Looking at the respective measurements both locomotives had a total of 69'6" in length between the 630 and the 636. However the 636 had a 1'1" bigger wheelbase on the truck wheel spacing. So if the purist overlooks the slight difference with the two the 636 is doable on the 630 chassis.
I am in the process of building another C-636. It has an Atlas C-630 chassis and frame, cab and some hood sections. To make the Hi-Ad trucks, I swapped the Tri-mounts for Atlas C40-8 trucks, and will then add the outside spring hangers and torsion bars, as I did on my previous 636's. To my eye, the GE truck is very close to the Alco version apart from the add ons. The truck swap actually adds about a foot to the total wheelbase, and doesn't foul on the steps, so the wheelbase issue as John mentioned above, is easily fixed by using equally spaced axles rather than the off centre Tri-mounts. Cheers Steve NZ
When I started back into N, I bought a lot of stuff and I bought it as cheap as possible. I also did a lot of painting to get the items I wanted. Now I have almost everything I wanted, and I'm more willing to pay a premium price to get the remaining items AND not have to "do it myself". Examples are the FVM 1935 Hiawatha sets, the soon to be released 1948 Hiawatha cars, and the (hopefully) Athearn SP&S Challenger coming next year. Because I have so much stuff, I'm not buying a lot of new stuff, and as a result I'm willing to spend more on the items I do buy. So........even though I have quite a few LL FA's, if someone did a new run and produced the roadnames (in this case SP&S) I wanted, I'd drop the money on them . Same for C415 and C636 locos.
Not sure I agree with that... there have been a few things that were good for N... I think the truth is this: "Walthers" buying Life-Like: "the worst thing to happen to N scale." Heck, if LL had held out we might have another line of passenger cars by now as good as their other models became.
Gary, I would not let those older LL FAs hold you back. Installing DCC into these is not as hard as you think. Those frames can be cut for decoders even with hand tools. I agree we probably will not see these again for quite a while. Painting is the real issue due to decals for the older SP&S schemes. Thanks to MS we now have prototype decals for heavyweights. Thank you! Lowell's releases are pretty awesome, but are slow to become reality. He has quite the back log of other projects on his plate right now. There still are a few locos available out there to be converted to SP&S paint. The big question is when will we ever see accurate 424, 425 and 636s? Steve, I would love see to photos of your 636 progress!
Anything beyond an Intermountain F unit, I send off. I learned my lesson with an RS1, maybe someday but not now.
Hi Here is my original C-636, built from Life-Like and Con-Cor parts on a Kato SD-40 chassis. This was built before Atlas started their Century line. This photo shows my latest C-636 before I added the C40-8 trucks. It has Atlas and Con-Cor parts on an Atlas C-630 chassis. The prototype for this is SIXX 77, a former Cartier and Alco demo unit, so it has some changes from how Alco built it. One of these is the 4 core radiator which I scratch built. Still a lot to do! The C-425 in the foreground is made from an Atlas C-628 shell on a Life-Like frame. A big improvement over the phase I LL version. It has since been painted into LA&L colours. With the C40-8 trucks installed, the C-636 sits a few scale inches higher, which is prototypical. LAL 425 awaits a few more details before hitting the road. The last photo is of our favourite engine, M&E 18. This is made from a blend of Atlas C-628 and LL 424 shell parts, and has a full (almost) cab interior.
David Cutting seemed like he was willing enough to try a C-415 with a 3D printed metal frame and FXD shell that would have worked with existing Kato/Atlas/IM parts. His first print of the frame halves looked really good, but he wasn't satisfied with a scale shrinkage of 1%. So he decided to shelve it indefinitely, despite the fact he would have had sales even with the 1% discrepancy. I don't know if he was over ambitious or what but I hope someone will buy the CAD drawings off him as it could be easily tweaked for injection molding. I would love to see the C-415, even if it has to be brass. Speaking of brass, I'm wondering when we'll see the next brass N scale offerings of anything?
