I had heard it from OMI, but really didn't believe it. I spoke to Miss Hall about using Kato drives before she passed. Kato said they couldn't supply her with mechanisms, they needed all they could make.(???) When Hallmark(and her shop) closed they had a fire-sale on SD-40 shells and handrails...couldn't have been that Hallmark bought lots of SD-40's for the drives alone. Nobody would rob a mechanism for a brass shell, would they?
If the market was there, somebody like Hobbytown would make N-scale drives and somebody like Railpower Products would make shells, but it's too small a piece of the N-scale pie. Maybe TrainCat could make us shell kits for insulated Kato mechanisms...just kidding, but I wish it was practical. The maddening thing about most N-scale brass is, it can be made to run well(if not quietly) but you have to fiddle with a new $600-700 engine. I really don't understand things like no factory flywheels, and gear trains that need "cleaning up" in various ways, not really DCC friendly in most cases and no factory lighting and windows. I guess it's like the old V-12 XJ Jaguars...if you want it bad enough, you'll fix it til it works. :
