Been awhile since the last post.
Since then Bachmann have revealed colour samples and sent out some review models to the press and they’re well on their way to the UK. The ship has gone the pretty way (the not getting shot at long way round) and thus the delivery will be a couple of weeks later than originally anticipated. They’ll be here toward the end of June.
I’ve been lucky enough to have the loan of one of these.
When the models were first announced it took under twenty minutes for the first “are you going to be regauging them to 14mm?” request arrived.
The answer is yes and the design is well on the way to being sorted.
The plan is to do the conversion with completely new axles so that the originals don’t have to be cannibalised for parts.
The design has been done for some weeks now but test parts are now starting to arrive.
Here we have castings for the bearings and flycranks. The cranks will be the ones we use but we now have an alternative machined option for the bearing. The sample gears have also arrived so it was possible to check the bearing fit and the gear mesh in one go.
All fitted well and worked when power was applied so I’m happy with that bit of the job.
A very timely find has been a CNC machine shop that can do the small stuff us modellers want and at a reasonable price.
They are currently doing some wagon bearings for me but have already quoted for the axles. I’d gone down the castings route for the bearings thinking they’d be difficult or expensive to machine. The new CNC man seemed to take the other stuff in his stride so I thought it worth an ask. I fully expected to be told no either directly or with a price that meant no. Instead I got, yeah, i can do that and at a reasonable price.
I’ve now got as far as a fully mocked up axle that runs in the loco.
The CNC prices fully demonstrate the unit price being cheaper the more you have and, as a result, several projects currently in development are likely to use the same axles and bearings. They could become the new standard.
The engine and three wagons I had loan of are to be a draw prize at this coming Saturdays (8th June 2024) 7mm Narrow Gauge Association Exhibition in Burton upon Trent so I’ve had to leave it at 16.5mm gauge and put it back in its box nicely run in.
Have a look at these videos to see it in action
At least for now I am only supplying converted locos rather than a kit for you to convert yours. That might come later but for now i need control of the conversion to make sure it all works reliably. If you are interested in an NG7-14 (014) loco or stock get in touch. The e-mail is info<at>ngtrains,com [you need to change the <at> to @]
