8) My scratch building of small tanks in 1:72 scale from just plastic card has won prizes at IPMS shows, so I should be OK. In any event, as Mark Newton quite rightly observes, whatever I use as the "armature" be it a running or non-running engine, a beautiful and pricey European engine or a low end Model Power engine or even just scrap plastic will be completely covered in the finihed project.
Actually, my wife, who always takes an interest in my projects (she describes military modelling, wargaming and model railroading as "art") took a look last night at the line diagram of the G5 and then the armoured loco I want to build. Her reaction was to twist her face and call the Ti3 "extremely ugly" and that "it would be a crime" to cover up a really nice locomotive model that way. 8)
Going back to the first Model Power locomotive I was investigating (
I think I'm set. Thank you Greg, for your patience and help and again, I also thank Mark and Gerard for their efforts and thoughts on this, and Wolf, too, of course (PS Wolf, I'm in Newfoundland, unfortunately too far away from the hobby shop Mecca - at least compared to here! - of the Toronto area).