As some you know, I've been circling around a project to make a slug like the following: Santa Fe (well, OK - BNSF ) uses these combos in their Barstow yard, and of course what's good for them is good for me. The easy part (relatively speaking) of this combo is the slug. And what I'm trying to do is make the slug functional by utilizing its electrical pickup. Because this combo will be dedicated to yard duty, it will spend half its electrical life on switches, and I hate jerkiness (and slinkiness, but that's another thread). Simple logic says 12 axles worth of electrical pickup ought to be as good as it gets. This weekend I made the time to get the slug ready to the point of testing it for working. Detailing and finishing can come later, but for now I just wanted it to work, because I need a smooth yard switcher. At the moment I'm using a Kato SD40 to approximate the SD39 in the picture (that's a project for another day). The good news is - it works!!! Here is the pictorial update:
Then two SD35 sill sets need to be cut and joined to eliminate the steps around the cab. EMD engineers didn't cooperate and there's about a quarter inch that needs to be filled in where the two halves join. These pictures didn't come out, so I'll have to figure out a way to add them later. (Just as well, because I'm not good at that kind of detail and it looks, well, horrible Once I've bondo'd it up a little I'll take pictures again.) It wasn't difficult, just time consuming. Then the handrails. I cut and pasted spare Atlas handrail sets (thanks, Atlas for (a) adequate spare parts stocked and (b) reasonable prices!) and added them to the sills. And then I added the mu electricals, just I did with the LL switchers posted earlier. It took a lot of courage to take the Dremel to the Kato body, but I did it. Everything still needs to be finished nicer, but you can see the basics from the picture above.
And here you can see the top view, showing the finishing that still needs to be done to the handrails and the top (obviously). You can also see the shiny piece where the frame got cut. The bottom line is this setup works! It is a dream to have a Kato smooth 6 axle yard switcher with 12 axle pickup. Never a stall, and with my SAT-7 throttle, power is always smooth and infinitely manageable.
Very nice work so far. Why not leave the "top" down - Californians love convertibles! Look forward to seeing further progress.
I'm impressed- and I haven't seen any HO scalers build slugs like this! Darn shame you can't fit a small motor or two inside that slug for some extra pulling power (we HOers have the "Flea" from NWSL, and AFAIK thre isn't an equivalent in N). Still, I can't wait to see what you have when you're done.
William, Nice slug! I may have missed something, but are the pair seperable, minus cutting the wires? I have a shot of BNSF 6212, another SD39, in H1 paint, and radio control: Not the greatest shot, as it was low light,a nd taken from a Superliner window, but it's better than nothing.
Bob, I don't need any more pulling power. Yard switching duties fall WELL within a Kato's pulling power. So I'm doing this for the looks and the bonus of better power pickup - more inches' span and more axles. Interesting pic, Jeremiah - are you back, then?
If you look at this picture, you can see the brass strips are simple slide-ins. Very easy and quick to lift them out.
Indeed I am. Neat MU idea! Almost something to do to MU my SW1200's.... Especially with DCC.... Ideas?
One decoder, 3 engines, all semi-permanently coupled, and MU'd...... Operating on DCC. Can it work????
Yes, there is a web site that shows how it's done. http://home.mindspring.com/~filker/NLLSW9/SW9_DCC.html I also did a thing here on mu-ing SW's. http://www.trainboard.com/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/001104.html Show us how you did it
I like that guy's site. Thanks, William! If I MU'd the units, in series, I guess, and in DCC, use some thin styrene to isolate the frame pickups from the frames, install only one decoder in the center engine, and leave the rest MU'd semipermanently to it, could the MU work on DCC? Anyone know? Anything I missed?
Hemiadda2d, how long ago did you take that shot. 6212 was sitting in Galesburg, IL for a little while but I did not know where it disappeared to. We have the sisters of that loco running around in the yards now. That are still wearing blue and yellow warbonnets and renumbered.
