Great news for Z Scalers! Lajos Thek of Zthek has posted that they are releasing EMD SW-1 and GE 70 Ton Switcher kits. First is the SW-1 which should be ready by May, with the 70 ton ready by later this summer. The kit will be consist of an assembled, sandblasted brass shell, a constant lighting circuit and the necessary hardware (floating wheels, fasteners, etc...) and should cost around $120.00 You have to provide a Marklin 88051 BR89 locomotive, which comes in the Vacation Fun Set, and requires some modifications to the mechanism. Here are some quotes from the Yahoo forum where he gave the details of the project: Zthek's Switcher Link -Robert [ 15. January 2005, 17:42: Message edited by: pray59 ]
I read about this on the yahoo board as well. I am following it just to see what it turns out like. Sounds interesting. If it looks close enough to scale and can run at slow speeds without stalling, it would become tempting.
I have one of these locomotives that I converted to DCC, and it runs very well. If I had to say how well, I would say better than the Mikado, but not as good as the Pacific. With the brass shell, it will loose some weight, but I'm sure ther will be plenty of space to fill with weight. People are talking of using Tungsten Powder mixed with a very small amount of white glue and tucked into every available space to increase the weight. I'm going to try that method. I have an idea that I can fill the unused portion of the shell with that Tungsten "clay" mix wraped in Saran Wrap, and the locomotive in saran wrap, then mount it on the body, letting the excess squish out of the shell like a water balloon , and when the glue hardens, I can unwrap everything to have a weight slug the correct size tof the left over space to weight the locomotive down. Maybe I should use 2 part epoxy instead of white glue though.
N scalers have dreamed of these for years. And many times we have been told they're not practical, or some other excuse. Now here they are in a Z adaptation! Boxcab E50
Who would have thought that such small locos would be available in Z! The scale is progressing nicely
