This thing looks excellent! Shame that 1Aussie$ is worth .01 of a monopoly$... http://www.nscalesupply.com/KAt/KAT-3037.html "This engine has got to be one of the strongest pullers I have seen. The two articulated halves are connected by a driveshaft, all wheels are powered and four wheels have tractiion tires. This is a typical smooth Kato runner."
The articulated, all-wheel drive design was introduced by Kato about 20 years ago with the JNR EH-10 electric. The lead unit has a typical Kato motor with 8-wheel drive; however, the drive shaft doesn't stop at the rear truck's gear tower -- it continues on back through a hole in the doorway area of the lead unit and into the trailing unit, and powers the two trailing unit trucks as well. The units are connected by a simple drawbar system. Although all 16 wheels are driven, I don't believe that all 16 are picking up electricity -- the drawbar system is plastic and the only metal-to-metal connection between the units is the extended drive- shaft. You can, with a little work, add a second motor in the trailing unit, and eliminate the articulated drive-train. I used two modified EH-10 sets to power an N scale model of the Virginian Railway EL-2A. These units were built by General Electric in the late 1940's and featured two B+B+B+B units drawbarred back to back. My N "stump puller" has 4 motors with 32-wheel drive and 32-wheel pickup. Here's a photo of the prototype, courtesy of George Elwood's Fallen Flags website at http://www.dnaco.net/~gelwood/ eNjoy DB
I'd love to see pics of that model! In stead of adding a second moter why not fill that cavaty with more weight or even better a nice big flywheel and add some jumper wires the motor that is in there is more than powerful enough.
