44 tonners

[Chris333]

See if there is oil where the truck contacts meet the frame.

[asarge]

I had mine, right out of the box, moving 15 modern 50' cars around the tight radii curves on my layout.

Whoa.

One of the guys in our oprating group pulled 6 loaded hoppers up about a 1.25% grade.

[Ian MacMillan]

How good is the decoder in this loco?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Good enough?

[sizemore]

Its the same 28 step decoder they used in the Heavy Mountain. It's functional, its a grade C decoder. 

I ended up knocking the startup voltage from 10 to 0, added both Acc/Dec of 20, then edited CV56/57 both to 1. One of them runs like a champ, the other has a hitch in it's innards (makes a churning sound), looks like a good cleaning and drivetrain reseat will be in order.

[Ian MacMillan]

Very nice. I'm thinking of maybe picking up a few as industrial switchers...but the question is as to if I want to get the yellows or wait for B&M units and then beat the piss out of em!

[Denver Road Doug]

Wow.

That's the summary.

I finally got an opportunity to run my little 44T "in the trenches" last night.  I took it to an ops session mostly for show-and-tell and the host suggested I use it for the "Lakota Switch" which made me a little nervous.  I'd heard the good reviews, and test ran it which yielded no issues, but this job would put the little guy to the test.  The layout is DC, and the typical power for this job is 1 or 2 "old school" GP7/9's or SD7/9's.

The job involves switching all the industries adjacent to Lakota Yard, basically in three parts: power plant, a backwall industrial area, and two isolated industries on the other end of the yard.  The first move, however, is leaving yard limits, crossing two main lines via three crossovers, picking up four loaded hoppers from the SOO interchange for the power plant, and then back across the crossovers into the yard. (later reversing that with the empties.)  I could just envision the little guy crashing and burning going over all those turnouts and back.  Then the backwall industrial part involves basically cleaning out a long track with 8-10 cars spotted along the industries.  While I saw the video of pulling the 9 cement hoppers, they're 40 footers and these cars are all 50ft+, and all NMRA weighted+.

Stole the show is all this little guy ended up doing.  Everyone in the room had dropped jaws at one point or another.  It wasn't perfect, but overall VERY impressive.  The trouble spot was where the mainline through the yard (also the yard lead) meets up with another BN main, and there is a very short section that is about a 1% grade to meet up with same level as the other main.  So I couldn't pull the entire 9 car consist out of the backwall industrial track without doubling up.  The magic number on the grade was between 4 and 5 cars depending on the cars.  I hadn't swapped couplers so the dummy couplers weren't too great--but workable, and mostly it was a non-issue.  We did use a "handle" a lot of times to mitigate that somewhat.  But otherwise, the 44T switched with AUTHORITY, and had zero issues with turnouts or trackwork otherwise.  (granted, this guy's trackwork is pretty flawless so that's not really saying much)

I had posted on the A-board early in the year about early odds for locomotive of the year.  Consensus was that if it didn't start with Dash 8, or possibly end in ACe, it didn't stand a chance.  Well, I guess the ACe's are OK, but I'm pretty sure this guy just jumped ahead of the pricey and faulty Atlas Dash 8.  Definitely does in my mind.

[AlkemScaleModels]

Its the same 28 step decoder they used in the Heavy Mountain. It's functional, its a grade C decoder. 

I ended up knocking the startup voltage from 10 to 0, added both Acc/Dec of 20, then edited CV56/57 both to 1. One of them runs like a champ, the other has a hitch in it's innards (makes a churning sound), looks like a good cleaning and drivetrain reseat will be in order.

Is "up knocking" the same as "knocking up"?

[wm3798]

Yes, but when you're "up knocking," you're by yourself.

[Mark5]

Railwire is the place to get it straight from the experts! ;D

[Mark5]

I'm going to write to Bachmann and suggest that they do an SW-1 along the same lines as the 44 tonner.  Always wanted one of those little beasts.

As long as the hood isn't as wacko fat as the 44 tonner's. A SW1 with nearly scale hood is feasible now.

[sizemore]

Its the same 28 step decoder they used in the Heavy Mountain. It's functional, its a grade C decoder. 

I ended up knocking the startup voltage from 10 to 0, added both Acc/Dec of 20, then edited CV56/57 both to 1. One of them runs like a champ, the other has a hitch in it's innards (makes a churning sound), looks like a good cleaning and drivetrain reseat will be in order.

Is "up knocking" the same as "knocking up"?

Yeah shoulda been a comma in there somewhere....

I'm turning Japanese I really think so....
The S.

[Mark5]

I'm turning Japanese I really think so....
The S.

Keep an eye on those vapors though.

M.Ark

[Mark5]

Anyone attempted a coupler conversion on this?

[Chris333]

Do Z scale couplers count.