My frustration is building on my Bachmann 4-4-0, and so far I have been able to refrain from allowing it to travel as the crow flies across the room.... I have and OLD unit that used to be run around a small oval Kato track and it ran fine under those conditions. I now have a larger setup with several Kato turnouts (switches?) and it could not make one complete loop without 1) sparking at a turnout or 2) tender derail at a turnout. I read that the new version was "much better" so I bought one. Same problems. I have worked on the turnouts (lightly filed the points, leveled the turnout, made sure no rough or high spots) and have managed to stop the spark issue, but the thing still can't make a complete, loop without the tender derailing. I read a past post from I believe Mark Watson on how he modified one into a great running loco, but I do not have those capabilites. What other solutions might I look at to try and get this thing to run better? :merr:
I thought spookshow rated it really bad (??? maybe an F) if you have turnouts. I have two from 2008 (Jupiters), and neither one will run over turnouts consistently. I just re-read/skimmed the spookshow and didn't see the lower grade for "if you have turnouts," but I think it used to have that comment on the OLD model. I don't know about the Newer version.
I have several including two that were kitbashed into 4-6-0s. Because of the tender pick-up only these guys will have a problem getting through switches, however I have never had the opportunity to test one of mine on one of Peco's powered frog switches. The small wheels on the tender don't have a lot of flange to hold the rail and any mal adjustment in them can be a problem. Also check the drawbar to make sure that the screw is fully in as it could be the source of the sparking.
The treadwidth on these on the tender trucks is fairly obscene. It's about double the width of an MT wheel tread They tend to short out across insulated frogs as they bridge across both rails at the BACK of the frog. I don't think they'd have issues with electrofrogs. I have a couple fairly new ones right now as a client project, and they are just as wide as ever. The other semi-permanent flaw on the tender truck design is that the wheels MOVE in and out of gauge, so there's a real potential to pick a frog. Its just a really, really bad design on those tender trucks. I gave up on mine finally.
I know there is a way to convert the loco to Nn3 which involves some delicate manuvering in the file and shaving end of the loco, but also the regauging of the tender trucks. With that in mind I wonder if it would be possible to first, mill the wheels down to a narrower width, and second to shim those rascals to stay in gauge with some thin styrene strip.
I was never a fan of the oldie oldie timer locos, so I never owned a Bachmann Jupiter or American or any of those little cars that came with them. Heck, even after watching the "Great Locomotive Chase" by Disney which is on my On Demand Cable a few times, it never inspired me like let's say a video of Big Boys and Challengers roaring up Sherman Hill. But my friend purchased one at a swap meet and it was brand new, so I assume it was a new version. He has a complete Bachmann EZ Trak layout which is pretty reliable considering he hasn't tacked it down or glued it yet. I warned him that after holding this ultra light loco he would have problems, but he wanted just to display it on his shelf. But after we each got home after the meet, he calls me and tells me this little loco is a runner!!!! No believo!!! But the next time I went over to run trains, there it was running great even over his turnouts and glitches in the track caused by the subsurface. I almost wanted to get one, almost. He still runs it often and considers it a reliable loco, despite my opinion which is with you guys here. I guess maybe Bachmann makes Bachmann non Spectrum stuff just able to run on EZ Trak. Even his older Northerns run OK on this track, but run terrible on my Kato unitrak. Heck, I am the guy who would put a chevy 283 in my deuce highboy, i like to mix stuff up, but not in this hobby sometimes.............. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
I have a nineteenth century pike, so I have a few of these. Only one showed the problem that you described. The culprit was a truck screw that was too tight with the result that the truck would not pivot freely thus causing it to derail on switches, curves and joints. A flick of the wrist backed out the screw enough to allow the truck to pivot freely and stop the derailing. My nineteenth century pike uses PECO electrofrogs. I can not use plastic frog switches because of the small size/short wheelbase of most nineteenth century power. Many of the locomotives would stall on plastic frog switches.
Yeah the wheels on the tender are wide and the flanges set close.... check the gauge, I bet it's pinching on the points? Mine was before, erm.... "adjustment". If you still want to throw that old one across the room/country via USPS, hit me up... I could use another and I have a few bucks to spare PS I use 'em, on silly little shelf layouts with a loop of code 80. It can't hang or catch on turnouts if there's no turnouts!
I gave up trying to fix mine and turned them into dummy locos, and use powered (cheater) cars. A couple of videos of two of them as a double header ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuK5pu3_uD8&feature=feedf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwXVqoV51ls&feature=feedu Peter
The Atlas/MicroAce 2-6-0 tender design (without swiveling trucks) works just fine. They are identically sized. While it doesn't have excellent pickup (as only one rear truck actually does anything) it certainly has no tracking issues. So you can't blame the small size. This is a 1970's design on the tender wheels, poorly executed, that needs updated to imitate what MicroAce did, and taken one better to get all eight wheels in there electrically. I've studied the frame on the MicroAce tender and I think they originally designed it to have 8-wheel pickup and then got stuck in drawbar screw connection issues and it wouldn't fit. if I were doing a 4-4-0 project myself I think I'd make a serious attempt to put a motor in the Micro-Ace tender (probably with a gearhead like my Lima 2-6-0) rather than fix all the problems on the Bachmann design. I spend a lot of time trying to 'fix' my 4-4-0 so it would run on the Hickory Valley, and it just never worked reliably at all. I went so far as to mill the treads narrower and increase the truck width to try to get the gauge right. But the tender wheels still slid along the rails more than they rolled. I'm pretty sure this is the ONLY set of trucks ever made in N scale that actually work by the rims of the wheels rotating individually on the hubs, with no axles. The odd part is that except for the tender truck mess, it's a pretty solid design when you compare it against many others.
Didn't Mark Watson actually design some new trucks for his that were pretty successfull? I wonder witch would be easier and more effective, Modifying the MA tender, or Mark's design.... Personally I would like to have a good running one just because.
