Here at the Charnwood Forest Garden Railway, we open every weekend for the public to come and view as we are located next to the Great Central Railway at Rothley station (A Heritage railway here in the UK). On family events we let the young and young at heart have a go at Driving our large scale Thomas & Friends for an extra attraction.
In order to do this we have converted Thomas, Percy and James to Battery power rather than track power and Radio Controlled. To do this we have fitted the following to each of the engines...
1 x Saturn 2.4Ghz transmitter and receiver
1 x Mtronics speed controller (ESC)
8 x NiMH AA batteries with 4 long battery holders
2 x DPDT miniature toggle switches.
1 x 2.1 DC chassis socket.
Also a SMART charger to charge the units - we already had three so we were ok. It costs around £100 a loco to do but in my eyes that makes them 100 times better as you are not fixed to one point of driving - Which comes in handy on a big layout like ours where not everything is in sight from the main control cabin.
Here's a video of them in action with our bachmann circus train.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5I3yqmO_HA
Emily is our next large scale engine which we already have on order, we plan to do the same conversion to her as well. I don't think it will be long before we are seeing her in shops here in the UK, from the information we get from our dealer, it'll be just over a month. I am very much looking forward to getting the brake vans as well. I'd love to see the mail train come out in large scale but we can only live in hope!
Thanks!
In order to do this we have converted Thomas, Percy and James to Battery power rather than track power and Radio Controlled. To do this we have fitted the following to each of the engines...
1 x Saturn 2.4Ghz transmitter and receiver
1 x Mtronics speed controller (ESC)
8 x NiMH AA batteries with 4 long battery holders
2 x DPDT miniature toggle switches.
1 x 2.1 DC chassis socket.
Also a SMART charger to charge the units - we already had three so we were ok. It costs around £100 a loco to do but in my eyes that makes them 100 times better as you are not fixed to one point of driving - Which comes in handy on a big layout like ours where not everything is in sight from the main control cabin.
Here's a video of them in action with our bachmann circus train.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5I3yqmO_HA
Emily is our next large scale engine which we already have on order, we plan to do the same conversion to her as well. I don't think it will be long before we are seeing her in shops here in the UK, from the information we get from our dealer, it'll be just over a month. I am very much looking forward to getting the brake vans as well. I'd love to see the mail train come out in large scale but we can only live in hope!
Thanks!