I've been reading a couple of books I brought on trademe last week (well, more dissecting them). as a result of this I've been thinking ( which is all I seem to do lately) about how to model 6 coupled steam locomotives. Kato make a sizable collection of Pacific's and tank loco's that others have used with minimal modification (Wc etc). A hunt thought Japanese catalogs however reveals that almost all of these models have the cast 'Boxpox' wheels, and so are completely sodding useless to us.
However, one thing I have noticed looking at the pictures, and then a further hunt through the Cedric Green plans, is that NZR 6 coupled locomotives have a 5' +5' wheelbase, give or take 6" here and there. Thus, if some enterprising chap was to make a basic frame with the gearing etc, one could use it to model any NZR 6 coupled loco from the 50's and 60's simply by using different sized wheels and cylinders. only 2 types of wheels are required at 4' and 4'6" ( the Wf had 3'9" wheels, but this is 0.6mm difference, and I doubt if anyone could tell the difference)
This standardisation can be taken a bit further in the case of the Pacific 4-6-2's ( and add the Wab's here) as they all wound up with an Ab style boiler.
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4 comments:
Good thoughts, but creating the valve gear and motion, the thought makes me shudder.
Even etching as the ideal medium would be tricky. Cad could be the answer, but you'd still need to put it all together.....
What about the Roco 009 chassis?
codionaRoco OO9 chassis = big bucks.
The Kato C55 steam loco doesn't have boxpox drivers, but as with a lot of Kato Jap loco's they are only made in batches and seem to sell out pretty quickly.
Todays word : Unitath (n)
A tattoo that someone with a lisp gets at university.
Are you going to let us know what the books were?? Especially if they got you thinking in such a revolutionary fashion??
Todays word was Reese(!), but one I saw yesterday was:
Enigua: A Mystery, wrapped up in a lizard.
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