pleasant suprise with IHC Pacific

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

With the recent discussion about the lack of a Pacific other than a pennsy K4,I decided to try to convert a IHC Pacific to a NYC Pacific.The IHC runs much better than I expected right out of the box with no break-in or lube,and I expect that will even improve after I do lube it.It seems like it’s going to be a fairly easy job to convert it into a NYC K3q.Of course it’s going to end up costing almost as much as a BLI when I consider $59 for the model, the cal-scale,cary,and psc detail parts,a back feed decoder and soundtraxx .But it should be a lot of fun and I hope to end up with a decent running,nice looking engine.Thanks for all your help.

2

Mike : maybe you can post your conversion pics step by step ,about the decoder/sound install for that loco. A lot of people starting out ,buy IHC steam ,and enjoy it’s reliability. Many will want to see a sound/dcc conversion ,if possible ,with these loco’s.

3

I have an IHC 4-6-2 Pacific myself.
I haven’t lubed it since new ( i know I know, don’t say it!)
but it still runs as good as it did when it came out of the box 4 years ago.

Gordon

4

The IHC (Mehano) 4-6-2 would seem to be a rather versatile engine. Ron Kuykendall bashed one into a model of an SP P-7 and the only real giveaway was the Baker valve gear with which the loco left the factory. When originally offered in the 70’s, the locos were equipped with RP25 flanges. I have a couple of them from that time period and at least one of them is probably going to be bashed into an SP P-6 for use on a layout based on the Monterey Branch of the SP. The P-6 and P-7 were very similar, except that the P-6 had 77" drivers while the P-7 had 73" drivers.

As for the cost, look at in terms of hours of fun (and knowledge gained) vs. dollars spent.

Andre

5

Mike,

Take lots of pics of your work step by step and see if MRR would be interested in having you do an article. I’m sure it would be of interest to many folks.

Dave

6

Same here! Mine is a CP model that came in one of the train sets that President’s Choice used to put out each year. I couldn’t be more pleased with it!