I agree but, how is this for funny looking? From the early days of N scale steam.....I give you....a camelback kitbashed from an 0-6-0 saddletank and a minitrix decapod! No folks, this is not an illusion....it's...."FrankenCamel"! Russ
That's what desperation will do to you! All these years later and I am still waiting for someone to come out with a camelback....with all this new steam out there we now have a better chance......I just hope that they hurry up before I get the urge to create another monster! Russ
RUSH2NY? see the new thread I just started on camelbacks. BTW, I think that 0-6-0 mother hubbard is great, considering the parts that went into it! Maybe an 0-6-0 out of the Atlas Mogul, using the same technique?
Good try, rush2ny! I wasn't much into photography in the 70s and 80s, so my kitbashes were, gracefully, unrecorded.
Unfortunatley I did take photos. I even tried to get some published. Akkkkk. Thank goodness no body did.
Oh man, I had a bunch of those ungodly Model Power FA-2's. They were just aweful. What a mechanical nightmare when trying to get them to run decent. I'm glad N scale has come as far as it had since then.
Bill - Them FA2's were especially great when they went into "meltdown" mode! Longtrain- Great topic on the Camelbacks...let's hope that it generates some interest on behalf of the manufacturers! Russ
Russ: They sure do bring back some terrible operating nightmares, and oh yes the infamous meltdown phase they all seem to go through after a while.
seems a while ago now, when you used to spend more time fixing them than running them. For every few hours running you would spend more time cleaning and maintaining them! whoppit
Ok, here are some more memories. For those of us that like Amtrak models, there wasn't much to choose from in 1981. Here is my Trix U30CG and Pullmann passenger car. I don't remember who made them (Rapido?) but they were manufactured in Lima, Italy. I also have a set in PRR brown. Russ
Arnold Rapido really never had much to do with those cars. They were always just Lima. Lima distributed them through Model Power and then MP somehow wound up with the cars for themself before Lima was bought up by Rivarossi. MP still makes them in China now.
Thanks for that info Russell! You have a much better N scale memory than myself! Here is a pic of the PRR version of that car next to the Amtrak version: One thing that I always admired about these cars though was how nice and close they coupled together compared to other passenger cars available at that time. Russ
I don't have any photos of my "first" layout, but I still have some of the motive power and cars from the 70s and 80s. Considering the quality of stuff back then, and the fact that we had to resort to a lot of European scenary (just what every layout needs- a Bavarian castle), it's amazing N scale didn't die a quick death.
I think that this was actually one of the things that helped fuel my like of N scale. I scratchbuilt a lot of stuff to come close to something American. It was just as satisfying to build something as it was to just take something out of the box. It made me feel like a pio"N"eer. I see the same thing with Z scale today....a lot of European stuff but the market is starting to shift as interest builds. There are also a lot of scratchbuilders in Z now as well, as seen on this very board! Happy railroading! Russ
I hate to keep reposting this, but here's what happened on my railroad when two Mehano FA-2 met head-on at their typical lightspeed: I just couldn't stand the cab on these units. It's a custom-built plastic frame with two motors. I'm afraid to take it apart to show the innards--lots of weight in there, and it will probably fall apart. Thanks to absnut, I have a third power truck for the middle, so I will take it apart soon, and take photos. I may even put a decoder in it--though I can't remember what it looks like inside. With a plastic frame, it has to be DCC-friendly (I hope)!
