This BR 247 by Hobbytrain and some mid 20th century goods wagons with a VW transport and Bus just arrived. The diesel locomotive is actually a Kato made for Lemke Hobbytrain. Detail on it is phenomenal. All the grills are PE and check out the braking surfaces on the drivers! Took it for a run on the track and sound/operation is top notch as to be expected with Kato and ESU.
Picked up this late 60's Aurora Postage Stamp Trains N scale car Saturday. Thought it was a cool find.
Cool looking, but what kind of freight car is that? It looks customized to carry a certain type of cargo, apparently chemical by the name. Looks cool, whatever it is!
I rescued a couple older trains from a clueless and possibly tweaking individual today. So somehow this gal who has a mess of undergarments on market place also had some Kato and Tomix trains. The Tomix was a set of J.R. Interurban Series 211 with an extra bilevel car which is actually a pretty good runner, even though the lights don’t work right. There was also a set of Kato blue label cars that make up another commuter train, this one orange with a green stripe. The box for the Kato trains is gone, but you can tell they were once part of a set. They have Rapido couplers (Tomix too) and no flywheels. The engine doesn’t start till almost 1/2 throttle on my Kato throttle, after it’s moving I can lower the speed to something reasonable. I’m guessing it needs a good cleaning. Also the lights barely work. Good news is both trains have been on the rails for a few hours now, and both are starting to run better. I will get pics later tonight as they are still on the rails running in circles.
Pics as promised. And they are on rails pics! The Tomix train. It is set 92603, and if I were to drop this on EBay I should be able to recover my money… but imma gonna keep it! And the Kato set. Not sure what the box set number is, but it’s an older set.
I was surprised yesterday when I checked the mail and found this Vossloh g 2000 bb had arrived. Based on shipment tracking I thought it was still somewhere between the US and Spain. This loco is a repackaged Mehano branded for Hobbytrain. First thing was to get a decoder in it (DC was all I found that was available) and see if sound is a possibility. Adding the latter is going to require chassis mods to get room for a speaker so I will leave it as DCC for now using a Lenz gold decoder I had in my spare electronics box. There were a couple of issues out of the box though. First is pickup is horrible which surprised me as the trucks are directly wired to the chassis PCB board eliminating the truck to chassis pickup strips common on most locomotives. Second was that it made an awful squealing sound when ran above anything over a couple clicks of speed. I must have got the friday special as neither of these issues were mentioned in the reviews I found or videos I watched with one running around the track. Pickup issue I guessed was due to the really thick traction bands on the wheels preventing the other bare drivers from making proper contact with the track. Since the pickups are wired to the PCB board it's not likely the issue was anywhere else. I took off the bands, and filled the retaining channels they left on the drivers with bullfrog snot and problem solved. Traction is still good so got that sorted. On to the squealing issue I first tried running it a bit but after 10 minutes nothing changed and apparent it wasn't going to so it was time to take a look at the entire drive assemblies meaning removal and complete disassembly of the trucks which also contain the worm gears. When I took the trucks apart I could see that the gears were all well lubed but no attention to the gear spindles. The bushings that hold the worm gears in the trucks had plenty of grease-like lube on the outside but quite bound up on the shafts meaning the lube never made it to the important places. I applied synthetic lube to all the appropriate spots, checked for free movement and put it all back together with all the success I was hoping for. Quiet as they get and very much a smooth creeper giving even kato a run for it's money. Whew! Warranty work means sending to Germany and I really wanted to avoid that whole process. I did some research on Mehano since I'd never heard of them before. Most of what I found detail wise wasn't that impressive reminding me of early bachmann n scale but on this they did a really nice job. Paint/lettering and molded detail is super crisp and handrails are PE brass which looks great but must be handled with caution so as not to accidentally bend them. Proper white LED triple headlights with red EOT lamps which all light at the appropriate ends based on direction of travel. Trucks are very well done and vented brake detail on the drivers. Given the issues out of the box I'm a bit disappointed but after a couple hours of benchwork I'm happy to have it in my fleet running with the best of them. Not my picture (I should have taken my own but too lazy to pull the shell off again) but it shows the innards. To take out the trucks for further disassembly one has to remove the wires then pop off the cap which has the retainer tab that prevents the truck from dropping out of the frame. I like the wired pickups but adds work to get at the trucks for maintenance.
The Santa Fe shock control paint scheme has always been one of my favorites. Found this pair of box cars on the big auction site the other day at a fair price and they arrived in the mail today along with some more turnout tie sets from Fast Tracks.
Agreed, cool! Really nice vintage find BNSF Fan. Apparently these cars carried chemical containers of Acrylonitrile
This came in the mail yesterday, a Kato E353 Series Azusa Kaiji train set. I was informed by another member of the Japanese Trains FB group that I'm in that the two sets I bought don't have a power car! Ooops! I have a set containing said car on the way.
Alligator clips and terminal boards. The terminal board’s are tiny, but should work, I hope? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ice Cream truck, how cool 1:160 CAT excavator due tomorrow. Curious to see if it is really 1:160? Photo when I get it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Waiting for Rasputen (Brian) to message me on about two dozen 1940' vehicles and 3 1950s busses. PD 4103 Greyhound PD 4103 Trailways PD 4501 Scenic Cruiser Greyhound 1941-47 Chevy COE semi-tractor 1941-47 Chevy COE cab and chassis 1941-47 Ford COE semi-tractor 1941-47 Ford COE cab and chassis 1942 Buick utility coupe 1946 DeSoto Suburban 7 passenger sedan 1946-48 Chrysler business coupe 1946-48 Chrysler 2 door sedan 1946-48 Chrysler 4 door sedan 1946 Chevy 2 door sedan 1946 Chevy 4 door sedan 1947-49 American LaFrance pumper 1947 Buick 2 door sedanet 1947-48 Kaiser 4 door sedan 1948 Packard Super 8 sedan 1949 Mercury station wagon 1949 Oldsmobile 2 door sedan 1949 Oldsmobile 4 door sedan 1949 Oldsmobile town sedan 1949 Hudson Commodore
Very nice. Rapido makes some of the best locos. I was going to pass on one of these but if/when the second batch comes out I think I might snag one.
I'm still waiting for I-M to finally release my WP FP7. I'm kind of hoping someone else (Atlas or Kato) would do them. I might have to kitbash one myself using a Kato FP7 chassis.