Mr. Bachmann,

Please give me an email to send the images to. I lost your business card so send to the email address below.

Jim Pasha
japasha@aol.com

Could you ask Lee and the boys if they could add the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the schemes available on the GE 44 ton locomotive? The reconstruction is using a nicely painted yellw 44 tonner  with lettering for the Virginia and Truckee. This locomotive will be around after the reconstruction from Virginia City to Carson City is completed.

I agree with Sheldon on the issue of NMRA compatibility. While I am no longer a member of NMRA over how DCC was implemented, the idea of compatibility for those not using DCC was addressed well. If one manufacturer runs off and does it's own thing, it had better have a reason other than some marketing guy's fantasy.

In 1973 I was building radio control Diesels for my own pleasure but made them 12 volt compatible  so I could turn off the radio and play at the local club. In many ways it was similar to the sys. tem used for the G scale big haulers using an FM carrier with amplitude modulation for speed control. Very simple and bullet proof  The idea fell on deaf ears and the hobby ran off a direction that the marketeers control. I am like Sheldon, I build extremely well filtred DC power supplies and am playing with sound. HO speakers leave a lot to be desired in sound generation I am experimenting with speakers under the layout. Just a simple radio signal runs it. PFM and PBL offer systems like this you can buy and it sounds much better.

While some dreamers want automated real trains, the reality is that humans will be operating the for many years to come. I prefer human intervention at the throttle, on the brakes and coupling and uncoupling, just like the prototype.

I have about $20K of MTH O gauge stuff I'm selling. It is badly designed electrically. Lionel isn't too much better. The lawsuit proved only that someone could lie better than the other guy.

Grumpy,

The conversions are from PMD. pmd@zoominternet.net. They cost about $140 but are very smooth runners. The conversion is pretty easy, the hardest part is making the tender into a pickup.

Nelson Pattison makes these every so often so you might have to wait. On the club layout next to a PFM brass mmodel it is hard to tell what is what. Pattison makes the three inside drivers blind for tight operation. Otherwise 36 inch radius is required.

Theframe is milled brass with new side rods and a large DC-71 motor. Drivers are Bowser so if you want no blind drivers it is easy to change.

The 4-10-2 is a unique locomotive. Only the UP and SP had them outside of a Baldwin demonstrator.

The problem is the long wheelbase. It's the same problem the SP had, it was just too rigid for the Sierras so they went to the valley and the sunset routes and coast route and performed very well there.

I have the brass models and they require excellent trackwork and #8 switches. I'm sure Bachmann can do better than a minimum radius of 32 inches.

The problem with a four wheel lead truck is that the pivot of the front truck is part of the wheelbase, unlike a twoi wheel lead truck


The Santa Fe 4-8-4 and 2-10-4 were designed to use the same basic Baldwin boiler to improve cost reductions at overhaul time. . Either configuration  is a powerful, exciting locomotive to see in operation.

I have a pair of Bachmann 2-10-4 with a power conversion in each and a 4-8-4 with a Bowser conversion.  The pancake motors are junk. The new units with the gearbox and more conventional motor are good but not all that powerful.

Kids like to see the large locomotives run, I guess that's why everyone wants the big gun on their layout. My locomotives with the power conversions will pull 60 cars on level track, more than enough to get the club to get mad because I'm using two blocks on their layout.

Smokey Valley Models use to make hand rail kits for many diesels. I think I have the right manufacturer. THey are brass and wire with the correct stanchions for the application. Better have some patience when assembling..........

BTW, A U-Boat is a product of General Electric. The Alcos were noted for laying out more smoke than a Big-Boy on Sherman Grade

Hamish, the 2-8-0 is  Baldwin catalog engine that could be made anwhere from 2ft to 3'6" gauge. Buyer specified gauge. There were some meter gauge versions made for South America. A couple were 3' for other places. This was a common feature for many Baldwing catalog locomotives.

Hamish is correct. There were no FWD railcars built for narrow gauge in the US. The bodies of these particulat units were built by Boston, a firm that did streetcar bodies based on Brill designs.

I don't think you hafe a problem there. As built, while the prototypes have been altered for very small radius operation, most On30 lends itself to bashing to On3.  The prototypes were small freight cars from the Ohio narrow gauges. They were smaller than the Colorado prototypes.

I believe there are no plans to offer more than Williams for now. If they did a normal 2 rail ssomething, you could convince them to make the parts for a conversion to proto48. That's the most practical. The current On30 offerings don't make the conversion to standard gauge. On3, yes but nor standard gauge.

That is Cliff in the cab of #18.  There are a few more differences, the smokebox is the extended type for an ash net used only with a coal burner. #18 does not have one and has a shorter smokebox. The wheel spacing isn't exact but is passable. The domes and an SP type cab would be the harder parts to model.

I have modified a number of G size Tweetsies to look like #18 over the years. Not so hard once you bite the bullet. As stated by others, they make passable models. This is the way HO was for many years. Guys like Bill Schopp were wizards doing conversions.

According to the Mac Poor book on the DSP&P, there was no #75 in the original numbering nor in subsquent numberings until the C&S was formed.

Many of the DSP&P masons went to the Utah Northern. Most were scrapped by 1900. The wheel arrangements were 2-6-6T or 2-8-6T

Both are interesting, complex machines

The locomotive is F&CC #51. It is shown in Rails Around Gold Hill, page 401 It was origianlly a 0-4-4 configuration when delivered but quickly modified to be a 2-4-4.

Thought you all might be interested in the mimimum recommended radius for the Bachmann outside frame consolidation. It is listed at a radius of 197 feet. That's 49.25 inches in 1/4 inch scale.  the usual 22 inches works out to 88 foot radius.
Take your hats off to the engineering staff at Bachmann for this capability.  The ET&WNC 4-6-0 is listed at 253 feet or 63.25 inch radius.  These are Baldwin factory figures 

well put, Jim.

Many users (young) haven't a clue as to how many pickups their locomotives or cars have.

I did solve the flickering lights by using a 1.5 volt system backed up with small lithium batteries as used in computers. A set of capacitors will do the same thing, once fully charged.

The key here is to purchase equipment with maximum pickups as well as a good power transfer system (Contacts and wiring)

Frisco,

While I like the idea of buildign a Mason Bogie locomotive, it is a complex project due to the pivot under the boiler.

You might want to look into the 2-4-4 Forney used at Cripple Creek by the F&CC railroads. It was used for commuting miners to get to their respective mines. It is virtually identical to the Bachmann On30 Forney. It was sold to the Pajaro Valley Southern near Watsonville, Ca after use on the F&CC. There are many pictures of it in the various F&CC books