I have never seen this engine in person but will some day. I see all the vids on youtube and that whistle is pretty loud. Im sure its louder in person.


Here is an action shot of it pulling some coal

alot of 2 axe HOl logging engines will do 14"  even some shays will make it. I think a 2 axel 1800s small steamer would do as much as 11" but it will not like it!!!!!

I just got my 2-8-4 in the mail yesterday afternoon. It is a weak puller for the size of the engine.
I could not pull more than 13 blue box athearn stock weight cars up my 2.5% incline. Off came the shell and I easly added 2.5 oz of square weights. I could add about another 1.5oz if I want but the motor seams weak and drops RPM with a good load. Currently I can pull about another 10-15 BB cars with the extra weight I added.  It will be getting a new motor that can match the weight of the locos new pulling ability.

Details are pretty good
smooth runner but the motor needs BEMF to compensate for poor starting
Headlight is too dim
runs smooth ones its moving but RPM drops easy under load
I cant use Accell and decell because of this

On a scale of 1-10 I give it a 6 mostly for looks.

Trent

I have not seen any less than 15". you could buy flex track and make your own....   however  that may be a nightmare at the joints?

GOOD IDEA WITH THE BELL.

I used this black from polly scale to tone down the factory gloss finish
http://www.ehobbies.com/flo414110.html

and this testors thinner to thin it down And yes...some times a drop of water works just fine when I dont have thinner
http://www.ehobbies.com/tes1398.html

I think you have your answers but If I can add that trucks of the era you want were about 8' wide (not including mirrors and drove down 10' wide lanes. it made for tight passing at night on a 2 lane, not uncommon to clip mirrors back then. so an easy way to tell would be take some scale trucks put them close side by side and there you go.... Some of the bridges in MO on the old Rt 66 (when first built)were single lane and you had to take turnes... Whats more odd is that in some parts of 66 they just paved a single lane to get the road open on time !!!!

so regardless how wide you go its been done

yea some of those may also have 4 wheel pick up and 2 wheel drive. if they still are like that it will be a PITA just to get them to run any slower than full speed LOL

Buy some old athearns on ebay for that price. I just got 2 powered switchers for $34 shipped!!!

Hi Gene.. I did see that your making a street tunnel. I think you could use the same Idea as I did as mine turned out pretty good. you can do the same just smaller for trucks. That porthole is made to clear doublestacks and auto racks. Semi trucks of today are 13.6' a 14' clearance is plenty for todays standards
For early 1940s-1960s 12' -12,5' trailers were common so 12,6' would have been a common hight in a small town. Here in Chicago you can still find 10' -  12'  - 13,6'  "EXACT" bridges only large interstates would have built tunnels to over exceed a normal truck hight as most trucks with oversized loads cant use tunnels...

here is another concrete tunnel at the club Its nothing more than wood with some weathering



fast forward to :50 to see a vid of that porthole I made
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7m-Pjx23hI&feature=related

I airbrushed the whole engine/tender with a very watered down steam power black from polly scale
then added a few calicum stains on the cyl walls, brushed painted the side rods oily black, added a "real"coal load, painted the bearing boc covers with grease stains, and ran the engine while I toned down the white stripes on the wheels with some grey powder. I also added an extra 2.5 oz of weight to it and It now pulls 28-30 emptiy cars up my 2.5 grade without slipping. It will need a more powerfull motor now!!! as with 35 cars it drops alot more wheel RPM onthe grade before the wheel slip starts

Got this in the mail this afternoon and alread put a new headlight in and weathered it


Before


After

I made one down at the club out of pink foam. I cut the porthole out and then lightly sanded the surface to give it a rough surface. Air brushed it and then put a year on it with a pen. I wrote on it hard so it looked like stamped concrete.

ebay and for about $80-100   i cant recall the exact price

I work in HO scale and the blue box athers motors could be isolated by placing a pice of elctrical tape under the motor were it made contact with the frame.

Quote from: djp on October 31, 2009, 03:07:56 PM
Thank you guys for the response. I will be buying the 2-8-2 Mikado thanks to the positive comments. BTW Imackattack did you buy a IHC 4-6-4? I am looking for one too but the MTH, BLI models are really expensive. Cannot afford them. How much did you buy your 4-6-4 for? Thanks once again gentlemen.

Yes  the 4-6-4 I own is a IHC model.

great runner, it will pull about 38 freight cars on its own at the club I belong too. will run on 18" but looks very bad doing so as it has such a large tende. its flaws are oversize wheel flanges, no pilot coupler, plow/cow catcher sits to high above rails. side rod detail is poor. I fixed all of those besides the sid rod detail

I do not own a new IHC 2-8-2 but I have owned the older 4-6-2 and -2-8-2 and I also have a new premium line 4-6-4 all were great unners i retired the older models as i had them for 15 years and the motors gave up. I kept them going with parts from each other. My impressions on the new IHC is that they are very reliable and solid runners. detail lacks compaired to others but I can fix that easy. Only thing i really dont like is that some of them still have deep flanges that only work on code 100 track. The discription listed about the new 2-8-2 says they have the RP25 wheels wich is better for you!