Bachmann shook up the industry when it announced that they would be adding Sodor's narrow gauge engine "Skarloey" to their line last year. It was the first time that they produced an HOn30 locomotive, even if it was designed to be for kids.   It turned out that Skarloey was an excellent runner, and the modelers in the UK started hacking at theirs to remove the face, and convert it to a usable OO9 loco.  We couldn't let them have all the fun, so we designed a Baldwin 0-4-2 body to easily fit over Skarloey's excellent little chassis. Based on an 1890 design for a Hawaiian plantation, we scaled it around a bit and created the "Big Kahuna" tank engine.  It's a very simple build, and if you shop at the Bachmann Online Parts store, you can get all the parts required for the Skarloey chassis for around $50, saving a ton of money versus buying a RTR Skarloey and disassembling it. 

The Bachmann N scale 0-6-0/ 2-6-2 Prairie has been around for decades. The original version with the plastic frame has been discontinued for a long time, and it has been replaced with a more modern split frame design. Around 2015, Bachmann updated this model again, replacing the open frame motor that sticks out of the rear of the cab with a nice enclosed can motor. We designed our conversion kit around the newest version, but it should work with the open frame motor version, but you will probably have the motor sticking out of the cab.   

This conversion kit is easy to build, and includes the cab, the boiler, walkways and cylinder "covers".  The donor cylinders need to be trimmed down to allow the covers to fit, but if you don't want to use them, that's fine as well.  

Other versions of this kit will be coming, because it seems like everyone has a couple of the 0-6-0s in their stash.  A Tender conversion is also coming that simply fits over the donor tender. We've made it separate to keep the cost of the kits down, and not everyone will want to use that tender for their locomotive. 

Keep an eye out, because we're working on even more products for the HOn30 modeler to build their empire...

Go Build Something Awesome!

When we introduced the first two 20' HOn30 car kits, the idea was to create a "family" of similar cars so that a modeler could have a number of cars on their railroad that all shared similar features. Easy to build, and close enough in appearance that a train of cars would look "right".   There were a lot of things about the first cars that we loved, and some that we didn't, so Rich has been spending a considerable amount of time glued to the computer designing a whole family of freight cars. 

Features of the new cars:

• universal underframes
• universal roofs
• "pre drilled" holes for grabs and details
• slightly longer wheelbase
• universal coupler style (Micro-Trains 1015)
• universal truck style (can use Micro-Trains N scale, or Marsh Creek 3' Wheelbase w/ 36" N wheels)
• laser cut and cast resin details
• NBWs, wire, and monofilament for truss rods included

Releases will be done in phases, the 9 cars shown above will be broken up into logical releases, and we're still drawing other cars as well to finish out the series.