I mostly dabble in the N scale forum, but I've been practicing with my digital on some of my old HO stuff . The pictures still need improvement, but perhaps someone might enjoy the model. I built this several years ago with an RPP shell and chassis and added an Athearn dash-9 cab. She's heavily detailed and has an A-line motor and constant head and ditch lights. I've been out of HO so long, Is there a simpler way to have one of these now? BTW, sorry if the image does not appear. I've been having major trouble with webshots.com Russ Darn webshots! Here's a link to the trainorders post...sorry! http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?f=3&i=285331&t=28531 [ 20 January 2002: Message edited by: tehachapifan ]
Bachmann makes a pretty decent one, but you would do best to re-work the power pickups. I had 4 in POTB paint that were the workhorses of my line for several years before I got into the SP&S. THey're goo pullers and quiet running, especially under DCC. They're built on a bigger version of the Kato N scale split frame design and get power by means of two little copper loops on each truck which transfer power to the frame halves. If I were still using them (I planned to do this before that fateful Atlas SP&S RS3 came along), I would replace the little loops with some magnet wire directly to the decoder.
Excellent modelling!. Apart from the Bachmann one, there isn't an obviously better way to do one as yet (well, I s'pose you could use an Atlas cab/rads, but it would get to be a really expensive kitbash!) The rumour mill seems to think that Atlas will do the 6 axle dash 8's at some point, it would make their choice of the 4 axle superfleet ones more logical as they can re-use the cabs, and possibly some of the other components from their 4 axle loco's.
