Anyone get their T1 yet?

[brokemoto]

If this is true this is very BAD news!!! Just ask anyone thats been in HO for a long time.

I can confirm that.  When I was in high school and had HO, I could not afford nickel silver track.  It was brass.  I was CONSTANTLY cleaning it.  Dirty nickel silver track is enough of a problem as it is.  Brass?  If those wheels ARE, in fact, brass, I guess that everyone who buys one of these things will have to buy a TRIX locomotive wheel cleaner.

I never used track cleaning solutions on brass track when I had HO.  It was always a track eraser or, if I had not run it in some time (due to the pursuit  of "other" interests when I was in high school), I had to use fine grit sandpaper,  I wonder if LL track cleaner works on it.  LL track cleaner has proved to have many uses for me in N.  Too bad that LL does not sell it any more.  When I see some at a show, I always buy at least one bottle.

[rrjim1]

I checked my loco out with a Eye Loupe Magnifier, I have run mine enough to wear off a little of the coating on the flange drivers. Sure look like sliver to me as does all the other wheels.

[Lemosteam]

Maybe it was all that yellow light that @peteski likes to take pictures with... 

[peteski]

Maybe it was all that yellow light that @peteski likes to take pictures with... 

Full explanation (with photos) is coming later today.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Pete, what's the hold up? We want those pics now! 

[OldEastRR]

Pete indulges in yellow dog journalism ....

[reinhardtjh]

Pete, what's the hold up? We want those pics now! 

Don't forget Pete works night so his "Later today " is different from the daytime folks.

[peteski]

Yes, I'm a nigh owl. 

Ok, time to fess up.  Originally I stated that the drivers were simply weathered unplated brass.  That is incorrect, but I hope that I can explain why I thought that.  I should have also be a bit more specific (as I usually am).   Anyway, here's my illustrated assessment of the drivers.

This is what the drivers of my T1 look like.

BLI_T1_Drivers01.jpg

Unfortunately the photo does not capture the magnitude of the difference between the surface finish of the flanged and blind drivers.  I took several photos and this one was the best.  The blind drivers have a distinctively different finish from the flanged drivers.  The flanged drivers (the front-most and rear-most) have a darker and shinier (smoother) surface. The blind drivers have a very dull surface which looked like a tarnished brass to me.  When I stated earlier that the drivers were weathered and unplated, I should have been more specific in that it was just the blind drivers.

A closeup of the flange and blind driver.

BLI_T1_Drivers02.jpg
Still, when viewed in-person, the difference in surface finish is much more pronounced. Notice that there is some damage on the inside of the blind driver's tread bevel on the top of the photo (to the left of the bright reflection in the tread).

Here is a closeup of the damaged surface.

BLI_T1_Drivers03.jpg
The exposed metal is undoubtedly golden color brass.  So the tarnished-look weathering and the scratch showing bare brass led me to a conclusion that the blind drivers were unplated brass.  But that was incorrect.

I polished all the drivers using a steel brush in a Dremel tool and that nicely cleaned off the weathering.
This photo shows the polished drivers and they all clearly have some sort of dark plating on all of them.

BLI_T1_DriversPolished.jpg
And again the original finish before polishing for comparison.


As far as the stalling and electric pickup problems I've experienced go, it was a combination of problems. I'm sure that the weathering on the drivers did not help, but I think the main culprit was the tender trucks.  Only 3 drivers on each side of the loco pick up electricity. That is not very reliable. Good tender pickup is a must.  But each of the tender's trucks only picks up electricity from one side. In my example several axles in each tender truck were very intermittently picking up electricity.

I removed the tender truck's bottom cover and noticed that the metal fingers which contact the tender's axles (for electric pickup) were barely making contact with the axles. I bent them up for more positive contact and I think that will drastically improve the electric pickup. With the drivers polished and the tender trucks "fixed" the loco behaved well on my short test track, but the real test will be when I get to run it on a larger layout (that probably won't happen for few weeks).

[Chris333]

That is a lot of tooling on the brake rigging 

[peteski]

That is a lot of tooling on the brake rigging 

LOL!  It is hidden in regular operation, and  even when displayed (unless it sits on a mirror).   But *WE* know it is all there, and we paid for it!   

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Credit where due - those enclosed driver gears will ensure nothing gunks  up the gear case for a long time. Wish I saw more of this.

[nickprahl]

Surprised to hear so many negative comments.  The T1 I received runs perfectly and I had no problem programming different CVs.  I was able to speed match it with the BLI. M1 with minor adjustments to CVs 2 and 6.

I consider both locomotives to be about as good as it gets in n scale steam.

[jdcolombo]

A friend of mine got two T1's and brought them over to run on my layout.  Both ran superbly, and both are beasts in the pulling department (I tested them with 40 assorted freight cars, all weighted to 1 oz., with no hint of slipping on my flat layout).  Both are superbly detailed.

The sound quality, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired.  I posted a thread in the Product Discussion area that addresses this.

John C.

[Lemosteam]

Credit where due - those enclosed driver gears will ensure nothing gunks  up the gear case for a long time. Wish I saw more of this.

Note that the tender truck pickups are also completely covered so it should minimize gunk on the pickups too.

[mmagliaro]

Thanks Pete.

So ... they DID bevel the inside edge of the blind drivers.  That's how the HO version is (I am more familiar with that one because I've played with one).  The bevel is crucial so that on a curve, when the blind drivers get inside the curve of the rail, they won't get stuck when the engine comes out of the curve and the driver has to climb back up onto the rail.  If the blind drivers are suspended a little higher than the others, that makes this more unlikely, but it is still bound to happen in our imperfect-track world, so the bevel is crucial.

If I had to guess, I would say they used a different alloy for the inner drivers because they had a separate machining operation for cutting that bevel, and they found that it worked better with a different metal (perhaps softer?)

I wonder if that damage you see on the bevel is just a by-product of a worn cutter, or if that could have happened just from you running the engine.  I would hope it's just a cutter problem from the factory, but I also notice a scratched diagonal swiping pattern across the rest of that tread, right near the damaged bevel.  That's what I would expect if the wheel picked up over the edge of the rail and grazed across it.

Not a fan of the blind drivers.  They could have allowed some more lateral play in them and kept the flanges.  Even if that still limited this engine to, say, 15" curves, that would have been a better design.  Who is going to spend the big money for an engine like this and run it on 12" curves anyway?

Love the brake rigging detail!  I know we don't normally see it, but it's still wonderful that they took the time to put that into an N Scale engine.  Except for the brass imports, I only know of one other engine that bothered to do that