Looking for Kansas City Southern Belle n-scale

Feb 13, 2005 5 Replies

After decades of procrastinating I've decided to start an n-scale railroad, and was trying to find the old Southern Belle that I used to ride when I was a kid. Con-cor lists the passenger cars for sale which are the black body, silver top, with red/yellow small stripes on the side. Searching the companies I can't find any engines with the same color scheme, all the ones I've found so far are the yellow predominant.



Does anyone know if there were any sets manufactured, or separate engines with the black scheme?



Thanks!!



Unk


There are none as there were none on the prototype either. The KCS painted the passenger engines in a predominantly yellow livery as is on the Life-Like E units and the Erie builts. If you use the Life-Like E units you will be good to go for the Southern Belle. The Erie builts were used some in passenger service as were a few of the F units. Mostly, however, passenger service was the province of the E units.

Google on and see what you get. There is a lot there.

Captain Handbrake @ ACL.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.east.earthlink.net:

Thanks for all the information, I've got the Life-like engine coming plus three cars, will have to hunt down the rest as production/stock is going away it seems.

Also decided to get dcc controller, just too easy and I'll spend a bit more to be able to not have to do all of that separate wiring.

Also also going for flextrack on most of the layout, so last question for now, is 55 track better than 80 for realism -and- reliability in running smooth, or should I stick to 80?

Thanks!

John

I don't do N, but I see lots of photos of well done N scale layouts, well scenicked, weathered, ballasted - and with one glaring drawback, rail that's a foot and a half high. I believe most modern N scale stuff will operate fine on Code 55 - which looks reasonable, although it's still too large, like Code 100 in HO.

The only N scale trackage I've seen that looks really good was Code 40, but that means hand laid and may well require custom wheelsets to work.

Steve Caple wrote: [...]

MicroEngineering makes weathered and unweathered code-40 flex track and

3-point track gauges, but noit turnouts, unfotunately. (as well as rail).

HTH

How well do off-the shelf N scale steam engines and cars handle the small rail?

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