scratch loco kits....

other than aspen, and searails,,,are there others out there building any cool kits for z scale? zthek always had something cool, to bad you're retired, i loved your kits. still have about 7 i'm storing away until needed. aspen models has a great hudson,, got a few of those,, wished i was in this scale a few years earlier when they had the casey jones. asked them if they d do that one again,,absolutely no,,oh well. and FR is way out there price wise, tho i had to buy one set. and i've got a kit of a british loco, from a guy who builds n kits, i think it was his only z kit he ever built,, but its very nice. is there other brass kits im not aware of other than these? sure love to see more z kits!!! canada mike

soooooo i guess its NO THEN. mike

Sadly you may be right. These kinds of things are more available in good economic times. Small companies, and cottage industries are able to put out less as they concentrate on more certain products and services to bring money in. Of course my only F in university was in Econimics, so what do I know? Cheers, Jim CCRR

liltoot wrote:

soooooo i guess its NO THEN. mike

Since you ruled out the Aspen stuff the only other options are changing the sky line of an existing model and I am not sure if you consider this a kit or not.

There were some pewter boiler shells for several locomotives.

From England

A North American 0-8-0 that fits on a Marklin Chassis.

A British A4 that fits on a Marklin Chassis

From the USA

There was a streamlined K4 Pennsy Pacific from Pennzee and if there are any around London Bridge in PA would be the only source today.

From Germany

A J3 shell and tender from Aspen or West Model.

Do not think there is anything else but there could be.

cheerz Garth

If you are into european railways there is more stuff around:
- Thonfeld some DR and DRG locos and rolling stock
- Bernhard Sackarnd from Muenster/Germany, no homepage, doing mostly N but also some Z on special order, to find mostly at ebay.de, brass etched kits for german railcars, rolling stock and locos,contact via tel. +49 251 2301877.
Don't know if he speaks english....
- Railex had announced in 2007 a german class 01 kit, but I have doubts it ever happened/happens...

The answer is in fact no, but I just ordered a resin casting kit to cast multiples of some loks I have scratchbuilt. If the casting process turns out to be easy and fun, I might consider selling a few (read 2 or 3) shells. They won't be the product most zed heads are looking for, because they won't be thoroughly researched, and will thus form well-proportioned impressions rather than perfect replicas of the real thing.

Up there I should have said the answer is "more or less" no. Obviously some kits are available as other posters point out, just very few / small runs / hard to find.

There was another, made by I think by John Harmon, it was a cast unit which went over a 0-4-0, and came with a tender. Pennzee may have been involved in it. I am not sure if any more are available. I found one at London Bridge. Just started the kit, working on a pilot for it now.

Maybe I can get Dan Stirpe to post a picture.

JD