I've been looking for a G scale model of a 3 cylinder 2 truck Shay, 35 ton or so (with no luck) to use for an indoor display. It will be something like a shadow box with a few log cars and maybe a caboose but I want to be able to power the engine with sound, firebox, lights, and maybe even drive train movement.
My question, can I reconfigure a Three truck 55 ton by removing the center truck from the assembly to look like a two truck? I want this display to be reasonably correct as it will depict a scene in the area of my mountain cabin around the early 1900s. They also used two truck Shays to build a dam for the lake below my cabin using dump cars that I would like to copy as an alternate display. I have some pictures of the construction period. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Tony ([email protected])

Given that Bachmann's three truck shay is a development of their earlier two truck shay, I suggest you look on the second hand market.
The two-truck shay is out of production (I believe) but you can see what it looked like here: http://www.btcomm.com/trains/primer/whyscale/bachshaymini.jpg

Tony9492:

Not easy to make the three trucker into a two truck. Although the parts (trucks & tanks) are basically the same, their arrangement along with the frame(s) are significantly different. It would require a great deal of effort to modify one into the other.

As SR wrote above, Bachman has manufactured both two truck and three truck Shays. The early production models suffered from a weakness in some of the plastics used in the trucks. You can occasionally find these in inoperable condition. Since you are building a static display with some some moving and lighted components, one of these early models might be just what you want at a great price. Check out Ebay along with the various large scale website groups. Some have For Sale or Trade pages where you can advertise for the two truck Shay.

For a start, try Large Scale Central at:

http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/

Happy RRing,

Jerry

Thanks for the advise and link, Glad I didn't buy the three truck I had in mind

Tony-

I have a Bachmann 2 truck shay (pre-owned) for sale. If interested, contact me off list.

Bill

I picked up one yesterday along with some rolling stock, thanks anyway Bill.

I stand corrected regarding the locomotives used on the little bear (Lake Arrowhead later) dam. just got back from the local museum with some good pix of what appear to be 1890 Porters. Thanks again for the posts.