Hi guys. Just wanted to post up some pics of some trains I modeled. I jumped into T gauge because I was interested in making a train set that didn't take up my whole basement but at the same time I was dissatisfied with the selection of rolling stock, so I made my own. For those interested in dabbling in T gauge, I have a shapeways site that contains train shells that slip over the standard motorized chassis. attached are some pics of some of the more popular models. I'm finding modeling the trains more fun than building a train set. https://www.shapeways.com/shops/samstrains
Sam, Those do look nice. Just to clarify concerning your California Zephyr. Would those cars fit on the 23 meter coach chassis, either powered or not powered? Or which length chassis? I assume the clear shell gets discarded so the exact shape of chassis doesn't matter, right? Also, I get the impression from other people's posts that it's best to have anywhere from 2 to several powered chassis in a train. Do you care to comment about what has worked for you or what you might recommend about a ratio of powered to non-powered, etc.? Thanks.
So the Zephyr is powered but it's kind of a unique animal. I actually bought the largest motorized chassis size, cut it in half, and ran the leads that would have connected to the boggies, to the track (kind of like a slot car. The whole train is 3d printed as one piece and the segments that link the cars have a hole and 2 slots to accommodate nonmotorized boggies. It's a little more advanced than most of my train models on my site. I don't like the idea of cutting a perfectly good motorized chassis in half, but wanted to stay true to the boggie layout. I will say, it runs great because there are fewer boggies than what you would find on a typical passenger train car. You could try the smallest chassis size if you are not interested in maintaining an accurate boggie layout.
I just bought some T gauge parts and track! to check out what I can do with it! WOW is all I could say when I set a section of Z scale track next to it!