I've been studying Kumata brass locomotives for a couple of years now. In the past, I was able to drastically improve every Kumata loco I worked on- except one. The Hallmark Centipede. I was able to improve it by tweaking.... but there is only so much you can do with crap. I strongly suspected that a complete repower job was the way to go. I contacted Ebit, and he graciously explained what he did. That was one and a half years ago. http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...4-Repowering-PRR-Centipede-by-Hallmark-Kumata I ended up going a slightly different direction. I retained the traditional Kumata design using gearboxes. My conversion was completed this week and I'm happy to be done. Rather than a long post, just got to my web album and follow the photos with captions. https://picasaweb.google.com/115166231832602451124 Click on the KMT Brass Centipede Repower link. or click here. Click on the first photo to get you started. https://picasaweb.google.com/115166231832602451124/KMTBrassCentipedeRepower#6149232774379539874 And here is a one minute movie. [video=youtube;KWbO-tM-KCw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbO-tM-KCw[/video] I confess, even I was amazed.
Ron, your expertise is more than anyone could do. Excellent job, no I don't have any more brass for you to fix (the centipede was not mine). Come east and stop by. Bob.
Sure does not run or sound like brass. Nice! I noticed at the end of the video the train slowed. Was that deliberate, or due to the amount of cars being pulled through various curves?
Good catch! No. Actually, my layout is not level. The spot where the camera is pointing is about at the lowest level. To the right and on around is the highest level. It can't be much, but it is enough for the train to speed up and slow down a bit. Since I run mostly DCC, I don't notice it enough. A lot of modern decoders have compensation for load.
