The donor locomotive

The Philotrain kit is a conversion kit for a existing donor model.

Taking a donor has the following advantages

• It saves hugely on building a chassis yourself and fiddling the motion gear together
• In the case of Philotrain it may also be a cost saver when the donor readily available

There ar some setbacks.

• the loco will not run any better than the donor. Usually there is very little that can be done to improve it riding characteristics. Speed and especially overspeed of the donor will be retained.
• The phsysical appearance of wheels and motion gear may very well stay the same which in mass production models and especially the somehwat older one not always a recommendation.

In all it is a tradeoff, a compromise. Well, that's life.

The donor is Fleischmann BR 94 which is readily available for a very reasonable price, this one cost me €60.

A few shots of this lady before she is tranformed forever. Sorry to see this beautiful girl go.