del prado dummy surprisingly good!

[meehow]

I initially disregarded del prado locomotives as dummies because the steam ones have funny looking wheels. I assumed that all of them will be a side track decoration only. I was wrong.
Today, loaded F45 Sante Fe on track.
The loco has metal, spinning wheels on swivelling bogies! (the bearings are poor tho)
Combine that with actually good detail on the body and it's a dummy
A kato pushed it along the track with no issues whatsoever. No wobble, no derail, no excessive noise from wheels.
Pleasantly surprised.

[Bufferstop]

Similar thing in 00 with 66411 Eddie the Engine in Stobart Livery, from Atlas Editions. Hattons were flogging them off cheap after the Atlas series finished. I think I paid around a tenner, they are appearing on Ebay looking for 20-30 quid for starters.

It wasn't quite so simple to get rolling, the all metal wheelsets would have made it just a poser, but I swapped them for Romford coach wheels (which I had in stock), they were a simple swap once the bogies were off, they had to come off as it was riding too high. The mini tension lock coupling loops were at the right height but the Buffers were far too high so I fabricated some new mounting pillars from plasticard. They are still unpainted but some body colour has reflected off them in the photo. With standard length pinpoint axles in the bogies as they came, it rolls, enough to be dragged around by the yard shunter. With brass axle cups fitted it should roll well enough to be dragged along on the tail of the odd steam, or heritage traction, special to work down my branch.

[Mountain]

You can pick these things up quite cheaply. The main issue is to try to make them useable on a layout as they are generally designed for their looks rather then with conversion in mind.
Having said this, it is an interesting challenge, as long as one does not end up paying more out then a conventional working model will be to get rhe things to run!

[meehow]

You can pick these things up quite cheaply. The main issue is to try to make them useable on a layout as they are generally designed for their looks rather then with conversion in mind.
Having said this, it is an interesting challenge, as long as one does not end up paying more out then a conventional working model will be to get rhe things to run!

Absolutely!
I had that in mind.
In this instance, I have to install a coupling - appears to be straightforward and cheap upgrade.
The wheels roll fine out of the box but they are binding a lil bit on some curves so will need to adjust them somehow.
Yellow railings need painting imo.
It looks like this loco will be converted to a dummy for cheap.
I can see it as a part of a train. Thinking further, since they are so cheap, I could get 3, perhaps 4 and marry them to a powerful kato/atlas for a 4-5 header train.

[Mountain]

Ooh. The one I has had solid formed wheels that could not rotate, though it was a different make I think. It was a HST power car.
I gave it away because though I could have worked on it and made something of it, as it was an exact match for the Hornby and Lima power cars... I decided it was a bit too much work, especially since the Hornby or Lima HST's are quite common so they can be had for reasonable prices.

[Bufferstop]

They seem to fall into two groups, the ones like my Atlas Editions (I also have a narrow gauge tram from them) seem to be made from similar tooling to the RTR models, perhaps just a little less detailed. The other group are (I think) made by creating a mould from an RTR model and putting in a solid core then resin casting the model. When a similar mould taking was used with cast ceramics for the Lilliput Lane models they reckons there was I high level of shrinkage. The only model I posses which has been cast in ceramic is the Terrier. According to my callipers the final cast is 25% smaller than the Dapol model it seems to have been taken from, making it TT3 scale, 100:1

[Bigmet]

They seem to fall into two groups, the ones like my Atlas Editions (I also have a narrow gauge tram from them) seem to be made from similar tooling to the RTR models, perhaps just a little less detailed...

Quite likely that these are produced from 3D scanned models, the scan 'tidied up' in CAD, with CAM tooling for the moulds and dies, much as the physical structure of the GBL model series was produced.

There was visible proof that a model had been copied, (and even which manufacturer's version where was a choice, always the better one!) typically easily seen. Features not present on the prototype such as NEM coupler pockets, inaccurate dimensions required to produce a working RTR OO mechanism, and errors in appearance, all faithfully reproduced in the plinth model. The very small price if the resulting plastic body mouldings alone were considered, shows how cheap the copying and various reproduction process stages must have been.