NEW Bachmann N-Scale Sound Equipped 2-8-0

[Nato]

                 :|The low pilot on my Western Pacific locomotive is caused by poor assembly. Bob Gilmore 3985 and I examined the WP locomotive side by side with the UP one. The cab and boiler sit way forward past where they should be, the steps going up from the pilot are correctly plugged into the holes on the boiler where they should be but with the boiler slid, moved way forward they bow outward and force the pilot downward so that it is just touching /rubbing on the rails. Take the front steps out of their holes and the pilot is then at the normal height and does not catch on rail joiners . I guess we can expect sloppy assembly from Bachmann. Rather then send it back under warrantee the easiest fix is to disassemble the locomotive and put it back together. Wires on top of the mechanism may also keep the boiler from sitting down onto the mechanism all the way. We had to go to the Bachmann Parts Site to print out an exploded diagram of the previous just DCC version of this locomotive. Bob now has the locomotive and the diagram and will dis assemble and reassemble the locomotive. Hopefully that is the cure as the drive train / mechanism is ok. Nate Goodman (Nato).   

[spookshow]

                 :|The low pilot on my Western Pacific locomotive is caused by poor assembly. Bob Gilmore 3985 and I examined the WP locomotive side by side with the UP one. The cab and boiler sit way forward past where they should be, the steps going up from the pilot are correctly plugged into the holes on the boiler where they should be but with the boiler slid, moved way forward they bow outward and force the pilot downward so that it is just touching /rubbing on the rails.

Getting the shell seated correctly can be a little tricky. You have to slide the headlight PC board into the front of the shell first, and then gradually work the back of the shell downwards while simultaneously applying pressure to the front of the shell to slide the whole thing backwards. It takes a rather scary amount of force to get the shell slid all the way back.

I don't recall the previous versions being this difficult, so it might could be that the new chassis is a tighter fit inside the shell than what it used to be.

-Mark

[robert3985]

Getting the shell seated correctly can be a little tricky. You have to slide the headlight PC board into the front of the shell first, and then gradually work the back of the shell downwards while simultaneously applying pressure to the front of the shell to slide the whole thing backwards. It takes a rather scary amount of force to get the shell slid all the way back.

I don't recall the previous versions being this difficult, so it might could be that the new chassis is a tighter fit inside the shell than what it used to be.

-Mark

Thanks Mark ( @spookshow ), I'm diving into this little project tonight if I get my workbench up in the model train workshop.  I'll report my findings here when I get it figured out.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[atsf3751]

I could use a couple more C&O H-4 2-6-6-2's or even H-6's.  Used ones on Ebay are approaching $275. 

I have four of the 2-6-6-2 steamers. They are pretty but very light. The 2-8-0 can outpull them.

[reinhardtjh]

I have four of the 2-6-6-2 steamers. They are pretty but very light. The 2-8-0 can outpull them.

Maybe so, but the C&O wasn't running many 2-8-0's on the coal lines in 1949-1952.  And I have plenty of 2-8-0's.

[BruceG]

I received a Bachmann WM 2-8-0 from MB Klein last week.  The sound is good - not quite equal to a Tsunami, but IMO close.  Its chuff is much better than the sound units that sound like a baseball card in your bike spokes.  Out of the box it crept along at throttle level 1.  After a couple hours break-in on the Club's test oval, it went out on the mainline, where it negotiated a 1.5+ incline pulling ten average 1950's size cars with no detectable slipping.  My (30? year old) first generation Bachmann 2-8-0 will handle twice that, but I'll run the new one a few more hours before taxing it further.

As mentioned in an earlier comment, the cab interior is not detailed, but the absence of the protruding motor out the back of the cab is a nice improvement.  Appears that a crew could still fit in the cab, with some truncation, if you're so inclined.  It's disappointing that they didn't modify the pilot for a working coupler, but fitting an MTL Z Scale coupler is not difficult.

All in all, I'm very happy with the locomotive.  If they put the Econami in future releases of their K4, it would be a significant improvement for that model as well.

Bruce

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Does the decoder have the usual Economi  features... Speed tables, kick start, etc?

[BruceG]

The decoder appears to be standard Economl. The few CV’s I’ve changed so far agree with the Economi Technical Reference and Sound Selection Guide from the Soundtraxx website.

Bruce

[Maletrain]

OK, I tested mine last night on an oval of Kato Unitrak, using an NCE DCC system.  It pulled all 32 of Microtrains new PFE reefers with no apparent slippage.

However, it eventually did put significant gunk on the track that appears to be traction tire wear.  I first noticed it with 32 cars.  I had started with 16 cars, and added 4 more at a time in successive tests.  With the last addition, reaching a total of 32, the loco started, then promptly stopped as if the track was dirty.  Nudging it started it again, but it quickly stopped again.  Decoupling it and running it over the same part of the oval still resulted in stoppages.  Cleaning the track with alcohol showed considerable black from what should have been clean track, and resulted in the loco running fine when light.  Looking at the bottom of the loco showed scuffing on the traction tire surfaces, particularly the one on the inside rail of the oval.  While cleaning the track, I noticed that most of the gunk was in the position where I had repeatedly started the loco with each new load, but there was some spread around the entire oval.  The lightest accumulations were where the trains were running at constant (slow) speed.

The cars used for the test seemed to be a little less free-rolling than I am used to for MTL trucks/wheels, but still pretty low-friction.  However, when I broke the string of cars 16 back from the loco to add more, there was an obvious springing-forward on the cars still attached to the loco, so, even when stopped, there was still substantial drag force on the loco from the coupler springs and rolling resistance in the wheels.  (Some day soon, I need to complete my rolling resistance tester!)  And, there was obvious "slinky effect" from the coupler springs when starting the longer trains, which probably put significantly above-average stress on the traction tires, even though I could not see them slip.

So, to me, this brings up the question of what is the practical pulling power of a locomotive and how do you test for it.  For the locos with no traction tires, wheel slip is probably the best indicator of the limit.  But, for locos with traction tires, it got to the point somewhere in my testing that the traction tires were being worn extremely fast, even though the wheels were not apparently slipping and the engine was not stalling, even at slow speed creep.  Since this is an observation based only on one loco with one set of traction tires, I hesitate to generalize.  Can others add their experiences to help narrow down the observations that indicate that a loco with traction tires is pulling as much as we should put on it?

[spookshow]

The drivers come from the factory with a noticeable amount of blackening on the driver surfaces. This all went away on mine after a few hours of running time, and presumably wound up on the track. I generally pull a track cleaning car around when breaking in new locomotives for this very reason.

-Mark