I make my own. I hit up swap meets, garage sales, etc. My layout will be deadrail with Bluetooth control. I’ve decided the easiest way to run is consist my power units with trailing dummies to hold board, battery, and speakers. I intend to run a lot of F units, so this also solves issue do f turning loco at end of the run. Simply run around train. No one will tell the dummy is in the lead but me....
Price is right. Buck or two tops.....Sure, takes time and effort to strip drives and paint. But that’s what makes it a hobby.
I got lucky and inherited a couple of dummy locos. One is a Burlington Northern GP-38 and the other is a Santa Fe 0-6-0 switcher. I use both of them on the side track just to add scenery to my layout.
TRAINS actually run much better with a second powered locomotive.
So much so that I got rid of the dummies.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I've got one of the Walters "Mainline" locomotives, the bargain brand vs. the more expensive Proto. The mechanism is pretty similar, maybe identical, but as people have pointed out, the difference in cost is the detailing on the shell. They sell the Mainline models based on the lower price point for less detail, not the mechanism inside.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I buy dummies whenever I find them. I agree the newer units are very nice but by the time I put dcc in them they are very expensive. I have a bunch of F units dummies and a few GP's so I am good for the most part and just only need a few odds and ends. My layout right now is very small compared to the past and an F7a powered works just fine with an F7 a or b dummy.
Well I guess things have changed , I guess Ill have to continue to save up to get the powered units I need .
Dummy engines?
They sell them all the time on ebay. Look for something that says "non-working" or some other clue. Buy 'em, then strip out the flaky guts and run 'em unpowered.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
They sold well back in the day when the motors drew close to an amp which is what most power packs were rated at, so to have a multi engine consist you would need one powered and a couple of dummies. With the new can motors you can consist three or four units and not overrate the power supply, and as other's have noted, the price differential makes it uneconomical to stock both powered and dummy units.
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
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RailphotogNot long ago Jason Shron of Rapido Trains replied to this same question, saying the difference would only $1.50 or so by leaving out the power source. Wasn't worth the while to make, distribute and stock both powered and non powered.
This is a discussion that comes up almost monthly. http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/256122.aspx?page=1
They never sold well and they won't be a cheap as you think they should be just about sums it all up as to why they aren't made much anymore.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
the old train man Years ago athearn made dummy engines and they were quite a bit less expensive than their powered units. You subtract a decoder and a motor & less weight & I believe it would be less money & less money to produce.
Years ago athearn made dummy engines and they were quite a bit less expensive than their powered units. You subtract a decoder and a motor & less weight & I believe it would be less money & less money to produce.
That was when a dummy engine was $8.00 and a powered engine was $15.00 and had little to no detail.
All the cost today is in tooling, design and all those hundreds of timy details that we've all screamed for over the years. A dummy engine today would still incur all those parts and costs. Eliminate a $5.00 motor and $3.00 worth of plastic gears and shafts, you really aren't going to do much on the price point. Skipping the steps in China to install those few parts really isn't going to amount to much of a savings either.
Jason from Rapido explained this once himself, and that was basically his explanation as well.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Not long ago Jason Shron of Rapido Trains replied to this same question, saying the difference would only $1.50 or so by leaving out the power source. Wasn't worth the while to make, distribute and stock both powered and non powered.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
It wouldn't really save money. Its a few bucks worth of electric motor and gears that seperates powered from dummy. The shell is the expensive part.
Why dont they make dummy engines for ho & n scale engines? It sure would save modelers & collectors a lot of money. It would allow people to double head or triple head engines for about half the money. You could even put sound & dcc in one of them. Think about how neat it would be to use a dummy gp unit as a helper unit at the rear of the train. Sound would even add more to the realism. I know someone is going to say , take the motor out of a powered unit to get the same effect, but you have so much weight you cant remove that it makes this idea impractical. Sure would be a good idea for my layout & it would save lots of money. Another thing , it would be nice if a company made undecorated engines in different colors , green for southern,grey for l&n,dark blue for csx etc , & they sent you the correct decals so you could apply them yourself for say a fallen flag engine. Just thinking out loud.