Oregon American #11

I have now sawn off the superfluous ends and removed the foobie Rapido style couplers. I've also clipped off some tabs that were not needed for this, and slipped the motor tabs up beyond the plug, isolating the motor effectives from the power pick-up strips. The yellow tint down the center is Kapton tape. It may seem over-kill but I don't like to have to buy replacement decoders just because I couldn't be bothered to use another two cents worth of this stuff. This is now ready for a DCC conversion. Couplers will most likely be mounted "under-slung" on the ends. I am out of Z scale couplers, but I am going to take this to the LHS today and compare the space I have available to a pack of Z scale couplers and see if they'll serve. If I think they won't work I will likely use MTL 2004 couplers. These WILL look big on this, no question about it, but I want this finished project to be capable of limited switching, as the prototype was. The goal is to have a functioning track speeder capable of some switching at the end of this process, just like the prototype. The chassis is, I know a bit too beefy for this and the wheelbase is too long, but I believe having a solid chassis will help this thing operate better.