N scale scratch building--locos

[Anonymous]

I grew up scratch building an entire HO railroad with my father, but I really don't have room to build a layout for all the stock I inherited from him. So I figured...why not rebuild the road in N scale?! The only problem is...the road is set in the late '20s-early 30's. Not much out there in regards to locos such as the Shay or 4-6-0's at reasonable prices as my budget is limited (trying to put together a B&B, maybe have the trains run around the breakfast room). Any help in finding such items as power trucks, etc., in N scale? I've been looking online for a while and really haven't found anything for steam era. Thanks.

[egmurphy]

Welcome to the Model railroader Forum, Doc.

The only power trucks I have heard referenced in N were made by Kato. One of the problems is that they are not generally available. Check their website, www.katousa.com

Loco choices in N for early 1900's are improving, but very slowly. Atlas just came out with a 2 truck Shay. Athearn has a 2-6-0 and a 2-8-0 (previously MDC/Roundhouse) that are 1890 vintage. Great locos. Could still be reasonably used in 1920-1930. Bachmann has a 2-8-0 in its Spectrum line that's probably 1920 vintage, another very good loco. Model Power is coming out with a 4-4-0 and a 2-6-0, both about 1920 vintage. The 4-4-0 is due out later this month. The mogul around June.

I've seen some threads on scratch building or bashing small locos on some of the N scale specific forums. If I can locate a couple I'll post some links. Or you might want to try dropping in at either the Trainboard or the Atlas N scale forums. Both are pretty active.


Regards

Ed

[Anonymous]

Not made for the steam era, but you can approximate non-rod engines like a Shay or Climax using Kato chassis units. Look for nos. 11105,11106 & 11107.

Here is a link to a thread on another forum in which a Shay was scratchbuilt on the Kato 1105 chassis. http://www.trainboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=003407

I started to build an N scale Climax using a Lifelike SW8 switcher chassis based on a thread at the-gauge.com http://www.the-gauge.com/showthread.php?t=5594&highlight=climax

Wayne

[pike-62]

N scale loco's can indeed be scratch built just check out this link http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15075 All three loco's do run and he also has built a shay that was featured in another thread. This is some great inspiration to try this on your own.

Dan Pikulski
www.DansResinCasting.com

[ereimer]

wow that scratchbuilt shay looks great . hard to believe some of the amazing talent out there . apparently Nn3 has some cool stuff too if you're interested in building your own stuff in small spaces , although it maybe a bit expensive since it uses Z scale engines as the base