Hi all,

As some of you may know, I’ve got this thing for the Bavarian GT 2 x 4/4 Mallet locos. Some might know that a lot more Bavarian Mallets used to be in service in this area during the earlier days of railroading. One of them is in Roco’s program for many years. Frustratingly enough, never in AC. I’m talking about the BB II. For years I’ve been contemplating converting one to AC, but I never got about to actually perform this trick of which I do not know who pulled it off. (If you have experience with this exact conversion, I would love to hear how you pulled it off, perhaps I could use your insights once)

This year again, a re-issue of the model appeared, again not in AC. At somewhat the same time, I got in possession of two of the older versions of this little gem. (The 43281 and 43286). So, the time had come to try fitting one with a pickup shoe and a decoder. For the ones interested, I’ll try to keep you informed on the progress made in this little yet not easy project.

First of all, I have to confess that I personally forgot to make a picture of the loco before starting off, luckily, a friend of mine did and posted pictures on his website (highly recommended to browse through, by the way, http://www.osterthun.com), see:

http://www.osterthun.com...s97-99/Baureihe~98.7.htm

After some consideration, I’ve chosen the more recent (and somewhat less pretty) 43286 to convert first. This for the simple reason that the model is more recent and therefore might be less likely to be made out of a more brittle type of material. (And of course to make the most beautiful one also the most perfect one… )

So, off we go, after several hours of delicate work, using a small hand powered drill, several sharp hobby knifes and sanding paper, I’ve managed to create some space for the slider (Roco flüsterschleifer, short version) to fit in. A lot of space is needed for that, as the slider has to have the room to move up a little on turnouts, where the centre studs are significantly higher in order to lift the slider over the crossed rails. This required two additional holes in the bottom, besides the one needed to attach the slider itself to the model. Besides that, it needed to be made sure that it is not possible to get a short when the slider touches the chassis of the loco on a turnout. Some pictures of that are attached here. My sincere apologies for the rather humble quality, I've taken them with my phone, as it was the only photography device at hand during the conversion.





The second step was to mount the slider, connect both sides of the wheel sliders that used to be isolated (as it used to be a DC loco), and getting to wires to the drivers cab where a very little space is planned to place the Lokpilot Micro Multiprotokoll. Some more pics:





In order to check whether there really is enough space for the slider now, and more grinding and milling is unnecessary, I made a little test run over some C-rail switches, pushed by another loco. It seems to work! [#9786;] By the way, probably this model will not be suitable to use on K-track, due to the small flanges of the model, changing that would be a little too laborious to my taste)

The main share of the work seems to be done, as there are only four wires needed, since the model is not equipped with functional front lights or other fancy features.
Unfortunately, this is where the work stops for now, as I do not have a suitable decoder present at the moment, neither do I have more time for the next couple of weeks.
For the ones among you who are not bored yet: I’ll keep you informed!

FINAL UPDATE: SUCCESS

After a friendly inquiry of a friend, "whether I considered using a pickup shoe used for the lighting of coaches, as those are - like the BB II - not very heavy" I again searched through a big pile of different pickup shoes and found out that a slight modification of the M* 7198 slider would be an option to solve the initial issues on turnouts. After grinding off parts of the mounting base of the slider, it fitted perfectly in the space created for the Roco Flüsterschleifer. After mounting it carefully and fully isolated of the chassis in order to prevent from shorts, the first test was conducted; It turned out marvelous. The engine ran lovely and very, very slowly over turnouts, even under the load of several - small - cars.

This is what it looks like now:


After that, the four wires have been connected to the decoder (ESU Lokpilot Micro), note that I've used a fourth wire for the ground, instead of the chassis, as in the original set up by Roco, this for the simple reason that running a wire to the original ground is not possible due to space reasons. A picture:


The wires are later on painted black and the decoder has been mounted against the roof, almost out of sight.

Finally, a picture of the loco itself, I realise that it doesn't even look nearly as good as in Osterthuns photo, I'll just blame my mobile phone camera for it...


After conducting a lot of tests, I have to say that I'm enjoying this model to the fullest, it's a great runner, smoothly and slowly, just great. The BB II found a new home in a wonderful state, like the former owner would have wanted it to be...
So, the 43281 is likely to follow shortly with a similar conversion. I'm pretty sure it will take considerably less than the 25 hours this conversion approximately has taken. Therefore, I'll possibly order the newly released 63299 (link: http://www.roco.cc/index.php?id...tail_artikelnummer=63299) as well.

If anyone is considering doing this conversion him/herself, just let me know, more detailed pictures are available on request.

I hope you've enjoyed reading and watching along!

[size=2]OK, Sander, since you asked for it

Here's Sanders very own BB II 2510 taken at the shop last Saturday.

I saw it run! In two words: marvellous!!!