AHM had Rivarossi produce a full line of O scale model railroad products back in the 70's, and there are a lot of untouched kits out there, so I thought I'd try building one!
The only real problem is that the motors are underpowered for O scale, but beyond that, these kits are as good if not better than the HO products they were making at the same time! The motorizing kits add quite a bit to the cost, but the steam engine kits themselves are honestly a pretty good value for the quality and detail even if all you make is a display model.
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As an O scaler in the 1970s-80s, I recall the word on these and the other AHM steam engines that the motor was just about powerful enough to make the engine move under it's own power, but nothing else.
IIRC around that time they also made a 1:32 scale steam engine kit, No. 1 gauge (what people now call "G gauge")?
Yeah, the motors were undersized unfortunately. This one has the Big Boy motor powering it, but even that's only enough to pull a few O gauge freight cars for about 10 or 15 minutes at a time before it has to cool off.
I built the unpowered 0-8-0 and had it on my desk at work. one side was weathered and one side was not. the interesting thing was the IHB ran right outside my window in Alsip Illinois and I could tell people it ran there.
I have the un-powered version I picked up for free. My goal is to turn it into a New Haven Class Y-4 3-cylinder 0-8-0 (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof). The trick is that the NH didn't have Elescos on their Y-4s nor did they have a booster truck on the tender.
Thanks for posting this video! I'm going to save it to use when I put my model together.
I'm sure the powering kits are currently made of "unobtainium" but oh, well. I'm not really into O-scale...even though I do have a number of pieces these days.
Thanks for sharing the video Darth! There is a lot of food for thought in there.
I bought one of these locos a few years ago. It was "built-up" when I bought it and I haven't paid a lot of attention to it. I run it on a loop under the tree during the holidays. I never removed the shell, but I can see from the video that it would be easy to re-motor it. I might do that with a better motor, add a bit of weight, and put a coat of bulfrog snot on two drivers. I bet the thing would pull a reasonable number of cars with that. Of course, the cars would need to be fairly light and equipped with good wheelsets. My old AHM O scale cars don't really meet the second condition...
Ironically, I find that the 4-4-0 Genoa engine is a better puller for its size. But the old Rivarossi O scale diesels are the most interesting from a powering perspective. The stock locos only had one powered truck. Swapping the dummy truck with a powered one is very easy to do and will make the engine a fairly good puller.
Keep those videos comin'!
Simon
The great modeler John Pryke converted the HO IHB 0-8-0 to an exceptionally accurate New Haven and it was featured in Model Railroader circa 1965-66 with a very large photo that showed the detail. I seem to recall he also authored an MR article on the conversion, years later. It might be worth tracking down if someone intends a similar conversion with the O scale kit.
Yes, the AHM O scale locomotives were equipped with very small and weak motors (by O scale standards) but to be fair, the AHM O scale freight cars were exceptionally light too and probably that 0-8-0 could pull four or five of them plus an AHM caboose. The couplers were totally proprietary so the idea was for AHM O scale engines to haul AHM freight cars.
When AHM dropped the O scale line (rather quickly) they were selling off the inventory at unbelievably low prices (and it was hit or miss if you could obtain the motorizing kit for a given loco). I think I bought -- from AHM itself -- a box of six bobber cabooses for about $3. My intent --- if I had one --- was to kitbash them into one regular two truck caboose. I even went so far as to purchase trucks (from Athearn which oddly enough kept some O scale parts in inventory, but never advertised them). I regret not buying more of the O scale freight cars in that close out sale because they were pretty decent models for the time, and probably the easiest to convert to NMRA standards compliant in terms of weight and coupler height. Most O scalers I knew back then had such a knee jerk rejection for plastic that I doubt if many of them attempted those simple conversions.
Dave Nelson