Model Power

The buzz is all about Model Power going out of business. I've seen on the trainboards and such all sorts of excuses and blame passed around; some say the banks, some say the business practices, some say suppliers, a soft market, etc etc etc, but I can say I know exactly what it was...hit or miss product and poor to non-existent quality control.

I have two MP Pacifics (and one on the way) and so far neither one of them have been good performers out of the box. The only reason I even have them is because they are the only manufacturer that currently offers a USRA Pacific, and now that they are gone it leaves a hole in the N scale steam lineup.

The first one, which now serves as spare parts for the other two, had a gear train that never did mesh correctly and no amount of tweaking and tuning would ever make the motor gear stay in contact with the drive gear. I tried several times before giving it up as a bad idea; taking the darn thing apart is an exercise in frustration, every time you move something you pull another wire loose and the running gear has been accurately described as a "Chinese puzzle box" which, if you ever need to take it apart, is almost impossible to put back together.

The second one, which arrived just this afternoon, looked great but as soon as I took it out of the box I found the drawbar was disconnected from the tender. It is usually held on by a plastic stud that is melted down to hold the drawbar, the mushroomed end had broken off of the stud and there wasn't enough left of it to reconnect the drawbar. So, I had to take the tender shell off, dig around in my parts box to find a suitable screw, drill a hole and reattach the drawbar. In the meantime the smokebox front fell off and had to be glued back on, and of course one of the wires broke loose in the tender and had to be reconnected. This was, I reiterate, a brand new right out of the box locomotive; besides the hobby shop I purchased it from I am the first and only owner of said loco.

I also purchased a Model Power Mikado, mostly to compare it to the Kato and Atlas locos, and it was a good trouble-free runner right out of the box. Spookshow says the Mikado suffers from the same QC issues as the Pacific so it looks like I just lucked out and got a good one. The gold standard for Mikados continues to be the now-discontinued Kato of course, hopefully they will resume production for at least another run or two sometime in the future. I have two of the Katos, one with the GHQ Pennsylvania L1 conversion (and the other one will get it as soon as I get around to it), and they are phenomenal runners; all the hype is true.

One last thing...Rapido couplers with no knuckle coupler offered? Seriously? In this day and age?

So to recap - hit or miss products, seemingly non-existent quality control, and little to no apparent effort to improve either one. Bachmann, on the other hand, has steadily improved in both quality of product and consistency. If you would like to see how to do it...or how not to...these two companies are good (and bad) examples to follow. Yeah, good riddance Model Power.

It sure would be nice to have a quality Pacific from Bachmann or Kato, the Bachmann Spectrum line would benefit from another offering and Kato already makes a suitable chassis for it in their JNR models. For that matter, whoever owns the toolings now from the old Ted Brandon designed Rivarrosi Mikado and Pacific steamers that have been distributed by Atlas and ConCor, now would be a good time to bring both of them back with improved materials for the frames and better motors, maybe gearmotors to improve the low speed performance. One can dream at least.

And finally, for those of us who have been in N scale for a while, how odd is it to say "Gosh, I wish Bachmann would make a 4-6-2 steam locomotive!"

EBT M-1?

Roy Stevens on the Nn3 list has been busy creating Nn3 items in his Shapeways shop. Unfortunately many of his creations are un-printable due to resolution issues for these small items, but I have gotten copies of the things I have been able to.

One of those things that I have often wished for was the East Broad Top's M-1 gas electric motor car.

Looks like I'm getting my wish!

It is printing now, when it gets here I'll do a build post.

Pinky swear!

Projects

Today in the mail I got these:

I've already made one of these, so I'll use them to make one of these.

That's the only drawback of modeling the East Broad Top in Nn3, you have to make your own passenger cars, but then again that's where the fun is.

Dreams Coming True?

I am of the firm opinion that one of the best things to happen to model railroading is 3D printing. Using 3D printing we have access to make a lot of things at a reasonable cost, and one of the things I have always wanted was a model of the East Broad Top's gas-electric railcar M-1 in Nn3. So far as I know there is only one hand-built example in existence, and I don't have the confidence in my abilities to make another one.

With the advent of 3D printing the only thing that needs to be done is create a CAD model to fit over a prime mover. Searails has recently introduced a power truck that would be perfect for the project that is now sold through RLW, and I have been working at getting the information to the 3D modeler that created the EBT 2 and 3 bay hoppers that I built earlier. Now that he has it, he is hard at work in the creative process.

