My Kingdom for a Z scale Re 6/6 - part 3

Where our hero discovers that when polishing up excrement, you eventually you realise that you're still left holding a piece of excrement...

The Re 6/6 story continued with the reinstallation of the end-slivers removed to make the shell thinner. The shell is looking reasonable now, although the slightly protruding foreheads are starting to annoy me. It looks acceptable from a distance though. 

Feet were provided by a passing Rokuhan bo-bo-bo chassis - which is a gorgeous piece of engineering compared to the rough guts of its Marklin 4/4 brother:

The chassis underbits were painted black, and with some trimming, the shell fits nicely on top. 

Even without any detailing of the stock Rokuhan chassis and it's short-wheelbase bogies, it doesn't look completely terrible except in these closeups.  I can add some air tanks between the bogies and some clutter to fill those air gaps out, and with everything painted black, hopefully the small bogies won't be too noticeable.

Other than this detailing and some shell-finishing, the Re 6/6 story will probably pause here for a while as there are a few issues to be resolved before continuing onwards: 

1. The Rokuhan chassis comes with a very tidy wee version of the 'Rapido' coupler that used to be the old N scale standard back in the dark ages. Obviously this isn't going to mate with a hideously big Marklin chunky coupler, but there are a few options...

• Rohukan sells a Marklin coupler that will slot in. 
• I could probably glue one-onto-tuther myself.
• I could make a close-coupling solid drawbar between the locos (perhaps not a bad idea)

It's also chassis mounted (the 4/4's is bogie mounted) so some testing will have to occur on Wassen's tight curves - both between locos that could surge, and also between locos and the light wagons on a train that could be thrown off on a curve by a long, outswinging Re 6/6 chassis.

2. The Rokuhan chassis is considerably smoother, quieter and (unfortunately) faster than the Marklin, so it might need to be slowed down (with diodes perhaps)....  Or, more radically, I could buy a 4 wheeler Rokuhan chassis and put it under the 4/4. This way I wouldn't have to worry about the coupler issue between the locos. The old Marklin 4/4 chassis could be used later on to make a BLS brown 4/4.... Decisions, decisions.