Good evening all! So I found this great, inspirational thread here and being beyond my league, has anyone here modified an off-the-shelf 4-8-4 for the Santa Fe for DCC (and potentially sound)? I can do the detailing, painting, etc as that's the fun part, but electrical is not my forte and was wondering if anyone has a similar creation. I was hoping to get a flawless running passenger locomotive for under $300... Look forward to more inspiration here, as always.
Hey that's my creation! I've come a long way since. Roberts original boiler has since been replace with a much upgraded version and I've built 30 engine since. If you are able to paint and mill a frame the Gs4 to ATSF Northern Conversion is not impossible. Jason Smith Tomball Locomotive Works
Tomball Locomotive Works built these two Kato GS4 ATSF northern conversions. Great runners, good slow speed performance, even handles the Peco medium radius turnouts in the yard ladder.
Hello, Is it possible to order a few of your Santa Fe boilers? I have two Kato GS4's I bought specifically to convert over..
I would love to add to my 4-8-4 fleet, but I have no skills in modifying and painting. If only Tomball Locomotive Works was still building these for sale............ I could pony up for several!
I would not hold my breath on Kato doing a Santa Fe 4-8-4 anytime soon! I talked to the Kato Rep in Roanoke about this & I was told they put a lot of time & money in tooling for the UP loco and passenger cars and were not interested in doing Santa Fe!! Wayne
I would put my money on Bmann. They have supposedly retooled the mechanism of their Northern and it is supposed to run much better and the issue of split gears may have finally been solved. On that note they still do not have tender pick-up and the shell is not even close to some of their recent retooled steam examples. However there are several things that make me think that a much better version is going to come from them. First they have a history of making ATSF locomotives both steam and diesel when other folks haven't. They have been slowly retooling both mechanisms and shells and equipping their steam with tender pick-up and dual power decoders. And that dual power decoder is what will finally give a new tender with all wheel pick-up to that loco which has long been overdue. It appears that they refurbished the tooling for that shell some but it still does not match their newer offerings in depth of detail, basically being the same old clunker of a shell. But following their release patterns it is about the only loco that has not been completely upgraded with the exception of the 4-4-0. So I am leaning toward anticipating that this will be the most likely candidate followed by or preceded by a heavy 2-10-2 that most likely will come out in the ATSF version.
John, I sure hope your crystal ball is right! That would just make my day... I could see a fully updated ATSF 4-8-4, but seriously doubt a Santa Fe specific 2-10-2; if they did I would never need another steam engine I bet a Texas would be more likely (like in HO) before we ever see a 3800... thats what I see in my admittedly muddy crystal ball. Otto K.
