Thursday, December 11, 2008

More steam loco stuff

This evening I've got out the measuring stick to see whats out there in the way of steam loco drivers.
to recap, here is a list of standard NZR driver sizes, and translation to their scale size.
3' (early loco's F, D, L etc) - 7.5mm
3'6" (B series) - 8.25mm
4' ish ( Wf, wg, Ww, Q, Aa U series) 10.0mm
4'6" ( A, Ab, K series, ja series) 11.25mm

so how does the commercial stuff line up.

Bachmann 4-8-2 9.5mm (10.5mm)
Bachmann J 4-8-4 10.5mm, 11.5mm)
Fleishman 2-6-0 8mm, (10mm)
Farish 0-6-0 9mm, (10.5mm)
Minitrix 4-6-2 11.5mm (14mm)

(numbers in brackets are the diameters over the wheel flanges)

A cursory look would suggest that the Minitrix 4-6-2 is almost ideal for any pacific, and the 8 coupled locos are way too small. however, the devil is in the detail ( or in this case the wheel flanges).
for any NZR 6 coupled loco the wheelbase spacing is 12.5mm ( 5'), and so any wheel has to have a flange measurement under this value. Likewise the 8 coupled locos. Now if anyone can get me measurements on the various kato loco's out there, I'll add them to the list (this goes for other loco's I've missed).

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