Donor Boiler

I managed to acquire a Bachmann On30 4-6-0 off of eBay last week. As I pulled it from the box I saw all the things wrong with it; missing pilot, broken front coupler, broken and missing hatch on the cab roof and the tender is missing two sets of wheels. The truck is there but the wheels are missing.

Initially I was a bit put out that I hadn't read the description carefully enough beyond it was a good runner. Then it hit me, I don't care if its missing those parts, I just need the boiler! This is the donor locomotive to convert the Bachmann On30 2-8-0 to represent a Colorado & Northwestern 2-8-0 which means I don't care about the broken details. I'm going to strip the boiler down of all its components and fit it to the Bachmann On30 2-8-0, now I just need to find some detail parts, new steam dome, new sand dome and a few other pieces for my first locomotive conversion.

Another Acquisition! On30 Strikes again

It amazing what can fall into your lap at times. I just recently acquired a used Bachmann On30 2-8-0. Very much destined to be kitbashed into a C&N 2-8-0. Since this was the first one I have managed to get my hands on at a really good price I am a bit reluctant to go forward with the boiler swap. Stripping and detailing don't worry me to much, but I'm just not sure how well the swap will go. 

In light of that I continued to keep an eye on eBay for another one. On Sunday I won another auction for one of these beauties. New, in the box, for a bit less than I paid for the other one! I think I have hit my wife's tolerance limit for locomotives though!

Acquisition - Finally!

I have been trying to lay my hands on a Bachmann On30 2-8-0, at a reasonable price, for years. Well, it finally happened and I managed to lay my hands on one. Granted it was not in the original box so all the little extra pieces were missing and it had a load of lumber in the tender instead of coal. I can live with all of that. What I might have trouble with is that it appears to be a DCC locomotive which I was not prepared for. Now I'm going to have to do the work and convert my smaller locomotives (a 2 truck Shay and a couple of Porters) over to DCC. Nothing like a challenge!

In Search of: Bachmann On30 2-8-0

If you have been reading my blog on a somewhat regular basis over the last few years or so then you are aware that a big part of the wild west town of Calamity will be the railroad. While I have a reasonable selection of 2-6-0 Moguls, freight and passenger cars at this point I'm still lacking the key player the 2-8-0 Consolidation.

Near as I can tell Bachmann doesn't seem to be interested in re-releasing this backbone of my intended freight service. I do find them on a somewhat regular basis over on eBay although they tend to go for $150 plus every time they make an appearance. Since I intend to do some major conversion work to make them at least resemble the 2-8-0s from the Colorado and Northwestern I'm a bit unwilling to spend quite that much money on something that might turn out to be a mangled mess.

I guess the plea here is if you have one of these sitting around an gathering dust let me know and we can work something out. It doesn't even need to be in working condition, I would be interested in just the frame and drivers at this point since I would be rebuilding a significant portion of it anyway.