Got the Brass Blues

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rlundy90

rlundy90

Armchair Engineer
Our model club had it's annual auction this weekend. I bought my first brass loco there. It is an Alco Models EMD NW-2 with KMT trucks. One of the gears on the rear truck axle is missing. I looked on the Northwest Shortline website but couldn't find them. I was totally lost as to what I was looking for anyhow. Someone has taken it apart and possibly put it together wrong.For instance one wire from the motor goes to the rear truck screw. The screw has a shoulder on it so that it can only tighten so far giving the truck some play so it can move. This doesn't allow the wire to be tightened and it moves around freely.
The whole drive mechanism seems really cheaply made. Is this thing going to be falling apart all the time? Are there parts to replace everything with better performing stuff. Or have I basically bought a nice static model that there are no parts available for? Need your help. Heres a few pics.
 
The drive is a pile of junk. You could spend a lot of $$ on NWSL parts to rebuild it, and have a lot of work ahead of you... or just get a switcher drive someplace else. I think the Proto 2000 switcher drive might be a good bet. You may have to chop off the frame ends because the brass will have the couplers mounted to the shell. You may have to shim the mount to get the correct height, and devise some way to hold the shell to the drive. I do strongly recommend not putting any $$ into the drive - it was a pile of junk when it was new, and the years don't improve it any!

Of course for probably the same or less $$ you could have had a Kato NW2, with a fantastic drive - but you need a chainsaw to get a decoder into it if you use DCC. The Kato NW2 drive probably wouldn't be a good fit for your brass shell, that's why I suggest the Proto - nice drive, you can probably find a complete SW1200 or SW900 for under $50 somewhere.

Andy
 
rlundy90 said:
Our model club had it's annual auction this weekend. I bought my first brass loco there. It is an Alco Models EMD NW-2 with KMT trucks. One of the gears on the rear truck axle is missing. I looked on the Northwest Shortline website but couldn't find them. I was totally lost as to what I was looking for anyhow. Someone has taken it apart and possibly put it together wrong.For instance one wire from the motor goes to the rear truck screw. The screw has a shoulder on it so that it can only tighten so far giving the truck some play so it can move. This doesn't allow the wire to be tightened and it moves around freely.
The whole drive mechanism seems really cheaply made. Is this thing going to be falling apart all the time? Are there parts to replace everything with better performing stuff. Or have I basically bought a nice static model that there are no parts available for? Need your help. Heres a few pics.
Click to expand...

This depends on your expectations for the model. Do you want it to run like a Proto 2000 or Kato switcher & be as quiet? Then follow Andy's advice. Do you want to restore it to original though running condition? If so, then NWSL does offer the necessary parts. The axle gears were most prone to failure in these old KMT drives. The screw for the wire does tighten only so far, to allow pivoting, and the wire is typically soldered to a connector which the screw holds tight. This little connector is probably lost. You can make them out of phosphor bronze sheet. Is the motor an old open frame? No problem if DC operation, but you will want to replace if you use DCC. Keep in mind that the repairs will still leave you with a model that will run, though not as smoothly or quietly as the modern plastic diesels out there. This model is probably somewhere between 30 and 40 years old and will have those period running characteristics. There is a repower & regear list on Yahoo that you could look into. Those guys are all veterans of this sort of thing.

Good Luck!
 


My very limited experience with brass models is that the mechanisms range from so-so to junk. After an expensive and frustrating time with a model I ended up throwing out, I promised myself I'd buy high-quality plastic models for the future. Maybe there are some locos around that are better, but I think that with brass, you're spending a heap of cash to get a model that will never work well.
 
Hi and thanks for the suggestions. I just finished checking out a drive from an Atlas Alco S2 and a Proto S3. Both should be suitable but so far the Atlas looks like the easiest way to go. With either one it will be a lot of work. Some fairly beefy section of the frame will have to be milled down. Also the Atlas has the wrong style of trucks. Can the sideframes be changed on the Atlas trucks?
 
I assume the S2 has Blunt trucks. The AAR switcher sideframes from the S3 should fit fine since the wheelbase is the same. I don't know how the P2K sideframes attach to the trucks compared to the Atlas sideframes so I'd check to make sure that swapping sideframes doesn't become a major task.
 
rlundy90 said:
Hi and thanks for the suggestions. I just finished checking out a drive from an Atlas Alco S2 and a Proto S3. Both should be suitable but so far the Atlas looks like the easiest way to go. With either one it will be a lot of work. Some fairly beefy section of the frame will have to be milled down. Also the Atlas has the wrong style of trucks. Can the sideframes be changed on the Atlas trucks?
Click to expand...

