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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    If I were going to invest $800, I'd buy some P&G stock, not a brass loco.... nope, for that kind of money, I don't want a pretty paperweight. It's gonna run, and I've already "defaced" its factory perfection by replacing the motor, adding weight, removing the (incorrect) lettering from one...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    Test run? What's that? Sure they test run. They stick it on a 3 foot section of straight track and run it back and forth. The pilot doesn't drag on the rail, it just hits at any irregularity, or just from the soft springing of the drivers any time it pitches forward a little. I'd...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    If there is a single most-common problem on brass locos - steam and diesel - it's the problem of the pilot being too close to the rail. In the noble effort to be accurate the pilot can end up being a very close shave, which is not tolerant of any track abnormalities. Add to that, pilots are...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    NIAGARA UPDATE..... More pics... here you can see the Kato motor installation. Not yet wired in this shot. The white plastic is just a scaffold to keep the decoder from falling on the drive shaft. You can see the white paint on the driver tires - which I thought was tacky looking...
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    BREAKING NEWS: Rock Island, NYCS to merge?

    Slogan: ROUTE ROCKEFELLER Andy
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    Kadee Coupler Confusion

    The Bachmann EZ-Mate is a licensed version of the original McHenry finger spring coupler. I think the current Bachmann coupler is the large head McHenry coil spring design. Athearn now owns McHenry, so the McHenry coupler is technically now the Athearn coupler. There is also a small head...
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    Has gas prices cut into your modeling?

    Hmm... about 5 years and 25 million dollars later, I could have my own Niagara. Do I make it an S1C #6026, or S2B #5501? As long as I don't have to letter it Conrail. Or CSX. Where to put those ditch lites? Andy
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    I think the BLI Mohawk may be stillborn. I haven't heard anything about it in a long time. OTOH, the MTH Mohawk is likely to get here fairly soon. I am taking a wait and see approach on that one. I have only had a close look at one MTH HO loco - a K4. The sound was so-so, of course I'd...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    I'm glad somebody else has had the same experience. I've been told there are different specs for the EN-22, but every one I've seen is the same. Machine servo motors do not necessarily make good locomotive motors. Guy used to do the show circuit and sell these giant can motors as replacements...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    True, but the T1 is the closest thing the Pennsy had to a 4-8-4. I always wondered what a 2-10-4 would have looked like with Niagara styling. There was one other loco with Niagara styling... the A2 Berkshire. With the fat boiler, Selkirk front end, lack of elephant ears, small drivers, etc...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    As I type, the Double-Nickel-Double-Ought is running with 9 cars in tow on the Kato Route. This is the train it wouldn't even pull 2/3 of last night. I opened it up and added one course of lead wrap in the firebox, another small loop in the hollow part of the boiler, a partial wrap around the...
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    Kadee Coupler Confusion

    It's unlikely that any of the Walthers cars have Kadee couplers on them unless you bought them secondhand. Walthers switched from horn-hooks to plastic knuckle couplers some years ago. They used McHenry finger spring couplers, McHenry coil spring, and McHenry scale head - until very recently...
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    NYC 5500 - the Poppet Super Niagara!

    I posted this to a few other forums but thought it might be of interest here too. Key Imports by Samhongsa, early 80s: It arrived today. 5500 was the 27th and last Niagara built, the only one of its experimental S2 class, the first to be retired and probably the first scrapped. Arguably...
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    RTR Athearn Units & Decoders

    diburning is correct - the best decoder fit depends on the vintage of your Athearn. The -AT boards are designed to go in classic Athearn locos that have no DCC prep in them at all. You could put one in a newer RTR unit, but if you do have the RTR, you already have a 9-pin socket and you can...
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    NCE Power Pro or Digitrax Super Chief??

    Having used both systems extensively, I decided some time back to stick with NCE. My first system was a Wangrow System-1 (built by NCE) 11 years ago. I bought a Digitrax to have radio when Wangrow/NCE didn't offer it. I used my own Digitrax system and have operated at a friend's house who has...
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    Model Railroad Hobbyist: A Threat to MR?

    Same here. Virtually all magazines, RR or otherwise end up in the powder room. Andy
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    Model Railroad Hobbyist: A Threat to MR?

    I didn't notice many McCain signs waving during Obama's speech last night either, funny how things like that go. Yeah, it makes Kalmbach seem petty, but what else are they gonna do? I run a list myself - the diesel modelers list. It isn't web based, or multimedia, and I don't allow...
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    What do you think about Athearn,Walthers,Concor passenger cars

    Rapido cars are Canadian prototypes, no Superliners. Andy
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    What do you think about Athearn,Walthers,Concor passenger cars

    Athearn's existing line of passenger cars dates from the 1950s, and has no prototypes except for (barely) the baggage and RPO cars. The others are shorty or freelanced versions of actual cars. ConCor's cars are crude, mostly 1970s tooling. Walthers is definitely at the top of the pile...
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    No cartoon......

    And by the time that runs out, they'll have pictures of Pluto - a whole new (dwarf) planet of rocks to mold! Andy




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