I have finished mounting the pilots and redoing the stairs. The couplers are attached to the frame although I may have been able to leave the rear one on the truck but for some reason I got it into my head to change it. The front one is a dummy. I had to hog out quite a bit of the rear pilot to make it all work but when running it is not really noticeable.
John, those louvers I made and installed before I got the shell from you. I have not started cutting up that shell yet, it will probably be dedicated to another rendition. I have a Williams frame with can motors that I will most likely put it on.
The Williams shell is a clone of the early Lionel, made to fit the frame with the old large frame motors. The new shell could be made more in scale because of the smaller can motors. It is shorter and has a narrower body but wider across the walkways. The details are also finer, a good thing.
Interesting Dan, I have an old Williams Penn Central Train Master shell here, I was going to paint it, but that project got sidetracked several years ago and I ended up selling the Williams engine, so now I have an extra shell.
While doing some test runs I found that because of the roller spacing on the Train Master there is a dead spot when rolling through the diamond! I will have to make a tethered car to help it on the figure eight portion. I am concurrently working on a FM C-liner CPA-16-5. I am combining two systems here and it didn't really work out so I had to turn some wider wheels (from old Alco loco) for the front truck. Swapped out a PA truck for the rear. The scale wheels were set too wide apart and setting them closer did not leave much tire on the rail because they are much narrower. Without switches it would have been fine.
Scale wheels don't really work with most 3-rail switches, at least my experience with Tubular, Fastrack, Atlas, and Gargraves switches leads me to believe that.
I could make them work fine on Super O but only by narrowing the gap of the guard rails. Then normal wheels wouldn't run through. The best solution is just to re-wheel them. I just got some Atlas F7s and they have over-size wheels compared to the ones on the Rivarossi FM. I have to convert them to 3-rail before I can test them out though. The Atlas may not be as easy to convert but I have some Williams and Lionel F units just waiting for the knife!
While mulling over the Train Master I took the CPA-16-5 as far as I am going to. Hauling some mixed freight while waiting for her passenger train to be completed.
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