Better off just starting with the correct ones. I don't know for sure if the Alco switchers have the same wheelbase - the Proto SW - any of them - would be the easiest to fit because it doesn't have the humongous weight crammed under the hood. You could also use an Athearn SW7 drive - that's going to be the cheapest alternative especially if you just go drum up a used one. Which may or may not run great... but even if it doesn't, it's easy and cheap to fix - the opposite of the KMT drive.

Andy
 
John P said:
My very limited experience with brass models is that the mechanisms range from so-so to junk. After an expensive and frustrating time with a model I ended up throwing out, I promised myself I'd buy high-quality plastic models for the future. Maybe there are some locos around that are better, but I think that with brass, you're spending a heap of cash to get a model that will never work well.
Click to expand...

Well then John, you probably have not had much exposure ;). The new Overland models run quite well, though they are very expensive, and very limited production. I have lots of brass steam locomotive models that are over 40 years old but run like watches. Some of the steamers are so quiet that the only sound you hear when they run is that of the wheels on the rails. You have to remember that this particular model had an MSRP of $90.00 in 1975 when it was brand new, so brass or not it was down in the lower third of the pricing/quality tier. New diesels by the higher quality manufacturers even then were selling for $2-300.00. You get what you pay for :) I would tend to agree with you that there is not much reason to buy brass diesels today as the cost of excellent plastic models with sound & DCC installed is roughly half or less than the brass offerings. The exception is those of us looking for that special model that was so scarce that it will never be done in plastic. Most of us who buy/own brass do so because what we want is not available in plastic, and likely never will be. I like the late steam era SP, and my choices, even now, in plastic are very limited if I want accurate models.

There are also collectors who never operate them, just collect them for the joy of ownership.

The other side of this arguement is, if you went and bought a vintage plastic model, such as a very early Athearn, Model Power, or an old Varney offering, you'd expect to do some work on it before running it wouldn't you? Same thing!

As for the fellow who bought the loco, you can do the chassis swap, and the old one presents a great opportunity to develop your re-motoring/tinkering skills. It's a win/win :D
 
Looks like I have no choice but to use the Proto unit. The Atlas unit is too long, so I guess proto it is. Some cutting and grinding on the frame and I think it should work.
 
Another option would be to adapt the Proto motor and trucks to the brass chassis. This will probably take some basic scratchbuilding and soldering, but it will allow you to retain the brass tanks and details from the original chassis.

John.
 


The easiest way to go, that I can see is to just mill down the frame and use the whole unit. The wheel base is almost the same and should fit under the shell nicely. It would be a tough job to just use the motor and trucks.
 
I have gotten the old KMT drives to run very smooth, adding 8 wheel pickup, can motor and NWSL gears solves its issues, but it will never be quiet. The staight cut spur gears in the towers will just howl all the time. I just did a Oriental Limited/Samhongsa drive that is very similar, very very smooth and slow, but very noisy by todays standards. I have never seen a quiet real locomotive unless its not running. I do offer repair services for the original drive system, I can pull and change gears ect, remotor to a can motor if it still has an open frame. But I dont do whole chassis repowers as I like to keep the drive original and just make them run as well as they can. My Hallmark Baldwin and Alco models GP38 are both noisy, but run smooth. I do run them, but most of the time they look nice in the cabinet with my wifes brass collection as I keep them unpainted for now. Good luck on which ever way you decide to go. P.S. If you got the engine cheap enough, you might try and restore the gearing, then save up for a Kato or Proto SW to run as well.
 
rlundy90 said:
The easiest way to go, that I can see is to just mill down the frame and use the whole unit. The wheel base is almost the same and should fit under the shell nicely. It would be a tough job to just use the motor and trucks.
Click to expand...


Maybe, maybe not. All the brass desiels I've worked on have thin brass chassis. Trying to mill down a cast frame to .040 thick will be time consuming, and thats if he even has access to a mill, which I'm betting most model railroaders do not. Sure you could do it with a Dremel cutting wheel and file, but in the amount of time that would take I could solder in a couple of scratchbuilt bolsters and have the thing on the rails again. I'm also not sure how strong that material would be when milled that thin. (might be Okay?)

Now I have repowered a few brass E units with Proto 2000 drives, but it involved unsoldering the long "shelves" that the chassis mount to and resoldering them higher in the shell to compensate for the much thicker Proto frames. Something someone with little soldering experience might not want to attempt.
John.
 
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Well this morning I decided to go ahead and repower it with a new Drive from a Proto 2000 Alco S3. It went surprisingly well for my first time attempting something like this. Changing the chassis also solved some coupler issues I had as well. I started at 8:30 am and by 2:pm I was at Rico's running it. It runs very well and I couldn't hear it at all. I don't know how it pulls as I didn't throw any couplers on it yet. Now I have to decide what road it will be. Heres a couple of pics of the old and new drives.
 
I'm thinking about using it for this. It doesn't have to pull much so the drive should be strong enough.
 
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