OBB Railjet Taurus in OO Gauge

[Sir TophamHatt]

Just checking...

 

does anyone produce a OO gauge Taurus loco + coaches?

[MGR Hooper!]

Nope! No market for it.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Do you mean HO? 

 

https://www.eurorailhobbies.com/product.asp?mn=4&ca=2&sc=HO&stock=R-64089

 

https://www.eurorailhobbies.com/product.asp?mn=4&ca=2&sc=HO&stock=R-73247

 

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Satan's Goldfish

[Sir TophamHatt]

OO / HO... pretty much the same to me

(Yes, I realise there are differences, but I'm not at that stage of modelling yet!)

[giz]

Also available from UK retailers e.g.

 

https://www.scograil.co.uk/roco-74114-ho-gauge-obb-rh1216-railjet-train-pack-16043-p.asp

 

Edit: Piko produce them as well as Roco, I think they are in their Hobby range so are cheaper than Roco

 

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by giz

[duff man]

Hi.

If scale ie OO/HO is not a problem then you can choose almost any livery form many European manufacturers. A good place to start would be Gaugemaster here in the UK.

[duff man]

Also agree with giz, Scograil are a great dealer there service is spot on and they usually have a discount also recommend C and M models in Carlisle just as good. Both have websites.

 

[Sir TophamHatt]

Thanks for the UK supplier links.

Not sure I can sink the £500 though! 

[giz]

4 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Thanks for the UK supplier links.

Not sure I can sink the £500 though! 

That is the full set, you can buy the loco and coaches separately.  The Piko Taurus is cheaper, about £125, and the coaches, being in their Hobby range can be bought for about £30 each.

 

https://www.scograil.co.uk/piko-59914-ho-gauge-obb-railjet-rh1216-taurus-electric-locomotive-12621-p.asp

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by giz
Piko Taurus link added

[Sir TophamHatt]

Hmm.

But if it's a more basic version, just means I have to save for longer... or put it on the 0% credit card

Edited April 24, 2019 by Sir TophamHatt

[duff man]

Hi

Piko have different quality models just like Hornby, I have models from both of there ranges. If quality is more important to you then go for Roco or Jagerndorfer both produce excellent models which can if you shop around be picked up for £145/150 for non sound and around £235 for sound.

I note we don't live very far from each other, if you would like to have a good look at the various ranges  PM me, you would be quite welcome to pop over and have a look.

Craig.

[Vecchio]

Even the Piko may be more basic - running on a layout you cannot see that if it is not right in front of your nose. I purchased several Piko Hobby Taurus and modified them a little. So I changed the pantographs for Sommerfeldt and added red lights on all of them. They are great runners and the basic version was well under 100 €. A price which allows me playing with them - Added movable pantographs into 3 of them (memory wire) and electric couplings into one of them (system Krois). And of course I have also grabbed a few bargains like the Jaegerndorfer Kaiser Franz Joseph edition and the Slovakian Manner Schnitten Taurus (Roco, sound). Those I have not modified (too expensive...)

Another dealer in the UK for continental stuff (and source of my Manner Schnitten model) is A&H models in Brackley. Good service!

[Guest teacupteacup]

+1 for Piko products!  I have products by Piko, Roco and Fleischmann, of the 3 I'd say Roco where the overall best.

 

Note though, that like a few of the major European manufactures, the coaches are generally underlength.    For modern coaches you're looking at around 300mm, the 'shorties' seem to be in the range of 260-280ish mm.  I have a few Piko Silverfish coaches, they are part of the expert range and are 300mm long - scale length

 

Euro HO is as much as a draw as US HO is!!!!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

One of our members brought along the ROCO Railjet set for the end of show frollics at Rotarail today. It is a stunning set, and I thoroughly recommend it. A word on Piko, we had a lot of Piko running at the show today; the newer stuff is very good quality, so the Railjet set will still be excellent (another member has a couple of Piko Taurus locos, which are very nice models).

[Sir TophamHatt]

It seems Roco are re-releasing the DVT/Coach set.

I've asked if anything has changed from the current, but low stock verson and this re-release.

 

Luckily, I've been busy selling this week and now have about £200 - so half way there!

[SRman]

It may have been mentioned already, but if you intend running European HO stock side by side with British OO stock, there is not a huge size difference between them in model form. The European stock tends to be much larger than British stock, but because it is made to the smaller scale, they sit quite well together. I have been mixing some German and Danish trains with my more usual British stock and it really doesn't clash visually.

As others have already pointed out, the OBB Railjet stock is available from more than one manufacturer in HO scale (and very smart it looks, too).

As also mentioned above, the Piko "Hobby" range is probably roughly equivalent to Hornby's RailRoad range, but I would rate it as higher quality from the three models I bought: a BR 182 and two BR 185 locos. The DB red liveries are in self-coloured plastic but look good, while the fancier "Kassel Huskies" silver livery looks very professionally applied (better than the "Hobby" designation would suggest). All three were at very reasonable prices from a German retailer (modellbahnshop-lippe - no connection). My recent purchase of a BR 112 from their "Expert" range is several steps better again, with full lighting functions separately controllable and a painted finish, with more separately fitted details. Running qualities of all of these locos is top notch, although I do wonder why they had to have traction tyres fitted, since they are all-wheel drive and very heavy.

