Is this "old" or what?

[BlueFox]

I just received from a family member whose father passed away receintly a Bachmann EMD GP40 Conrail #3091 that has written on the label end of the box "July 1984".  This loco has only pickups on the rear truck wheels (2 axle) and has the motor mounted on TOP of the front truck assembly!  Believe it or not it actually runs, but it's noisy as heck!!!  I cleaned and lubed everything and it runs better now.  But the one thing that is puzzling is that the motor slowly speeds up as it goes along to the point that it seems it is going to jump off the tracks even with the power pack turned down to its lowest setting without shutting off the power to the tracks.

Now here's the interesting part: I installed a spare Bachmann decoder board (small enough for even N scale) and it worked, but still does the same thing it was doing on DC, slowly speeding up on its own but not as bad as when it was on straight DC.  Its low speed characteristics are lousy!  And it has a bad habit of sometimes stopping dead in its tracks (no pun intended) when it passes over any turnout, then continuing on, slowly picking up speed again.  I tried spreading the wheel contacts to make sure they were pressing tightly against the back of the pickup wheels and this seems to have helped, somewhat, but it still stops on its own from time to time when passing over any turnout.  Wierd, to say the least.  I whish there was a way to add pickup wipers to the front truck but I don't think it can be done after inspection.

Anyone have any experience with this type of loco?  It's all plastic with a lot of metal weights added, but it's still too light to pull anyhing worthwhile without spining its 4 wheels.  I don't plan on using this engine, it was just a project to see if I could get it going again, sort of a "man" thing I guess.  Oh, all the light bulbs were burned out, too, so it's unlighted for now.

Frank

[Nathan Jahreis]

Sounds like you have a bad case of the .......PANCAKE MOTOR
Model Railroaders have known them to be an unworthy beast
Or maybe it has built in momentum

Here's a TV idea "Trick my Bachmann GP40"

[Doneldon]

Frank-

Nathan is right; you've got the old Bachmann pancake motor blues. There's not a lot you can do short of a major rebuild which will cost significantly more than the loco is worth. Of course, there may be political considerations connected to a gift loco, even a cruddy one. If that's the case, maybe you can get by with adding pickups to the other truck. That will at least give you more consistent power and hopefully get you through those turnouts. Good luck.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        -- D

[Nathan Jahreis]

Here's an idea, find a unit like it and make it a dummy with extra pickups. Then string wires to the loco you have so then you have about twice as much "pickup ability". I don't know if you would want to make a dummy because of the poor pulling of the one you have.

[Jim Banner]

Taking Nathan's idea a step further, don't make either locomotive a dummy.  Run them back to back with the electrical pickups in parallel and you would have an 8 wheel pickup, 8 wheel drive locomotive.  I tried this a few years ago with a pair of Life Like train set locomotives permanently coupled together.  This consist  had excellent pickup and incredible traction, not surprising since it had a total of 8 driven wheels, all with traction tires.  It was the only locomotive that I ever saw straighten out a metal Kadee coupler when another coupler, about 30 cars back, dropped its coupler between the ties.  The sudden release of tension when the coupler straightened out sent cars flying in all directions, breaking several, and one has never been seen since.

Because both locomotives had poor low speed performance, the consist did too.  But it was still a lot of fun to run.

Jim

[Doneldon]

Jim-

The sudden release of tension when the coupler straightened out sent cars flying in all directions, breaking several, and one has never been seen since.

I think I have it. I've been wondering where that little devil came from. Do you want it back?

                                                                          -- D

[jward]

jim's story brings to mind the time on my dad's n scale railroad we lost a western maryland boxcar. it had derailed in a tunnel, and somehow got plastered into the scenery during repairs. 2 years later i derailed another train in that spot, and while retrieving the derailed cars i found the missing boxcar.

ain't model railroading fun?

[Jim Banner]

I was thinking I might find the missing car if/when I take the railway apart.  But now I am thinking I might have to take Donaldons layout apart to find all my missing stuff.

as Jeffery said, "ain't model railroading fun?"

Jim

[jward]

it's especially fun when you get to trash somebody else's layout.......

[Doneldon]

jward-

Trashing somebody else's layout is part of the fun for some folks, especially young ones.

When my brother and I were kids in Indiana we had two friends who were also brothers about our ages. We had Lionel; they had Lionel. We watched the close calls in the Lionel Christmas commercials; they watched the close calls in the Lionel Christmas commercials. We all got the idea to recreate the excitement at home. (They didn't tell you not to try something at home in the old days except Mr. Wizard sometimes did.) Of course we had no knowledge of stop action or other primitive special effects of the era so our close calls usually weren't. Close, that is, unless you count how truly intimate those trains got with one another. We generally had stuff flying all over the basement, including suicidal plunges to the concrete floor. Today's stuff would not have survived one afternoon between school and supper, much less whole childhoods, but those cast kryptonite 1940s and 1950s vintage Lionel trains were made to last. And God knows we had a ton of fun with 'em.
                                                                                                                                                                                 -- D

[jward]

my cousin had an old tyco "f9" which ran, as did most tycos, at supersonic speeds. we'd take it over to my grandfather's layout, and run it up the mountain line top speed. it'd hit the 18" radius curve at the top of the mountain, and roll down the mountainside, across 6 tracks and bounce off the furnace. bruised and battered, but ready to roll again.

another time, when i was about 5, we were on the same layout. my dad, uncle and grandfather were running trains. my cousin had gotten a bag full of plastic army men, so we decided to play "dirty dozen." we lined them all up on top a tunnel portal on the mountain line, waited patiently for a train to use this branch, and dropped the men into the hopper cars as they came out of the tunnel. one missed and got tangled under the train, derailing it as it went over a nearby bridge, and the cars toppled onto another train running the mainline below. spectacular, addams family style wreck, and 2 little boys with sore bottoms.......

[Nathan Jahreis]

Before I got into HO I had a Lionel set with a 4-6-4 Hudson (the newer one not the glorified "scale" one). I also was into Ertl 1:64 scale tractors.  When my buddies came over, we put all of my ertl cows on the track and ran em' over at full speed.  After the pilot had hit the cow, the cow would get wedged between the rails, and the loco would jump the rail and short out on the center rail, thus leaving a shower of spark's. That is until the circuit breaker kicked in.   From my dads Tyco set, he ran it so much the gear that was driven by the worm wore through.

[Doneldon]

Nathan-

As bizarre as it may sound, your story about smashing cows with your train and having a train wreck as a consequence has a prototype, proving yet again that there is a prototype for everything.

My father was a dining car steward for the Santa Fe. He worked the Texas Chief for a few years, running between Chicago and Galveston. Anyway, the TC hit a bull in an open range area in Texas (this was the 1950s). The train was making good speed so the bull was instantly transmogrified into hamburger. Similar encounters happened all of the time. However, on this day the train managed to throw the bull into a switchstand with so much force that it bent the switchstand and partially threw the switch, just as the locos were passing. The whole train wound up on the ground I have ATSF photos of the wreck and the diner looks as though some really big guy had picked it up and shaken it like a can of spray paint.
                                                                                                                                                              -- D

[Nathan Jahreis]

Jeffery, speaking of supersonic loco's... I have one of those Athearn "Hustler's".  NOW THOSE ARE FUN! Just crank up the throttle and you'll hear a sonic boom, or the loco jumping the rail and taking out all of the scenery in its way Not to get off topic but didn't Lionel make one of those during their HO faze?

[Doneldon]

Nathan-

Yes. The Hustler was originally a Lionel product.

                                      -- D