Quote from: Irbricksceo on June 20, 2014, 05:57:18 PM
I know that many modelers would love some of the harder Locomotives to find such as NYC Hudsons.

Hard to find? Why they're practically everywhere The last thing we need is more hudsons that have been done to death.

As I recall though, Bachmann is supposedly going to have an announcement this July on some big new product for the HO Steam lone and I'm rooting for what a lot of guys have been waiting for, Harriman Mikes and Pacifics

and thus goes the ever present cruelty of life, it's end, BUT he lives on through the legacy of who he was to everyone he helped here, and may the spirit of Model Railroading continue from his efforts as well as many others. 

You have to realize, to some people the PRR K-4 is an obscure prototype

I've recently got the hint that not this year, but the following year we are going to see a lot of stuff come out, of course no particulars but it sounds really big and promising.

Rich,

If you're ever considering downsizing your collection, let me know what you have! Also Still haven't been able to meet you yet, however I just started a full time job, so I have a serious lack of time on my hands, but I am that much closer to buying a BLW brass D&RGW 4-8-2 for my collection

will this new run of heavyweight have better handling and new tooling? Perhaps an actual  baggage car?

I didn't like the old Spectrum heavyweights, even with duel wheel pickup(which should be done to everything now even loco tenders) the coupling design and the diaphragms left a bit to be desired.

If the new run fixes the old problems, I'd be willing to buy these new heavyweights at this new price bracket considering street price is usually almost half that.

Remember you get what you pay for,
more money, more bells and whistles

I've been wanting to do an HOn3 Mining portion for my redesign layout for my future blackstone K-36's I had the same idea for a coal dock as well, I definitely like where you went with this mini layout concept and how you made it 3 dimensional

Just have to detail it, paint it and wire it all back up so it runs, I have a sound module laying around somewhere. The cool thing is using the frame from the Bachmann auxiliary tender is I get dual pickup on both trucks.

I accidentally bought 2 H-4's when I went to purchase one for the project. Si figure I'd use the other one to make an L-62 which will requie a bit more modification to the frame and boiler shortening it.

Hi guys,

It's probably been a while since any of you have seen any of my projects so here's one I worked on today.

For about 4 or 5 years now I've been playing with the idea of turning the Bachmann Spectrum H-4 2-6-6-2 into a D&RGW Engine, I did make a 2-6-6-0  conversion out of one but I wanted a 2-6-6-2. Over the years I managed to pick up various photos of different kinds of D&RGW Small Articulateds like the L-62, L-76 and L-77

The D&RGW L-62 2-6-6-2 were the only engines of this wheel arrangement that were actually built for the Rio Grande, they were built in 1910





Next were the 2 N&W Class Z1a 2-6-6-2's which were sold to the Rio Grande to help boost the war traffic in 1942, these were class L-76's







Last of the Rio Grande Small Articulateds were the D&SL 2-6-6-0 which were  incorporated into the Rio Grande roster when the D&SL was bought out by the D&RGW. These were the L-77's. I have rebuilt a PFM basket case to include a Bachmann chassis. And I have two in N Scale also sporting Bachmann chassis.






Today I've been working extensively on converting the Bachmann H-4 into an L-76. I started by removing detail parts on the H-4 such as pipes, smokebox door, smokestack, sand domes and a few other parts. I made modifications to the running boards where necessary. The old holes for the sand domes were filled in with bondo and sanded to shape. Various brass parts were bought from Precision Scale in Montana where they have an extensive selection of brass detail parts. I was fortunate that they had important parts for the Z-1 included in the catalog from when they made a run of the engine a few years back. I bought a new smokebox door, a stack, the sand domes and firebox sides(which I'm not sure if I plan on using)

The cab is from a Bachmann heavy mountain. I moved the air pumps to the fireman's side where appropriate. I then  put some grab irons on  the smokebox door and used a bachmann wide screw for the number plate.

The tender is a bachmann auxiliary tender chassis with a Proto 2k tender shell from a 2-8-8-2. I really wish bachmann made the 16,000 gallon tender the N&W had, as they were seen on over a dozen railroads across the country.

Here's some pictures of my progress:







































Will continue work on this engine and will post picture of the progress!

wow talk about nostalgia, I had the Golden Spike train set I'm pretty sure of it

my suggestion would be wider radius curves where and whenever you  can, those 22's in the corner could be 26 inch radius instead

You seem to have overlooked the 0-6-0 tank switcher Bachmann came out with recently as well

Well the J  prototypically speaking can go 100+ MPH in real life, so doing 80 isn't something unheard of, however it will look silly doing that on anything less than 30 inch radius

Which is why I'm thankful Brass, and thankful that eventually the brass market will plummet making said models more affordable for the average Joe such as myself

I was there, managed to pick up a ton of Varney Pre-war steam locomotives. Saw the new Bachmann display layouts and they looked pretty neat! There's a lot of new stuff coming out from everyone in the next couple years so I'm all excited about that. It was a fun show.