Anyway, the following is a cut and paste from the OST Forum (cause I'm lazy).
When I bought a large portion of the Protocraft line, with the intent of expanding Right-O'-Way's presence in Proto48, I ended up with thousands of 36", 40", and 42" diesel wheels. It appeared to me that if sales continued at their present rate I would have enough wheels to last me 50 years. So I said to myself, self, how can I sell more of these wheels? Self said, I dunno.
Anyway, I like the diesels Sunset 3rd rail is producing (I bought the SP BW SD-9). My primary reason, I feel their drives are far superior to their competition's. Don't get me wrong, I've made a few bucks over the years replacing China drives but that's not the way to bring in new modelers to P:48. Self started thinking, if we could produce replacement axles/wheels (P:48) that could be swapped out with the original factory Ow5 (that's not an insult, I model Ow5) modelers could make their models capable of running on P:48 track. Changing nothing else on the models (side frames stay where they are would keep everything fairly simple and the model(s) could be changed back to Ow5.
Now, I had the wheels and axle material but bronze gears & bearings would probably be too expensive to make the whole thing viable. I decided to ask Scott Mann what he thought of my idea and asked if he had any extra gears and bearings. He said he didn't have the quantity I wanted in stock but like my idea. He then offered to have new gears, bearings, and thrust washers made by his builder. I jumped on the offer and he came through for me. Actually, the first batch were made to the specs for models previously produced. These gears measured 10.5mm in diameter and we needed the 10.1mm version.
About a week ago I took delivery of the correct gears. Since then I've assembled fifty, or so, axle sets. Just to make sure all of this was going to work I converted my SD-9 and it runs just as nice as it did before my modifications.
These sets will work in any of the current and future Sunset 3rd Rail diesels. This will include the second run of the EMD F-7s, the new F-3s, E5/6, RI Rocket, the PA/PB, and the SD40-2 (if Scott gets enough reservations). The larger (10.5mm) sets will work in the recent runs of E7, FL9, FT, FP7, F7 (1st run).
Oh yeah, the reservations for the SD-40-2 are way down. If you're interested in getting one (or more) and using these conversion kits I would recommend getting your reservation in.
Now the purest in P:48 may not approve but, to me, it allows people to get into P:48 and try it out. If they want out or want to sell their models they can switch them back to factory original.
Jay
