with Atlas quality and I can’t wait to be running them on my pike. Whew, thanks Atlas for fulfilling a dream for many of us. N-scale rules!!![:D]
Here is another N Scale Shay. This one is for experienced mode builders.
Atlas has one in the works. Its scheduled for release this August.
http://atlasrr.com/
Click on <Order/Ship Dates> and scoll down.
Click on
You can move your mouse over the photo to rotate the image.
Place preorders at your LHS.
Alas we won’t be buying any [:(] In order to make the side rod mechanisms work, the model won’t operate on tight radii the way the real ones do. I think the estimate is a 9.5" or 11" min. radius
–Mo
What!? Those are tight radiuses! The published minimum radius of 9.75 inches is 130 feet in N scale. In fact, 9.75 inches is probably a bit too tight for a 60-ton Shay compared to what the prototype could safely negotiate with a string of loaded skel flats.
Shays, while able to negotiate tight curves, are not streetcars!