arealgijoe
Member
Friday our USPS deliver yet another FM C-liner I won on eBay. I had started on a new chassis for it, expecting it to be a typical ancient serious rehab job.
Before I tear one apart to re-build, I always test run them first, I do that anyway with ALL locos anyway. I was SHOCKED! It not only ran but flew around my test oval in style! I pooped the hood, removed the shell) and even bigger surprise! It looked NEW, like it had been in animated suspension for 4 decades, or there abouts. It looked, and ran as if it just came off the assembly line. I gave it a good once over and a proper lube with Labelle 108. (motor bearings & gears).
Like I said I was shocked it even ran, let alone like a BRAND NEW loco. The gear noise was not near as bad as I expected either. This specimen had very little if any run time, plus it must have been stored under IDEAL conditions. I never expected to get one that even ran poorly, let alone like this loco does. I would never have expected to get one any where near this pristine condition in a ZILLION years.
I installed DCC in it and used a SDN136D, a SOUND version of the DN136-D. (they are easily interchangeable since they use the same plugin wire harness.) I took the shell (with speaker install and simply plugged it in (via another plug on the other end of the decoder) and BINGO! I not only have a near original Atlas/RR FM C-line but with SOUND to boot. Making this a SOUND equipped loco was EASY, there is lot of room inside and since the sound part was just a matter of plug-in in the SDN136 and Speaker cable & using the sound enabled shell.
I will try and do a video of it tomorrow running and blowing its horns.
Before I tear one apart to re-build, I always test run them first, I do that anyway with ALL locos anyway. I was SHOCKED! It not only ran but flew around my test oval in style! I pooped the hood, removed the shell) and even bigger surprise! It looked NEW, like it had been in animated suspension for 4 decades, or there abouts. It looked, and ran as if it just came off the assembly line. I gave it a good once over and a proper lube with Labelle 108. (motor bearings & gears).
Like I said I was shocked it even ran, let alone like a BRAND NEW loco. The gear noise was not near as bad as I expected either. This specimen had very little if any run time, plus it must have been stored under IDEAL conditions. I never expected to get one that even ran poorly, let alone like this loco does. I would never have expected to get one any where near this pristine condition in a ZILLION years.
I installed DCC in it and used a SDN136D, a SOUND version of the DN136-D. (they are easily interchangeable since they use the same plugin wire harness.) I took the shell (with speaker install and simply plugged it in (via another plug on the other end of the decoder) and BINGO! I not only have a near original Atlas/RR FM C-line but with SOUND to boot. Making this a SOUND equipped loco was EASY, there is lot of room inside and since the sound part was just a matter of plug-in in the SDN136 and Speaker cable & using the sound enabled shell.
I will try and do a video of it tomorrow running and blowing its horns.
