You think I'd know better - Trix 2-10-0 rebuild

[Lemosteam]

A fellow modeler in PA, mailed these to me.  He thinks they might just be the only brass I1sa front air tanks on the planet, and I tend to believe him.  I have never seen them offered, and i wonder if these were for a brass locomotive spare part or something- nothing short of amazing.

These are the break I needed to ensure my cylinder and and pilot are scaled properly to the loco in New York state and so I can scale Randy's model images to that.

When I overlay designs, this is the method I use for proportion.  Look at this beauty and its detail (sorry for the crappy focus job):

[randgust]

Wow, that's made of pure unobtanium.

I'm good, I can wait, this is not a hi-pri project.   The only thing I'd 'suggest' is if it can be either hollow or done it metal, hanging some more weight over that pilot with those tanks would not be a bad idea at all, it's pure leverage down on those front drivers for electrical contact and tracking.  Right now it's kind of 'teetering' excessively on the traction tire drivers in the back, despite adding a honking big lead plug where the Trix headlight stuff used to be.

It's OK on TE, not spectacularly great, could be better.   But I am pleased that cutting the flanges down hasn't resulted in any tracking issues at all, or replacing the lead truck axle with a 'normal' 33" lower-flange solid wheel without a pickup drag on it.   And as I expected, you can sit there and spin with that old Kato 5-pole and it shows only slightly warm.  Even my Kato Mike will overheat a bit if I'm showing off on what it can pull.

I haven't done any more work on it other than running it hard to make sure it can pass shakedown trials here before I put more work into it.   This is the point where my D16 project fell apart and Mark Grailty had to rescue me with driver work.  I think I've got this one, but I don't do detail work until I've got something worth finishing.   I made that mistake on my EMC40, beautiful piece of work that is a flatcar load for all intents and purposes, same thing with my 25-tonner.  I've tried three times to redo that mechanism and it's still a D+.

[Lemosteam]

That's a good idea to make the tanks hollow, then you can add lead shot or tungsten powder secured with CA.

If you can wait, then I can test the design on one first before opening it up for sale.  You are so close- the chassis won't fail, so long as the motor doesn't. I find these to be quite good runners.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

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[wm3798]

I hope this is ready to run at N Scale Weekend.
Lee

[Lemosteam]

I hope this is ready to run at N Scale Weekend.
Lee

Maybe you will be able to double head yours with his.

[mmagliaro]

Sigh... it's things like this that make me miss the east coast sometimes.  I could have joined you for "Hippo Fest"

[randgust]

The big question with mine (in my head) is whether I want to rig it for DCC to run it at Altoona.  I have a decoder, the only thing stopping me is the realization that I have to get six wires across that deck - two for the motor, two for the headlight, two for the track pickup from the loco to tender.   The motor is isolated properly.   I never put in a decoder until 12V performance is beyond stellar, and I'm not quite there yet.

My main ATSF layout is DC with transistor throttles (square wave) and decoders just hate those.  After I blew up a Bachmann board I learned my lesson.  I can run on modules OK but I can't do a full train load with curves and grades that way unless I leave it DC for a bit longer.

[MK]

C'mon Randy go for it!  Altoona is a long ways away.  I'll be ready with my camera if you get it done. 

[Lemosteam]

Does that layout have on track that can be switched to DC?  Most N Trak layouts I have seen do that.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Put the decoder in it. Not only so you can run it at Altoona but ALSO so you can run it when visiting OTHER DCC layouts too.

[peteski]

I have a decoder, the only thing stopping me is the realization that I have to get six wires across that deck - two for the motor, two for the headlight, two for the track pickup from the loco to tender.   

You could use 5 wires if you install a simple 2 diode "blue wire" circuit in the loco. But that is not really saving that much.
To be honest, most N scale steam locos with a decoder (factory or user installed)  in the tender have 6 wire interconnect. Those wires actually nicely simulate all the hoses between tender and loco in 1:1 scale.

If you want to be able to disconnect the tender, just have a connector in the tender where you can disconnect the wire harness.  You're pretty handy - I'm sure you're capable of doing that.

[Mike C]

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  OK Gotta ask . Why the Porn mask on the loco ?

[Lemosteam]

  OK Gotta ask . Why the Porn mask on the loco ?

In the immortal words of Benny Hill, “Big Knuckles”.

[peteski]

In the immortal words of Benny Hill, “Big Knuckles”.

That's a blast from the past!  A well-endowed locomotive.