I have a Bachmann 4-8-4 Northern purchased about 8 or 9 years ago. The headlight was never very bright, but the tender reverse light was. I have since added a Soundtraxx "heavy steam" decoder. Don't know if the lights are LED's or bulbs, but want to increase the headlight brightness. Will I have to take apart the loco in order to find out what the headlight is? It does not look like an easy thing to put back together. Any advice is welcome. Thanks. JPR
Sounds like it has a poor ground connection to complete the circuit, JRP. I have one of those locos too and I just purchased the same decoder as you have last week. I'm glad to know you are going to install one so that maybe we can 'feed' off one another to beat off the installation bugs. I just don't know at this point when I'll get started on it. If I recall, there's only two screws that hold the body to the frame. The hardest part of reassembling it is getting the steam cylinder rods back into the cylinders. Not really that hard ... they just tend to want to hang down. LOL Can't answer your question regarding LED or incandescent.