Maybe soon I'll have my very own M-1 roaming my narrow gauge rails. I suppose I'd better get started on getting them done. Towards that end my Clover House wide tie strips have arrived, so when I get the chance (between Mustang activities and finally completing my associates degree) I'll get the turnouts fixed and maybe try to mount one. I have an idea that I can mount the turnout on a piece of basswood for stability and then use a Caboose ground throw to actuate it, but I'll have to make a spring arrangement to keep from over-extending the throwbar and breaking the points loose from it. The trick will be getting a thin enough basswood piece to blend in with the cork roadbed and yet have it strong enough to hold everything in place. I might end up using birch instead, I'll have to see what is available. The second challenge will be getting everything fastened down securely and permanently enough to work full time, I have a feeling I would be better served to fasten the PC ties down rather than rely solely on the Pliobonded wood ties.

After the trackwork has been completed I'll get some foam and finally get serious about learning how to do scenery. It should be fun!

PC Board Ties

Since I am in the long process of disassembling the N scale layout to make room for the new (it's going rather slowly) I've decided to work a bit on my 3x7 Nn3 layout a bit.  It consists of a double loop with crossovers, one siding to the bottom of a coal chute for locomotive refueling and a siding on the opposite side of the inner loop to bring coal into the top of the refueling station.

To complete the layout I need three each left and right Nn3 turnouts, and as you may recall I opted to get the FastTracks fixture and jigs to build them. The turnout building went well, all of them have been tested to make sure the electrical isolation is good and the wheels actually roll through them.  When it came time to try to mount them to the layout is when things got slightly sideways.

I attempted to drill through the throwbars only to find the 1/32" PC board ties don't drill well. I ended up drilling one in half and then I called it quits. I have ordered PC board tie materials for throwbars that is 1/32" thick but 1/10" wide that should be a lot easier to drill holes in for the throwbar actuators. I am going to attempt to use Caboose Hobbies power routing ground throws since the frogs have to be powered.

When the PC board ties arrive I will be changing the throwbars on all of the turnouts. Maybe then I'll get something going on the little layout.

Passenger cars

Three of the four Shapeways passenger cars; two coaches and a baggage car. The combine was, unfortunately, destroyed by my rough handling. These cars are fragile!

They are smaller than the converted Bachmann cars I have, they aren't as tall and have no letterboard. Part of this is due, I think, to the RLW roof I have on Coach 24. I should have trimmed off some of the Bachmann's letterboard, in comparison to the Shapeways car it looks encephalitic.

Parlor car 20 has the original Bachmann roof so it isn't as bad, but it is still taller than the Shapeways cars. The picture is a bit blurry because the camera chose to focus on the background (one day I'll have to learn to use the settings instead of the automatic functions), but it shows the difference in car heights. (Yes, I know, I need to put battens on the parlor car under the window trim. Yes, I know, the center window isn't actually on center on one side of the prototype. It's an N scale model, give me a break.)

One thing I should have done and didn't is put "glass" in the Shapeways cars. I didn't think it would make a big difference, but it definitely does. Clear plastic from the coupler packages would have filled the bill quite nicely. I will do this in the future, but the roofs are glued on these cars and they would be destroyed if I tried to remove them, so they are going to stay the way they are.

In conclusion, the Shapeways cars are a quick and easy (and inexpensive) way to expand your varnish fleet, they are easy to assemble and the results are good. Just be careful with them and they should do fine.

Shapeways

As expected the Shapeways cars arrived just in time for the trip to Florida.

When I got back I was able to get them painted up and I have assembled one of the three bay cars. Unfortunately one end platform on each of the two bay cars have been damaged, so I will have to rebuild them before I can put them together.

The cars are much easier and therefore quicker to build than the RLW ones because the end platforms are already built. For this initial evaluation I didn't bother building anything else up, but the cars can be detailed with brass wire grab irons, styrene brake platforms, and brass brake wheels like the RLW cars would be and should look pretty good when they are done.
 

First impressions of the three bay cars: They are roughly the same size as the RLW cars, as they should be. The RLW cars have a white metal bottom which the Shapeways car lacks, so the Shapeways car is lighter. This will likely cause problems with running them, but the good news is you can pull more of them.

Also nice is the trucks. For the first time ever the proper Vulcan trucks can be had. I had been using Z scale Bettendorfs, which worked but weren't quite right. Now they are right.

The trucks are available separately, so I will be putting them on the rest of my hopper fleet as well.

I also built up some of the passenger cars from Shapeways as well. They are pretty nice little cars, but they are fragile, I got the coaches done but I destroyed the combine while I was putting it together. I'll have to get another one to complete the set. The baggage car arrived without trucks, so I'll be using MicroTrains trucks on it when I put it together.  Pictures will be up soon.