The Roco and Brawa coaches and wagons I have are of a very high quality too. The Brawa double deck passenger stock was very expensive (a bit of an indulgence on my part!) but also very fully featured, while most of my Roco items were bought second-hand, so not quite as painful to the hip pocket.

One trap to watch for with all of these models is that 3-rail AC is still quite popular in Europe, and most of these models are offered in both AC and DC forms, so be careful to select the right model numbers when buying them, even more so when buying used items.

[Sir TophamHatt]

21 hours ago, SRman said:

One trap to watch for with all of these models is that 3-rail AC is still quite popular in Europe, and most of these models are offered in both AC and DC forms, so be careful to select the right model numbers when buying them, even more so when buying used items.

 

Thought this was worth quoting for future use.

I saw loads of different versions and was confused on the differences for a moment!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Yes, easily done; particularly with the Brawa, Piko and Roco models. It is a bit of a bane when looking at the end of line ranges or sales...often they have exactly the loco you want, but in AC! ESU have managed to design their models so they work on both AC and DC. 

[ianathompson]

21 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

On 29/04/2019 at 13:15, SRman said:

One trap to watch for with all of these models is that 3-rail AC is still quite popular in Europe, and most of these models are offered in both AC and DC forms, so be careful to select the right model numbers when buying them, even more so when buying used items.

 

Thought this was worth quoting for future use.

I saw loads of different versions and was confused on the differences for a moment!

 

I will second this!

I bought a Roco loco on Ebay to cut up for the AFK.

It was a Roco standard issue BUT factory modified for 3 rail.

This was NOT made clear by the vendor, although I had my suspicions because of the box colours.

 

Thankfully a couple of minutes with some basic tools restored it to 2 rail running.

 

Ian T

[Claude_Dreyfus]

5 minutes ago, ianathompson said:

 

I will second this!

I bought a Roco loco on Ebay to cut up for the AFK.

It was a Roco standard issue BUT factory modified for 3 rail.

This was NOT made clear by the vendor, although I had my suspicions because of the box colours.

 

Thankfully a couple of minutes with some basic tools restored it to 2 rail running.

 

Ian T

Apologies for the OT, but how straight forward is it to convert AC to DC? Clearly must be possible given ESU multi current capability.  I thought it was an involved job, or was this simply a 3 rail to 2 rail change?

[ianathompson]

1 hour ago, Claude_Dreyfus said:

Apologies for the OT, but how straight forward is it to convert AC to DC? Clearly must be possible given ESU multi current capability.  I thought it was an involved job, or was this simply a 3 rail to 2 rail change?

 

It was simply a conversion from 3 rail pick up to 2 rail rather than AC to DC.

Roco had simply added a skate under the chassis to pick up from the centre rail.

Fortunately the wheel sets were insulated as they would be for 2 rail otherwise the whole project would have been a basket case!

Sorry for the confusion.

 

Ian T

[SRman]

Illustrating what I said before about mixing the British OO and European HO scale stock on the same layout, here is a link to a short video I took of my Heljan Danish IC3 unit (in Swedish Y2 guise) cruising around Newton Broadway with BR stock predominating in the background. Hopefully this is not too far off-topic.
 

 

[Legend]

Interesting thread . I've always fancied a DB103 from my early days , and maybe a rake of Rheingold coaches (red/cream) behind it . Seem to be various locos at decent prices on eBay but struggling a bit with coaches . I know some European ones are short length and would prefer longer length ones . Anyone recommend make of coaches I should go for ? Do Piko do a 103?

[SRman]

Piko, Roco, Fleischmann and Marklin (AC)/Trix (DC) at least make the BR 103 - there may be more as it seems to have been a very popular subject for models. Funnily enough, the 103 doesn't particularly appeal to me.

Coaches do seem to be very expensive to me, although most that I bought were second-hand. Roco do full scale length coaches, and the Brawa double deck stock I bought is also full length, whereas the Piko ones seem to be shortened (around 1:100 scale length). Not all are obviously labelled as such, particularly when buying second-hand.

Others with far more expertise than me may be able to assist as well.

Edited May 3, 2019 by SRman

[brigo]

On 01/05/2019 at 11:09, ianathompson said:

 

It was simply a conversion from 3 rail pick up to 2 rail rather than AC to DC.

Roco had simply added a skate under the chassis to pick up from the centre rail.

Fortunately the wheel sets were insulated as they would be for 2 rail otherwise the whole project would have been a basket case!

Sorry for the confusion.

 

Ian T

 

They are not always that simple to convert. I have had a couple of Roco AC locos that I have bought cheap mainly for the bodies. I found the wheels to have deeper flanges and the motor gearing was different. The worm gear was a double start version which basically halves the reduction ratio. This is done because the motor runs at half speed, the AC voltage being converted to DC via half-wave rectification. Depending upon which half of the half-wave is fed to the motor changes the direction.

 

Brian