Evening everyone, A few weeks ago I picked up a few diesel brass locomotives. One is a Halmark and I was told here that those are almost universally poor quality. It was badly painted but that’s been cleaned up. The Nickel Plate units are both EMD F2 A-B sets. They are also in original boxes and the foam crumbling. There is no date stamp anywhere but the paperwork was done on a typewriter so I’m guessing mid 70’s. Are Nickel Plate products of decent quality? I’ve found almost nothing online so I don’t know. I’m giving serious thought to paint all of these up as a short line that I make up and put them on abandoned track sitting in the weeds. If none of them run well that’s the best use I can think of. Any opinions on Nickel Plate quality? Thanks. Rick H.
NPP was higher end appearance quality, a few decades ago. I remember they did not all run that well. I do not recall if it was motor, or gear train, or both. They made Milwaukee Road Boxcabs, which were all gobbled up quickly. As I recall, they also did MILW Little Joes. People made do with what they had, back then. I know that in years since, with the high cost of better detailed and running brass, as an alternative, these older issues were re-worked by some folks and they were happy enough with the results.
What I would do is is pull them apart and give them a good cleaning and lube job . Take the trucks and gear towers apart if possible and clean out all the old grease clean the wheels and then give them a test run . The Brass locos probably need new motors and that could be an easy job depending on how the loco was made . Take some pics and we can go from there . Mike OH heck these are HO , should be no problem . I've remotored a few steam locos with no problems so diesels should be easy . A good place to start if you've never done major work on a loco .
