Double Trouble

The new Consolidation has arrived.

With this one I installed Z scale couplers front and rear. The front was surprisingly easy to do, the dummy has to be removed and the sides and bottom of the coupler box needs to be removed. The Z scale coupler slides right into the hole after that...too far, in fact, when fully seated it hits the pony truck.

I tried modifying the pony truck. Don't. If you carve any of the plastic off you soon find that it is merely a clip that holds the pony truck wheels on the metal frame. I had to glue the plastic piece back on, not easy to do without gluing the wheels to the frame as well. I did, fortunately, manage to get that done.

The next thing to do is carve the rear of the coupler box away. This works, but makes the coupler droop slightly. A bit of judicious filing on the top of the coupler opening angles the coupler up just a tiny bit which, when combined with the droop, levels it out quite nicely.

The N scale coupler recommended for the back of the Connie has an offset that lifts it above the bottom of the tender frame. I had to carve a bit out of the bottom of the tender at the coupler box in order to install the Z scale coupler, but it is at the right height and I really like the way it looks.

I haven't installed a Z scale coupler into Connie #1, and I may not bother, but it is nice to see it can be done without a great deal of effort. It would be even nicer if Bachmann (and all the rest of the steam manufacturers) could be convinced to leave adequate room to install them without having to go through all the bother.

With the couplers installed it was off to the track. Running them together uncoupled shows that Connie 1 is a bit slower off the mark than the new one but a bit faster at the top of the throttle settings. Both run well but Connie 2 isn't as agile in the curves, I had to do a bit of filing on the cylinders to keep the metal pony truck from shorting out on them.

With that done the two locos coupled together ran well, Connie 1 in the lead and 2 in the trail due to the coupler configuration. Either alone runs great, together they pulled a 20 car freight without breaking a sweat and would have pulled more if I had bothered to take anything else out of the boxes.

The next thing to do will be to remove the ATSF markings from Connie 2, something that will get done as soon as I decide to take the time to do so.