This is a story of What Could Have Been

My model railroading started in 1966 when I got a Fleischmann H0 start set. The early years went rather modestly until after graduation i started my career on the Finnish State Railways in 1974 as a Locomotive Engineer. Regular wage helped to get a reasonable collection of Central European locomotives and wagons (H0 + H0m) but there was no permanent layout at home. In 1984 i joined a local model railway club so the need for a home layout was further reduced. I also joined a Narrow Gauge Museum Railway Club and i became interested in older narrow gauge rolling stock. There have been about 94 narrow narrow gauge track companies in Finland, but most of them were very small companies with less than 10 km of track, the largest company had about 82 km. The locomotives were mainly steam-powered, there were only few motor locomotives and their maximum power output was less than 100 hp, one company even had a couple of motor carriages but all had in common their home-woven appearance, just like those made by a village blacksmith. Since i have been dealing with modern Hi-Tech normal gauge locomotives for decades, i became interested in old not-so-technical looking locomotives and wagons used by narrow gauge companies. This gives more room for the imagination and the opportunity to build something that has never really existed.

In 1987 i bought LGB start set and from then on i started focusing on collecting G scale rolling stock. The fifth locomotive i bought was a Ge 2/4, a Swiss Rhb electric locomotive whose appearance i liked very much and i had in mind from the beginning to convert the locomotive to diesel because i have never thought of having an Overhead wiring on my layout. That’s why i removed the pantographs and from an outdated computer i got a cooler fan on the roof, of course the diesel engine must have one. It is easy to imagine this locomotive with a diesel engine that could have power output about 350 hp with an electric transmission. So the locomotive became the one that has never been in our narrow gauge railways.

I also began to consider upgrading the control system from analog to digital. I installed a Fleischmann FMZ digital decoder on three locomotives with more powerful H-Bridge motor controller added. A few years went by with this system until the modest power supply of the CPU started to be a burden, first i considered building a 10 amp booster but finally i just ended up removing the decoders and went back to analog. Later i tried both radio and infrared control but i was not happy with either. When i found a video last year showing a locomotive controlled by Wifi, i came to the conclusion that now i have finally found what i am looking for. So i ordered two Wifi decoders, one of which i planned to install on this locomotive with a few extra features, especially for the lights because the engine room of the locomotive is spacious and allows for the placement of complex control electronics. There is also a small battery as a backup power source so there is no need for supply voltage on the rails. When the work was completed, the test runs started and went smoothly, only the PWM causes a bit of loud noise in this engine, this is probably a typical symptom of LGB locomotives so a little more fine-tuning is needed. I added a PDF with wiring diagrams and a couple of photos to this post, although a small error was found in one diagram where a 100k resistor is missing between the base of BC635 transistor and ground and without it the Battery Low protection will not work properly.

Next up is ex RhB Te 2/2 which has already become a diesel locomotive...