You all know the wonderful old Bachmann 2-8-0s and 2-8-2s and sadly I have always loved them. Especially when using the Vanderbilt tenders to make Consolidations from the UP, SP, KCS and Seaboard. So I know I have to replace gears when they fail, and the front truck has to be replaced. But the biggest challenge is electrical pickup and figuring out how to rig the tender for pickup. Now the Kato 6 wheel trucks from their passenger cars have the vertical electrical tabs that I am wondering if they would stand up to soldering wires that would then run through the tender and be attached to the motor. The extra pickup would alleviate many of their poor running habits through turnouts. Now any of you that have better electrical skills than me [which admittedly sets the bar pretty low] please give me some ideas of what to do and look for. Thanks
Oh no, not the T word. Oh no, not Bachmann What is this world coming to? I know all to well those poor running habits. To many times to admit to here. To show I mean well. A friend of mine. Made a new mouse trap, a wizard thing on a tender and powered up the trucks. He needed metal wheels that conduct electricity. One set of wheels neutered. Used a wrap around wire on the axle. To my surprise it worked. I would be looking for something like the brass wipes similarly to what Life Like or Atlas has used. I did something similar with a Rivarossi locomotive. It worked until some how I burned the motor up. Sigh! It was aging and that's why I took the risk. I hope that helps.
I have a 2-8-0, one of the old ones, and it's all apart, waiting for a couple of years for me to do the axle sleeve thing to close up the cracks so it will run again. Before the axles cracked, I had it running well as I added wipers to the tender axles and ran wires to the motor contacts. It made a world of difference. Here's a picture of the wipers: Doug
Bachmann locomotives and tenders, oh my! Bachmann locomotives and tenders, oh my! You might be able to use a washer of just the right diameter to guide a Dremel to cut just the right radius slot for the tab/wires to pass up through the floor of the tender.
On mine, since the wipers are sprung, they maintain tension on the truck mounting screws and I just soldered the wires to the screws inside the tender. At least that's how I remember doing it. Doug
Hmm....I still have the axle wipers from several Bachmann passenger cars that I removed in order to make them less draggy[?]. I wonder if those would work?
Yes, if you remove the tabs from the trucks before soldering the wires. The harder part is adapting the trucks to the tender frame. At least for me. Bachmann offers several tender trucks with similar pickups as the Kato trucks you are considering. Those might, or might not, be easier to adapt. Bachmann spare parts are hit or miss as to availability. Unfortunately, I do not have the photos to prove any of this because those photos are archived on a disk that does not travel with me. If I don't remember to share info by Sunday evening, send me a reminder. Stay safe,
I forgot to mention, I made the wipers on mine from phosphor-bronze stock and they are wider than the typical commercial ones for greater contact area. Doug
As promised, I have some photos to illustrate how I dealt with a similar challenge. In my case, I am using a Model Power Vandy tender from the Mikado and Pacific models. There were several versions of these, but all offered electrical pickup from only one side of the tender trucks. I wanted to get pickup from all wheels and change truck types at the same time. My solution was the tender trucks from the Bachmann Light Mountain. Here is a stock MP underframe and a Kato tender truck with similar pickup design as the Bachmann truck. This underframe is a newer iteration of the design than the one I used, but the key features are the same. Note the recess, blue arrow, next to the truck mount. A tab on the stock trucks fits into that recess and prevents putting the trucks on backwards while limiting the rotation of the trucks. On the Kato trucks, note the tab which inserts into slots of the Kato underframe to provide contact with copper strips. Same method as Kato passenger trucks. Since I was dealing with a Vandy tender I wanted to eliminate the raised tabs, for appearance, while still providing all-wheel pickup. First, I trimmed the tabs level with the top of the molded truck frame. This left enough tab to locate the wheel bushings in the truck frame but be invisible. With the bushing strips removed from the plastic frames, I carefully soldered very small wires to the inside surfaces of the strips. The solder joint must be small enough to allow easy reassembly of the bushings into the plastic frames. On the underframe, I enlarged the recesses, blue arrow, next to the truck mounts. Then I reassembled the trucks and routed the wires across the trucks and through the recesses. A bit of adhesive will hold the wires in place on the truck frames. Hopefully the pictures make this clear. The wires need enough free-play inside the tender to allow for easy rotation. Stay safe,
While I did buy several MP Vandy tenders at the time, if I could go back now, I would buy every single one I could find. Beautiful tenders, and, if one models the SP like I do, something that you probably will never have too many of. I also had ordered several shells from MP so I could stretch the tenders (just like the SP did in reality) and made longer tenders for other engines. Now they are almost impossible to find...like all of the really good stuff produced in the past. I miss the old days when companies didn't just produce limited runs and then never produced those runs again...
I was lucky to see this one at the 2020 Monroe show. I found a MP/MRC Pacific with Vandy tender in Portland a while later. That tender is going behind a UP Mikado someday. The engine will get a Kato tender for its needs. There were a surprising number of Bachmann Spectrum tenders at the Reno convention this year. Fortunately for my wallet I don't have any projects waiting for same. The temptation to grab the lot was real strong. I miss those days, too. It was always interesting to wander around a hobby shop when traveling. You never knew what you "needed" until you found it. Stay safe,
The problem is that most hobby suppliers are no longer run by the folks that made life easy with the hobby. They are now only profit focused. Even Kato, when I bought several GS-4's, a few of them had serious issues. In one case the tender trucks were installed backwards and other issues. These were problems with how the locomotives were built. They did not offer to fix them, they offered a repair service for time and materials. I could not believe the answer I got. And I have thrown enough darts at another manufacturer that has no concept of warranty repairs. A great number of manufactures have gone into the infamous Wharton School of Business mode that teaches only focus on sales and profits above all else, including customer service. There is a very short list of "old school" companies left.
