I obtained a large amount of brand new, Tyco rolling stock practically for free.  They all come with hook horn style couplers and I wish to replace them with knuckle style couplers.  Has anyone installed the Bachmann Whisker couplers on these.  They are plastic truck mounted couplers, and the center hold in the coupler is about 1/4 the diameter of the standard knuckle coupler.

I have looked into the Kadee #28 (plastic) and #148 (metal whisker) couplers using the #20 kit, but I just don't follow how this is done from their instructions.

Is there a way to bookmark a topic on this forum so you can easily find it on a future date?

Did these bad boys really put out that much smoke?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=6OgSNQOTw2U&feature=fvwp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHI5VHBwIfI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akvLweWOd0g&feature=related


And boy does this one put things in their proper perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxkVznsFecc&feature=fvsr

I purchased this small locomotive because it was DCC and it was from the Bachmann Spectrum Series, assuming it would do a reasonable job.  

I know it is very small, and I did not really expect it to pull a dozen cars, but it is only pulling about 1-2 cars maximum on flat track before spinning the wheels.

Is this normal, or do I have a problem with this engine?

(Bachmann does not refer to this as a 0-6-0T, just an 0-6-0 Saddle Tank Switcher).

Has anyone mated the motorized turn table with the Tidewater Building?  Were there any problems or difficulties?  Are the two turn tables the same diameter?

I would like to use this building against the DCC turntable which I already have.

This item comes with the manual turn table (which I do not intend to use).  Does anyone know if the building needs to be used with the manual turn table , or if the remote DCC turntable can be fitted against the building instead.  I do not know and cannot tell if there are special connections between the building and the manual turntable which must be used.

Also, does the building use the same curve radius as the DCC turntable, or is the manual turntable a different radius?  The DCC turn table has an outside diameter of 14".

The wheel cleaner I placed on order is on back order with this company, which is most likely why it was so cheap compared to the other sites.  

It gives me a chance to ask the question here, has any one used the Woodland Scenics wheel cleaner?   If so, what did you think?

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/TT4561/page/1

I notice that none of the product items on the Bachmann web site include the minimum recommended track radius, while that information is available for much of the product line in the catalogs.  If I am looking at an item on line, I have to either open my catalog (assuming I am at home) or load a version of the catalog to find this information. 

Is it possible to have Bachmann's web staff add the minimum recommended track radius for their products to the web pages as well.

I have a Riverossi 4-6-4 Hudson which has traction tires and it pulls like the devil up 3% slopes.  I have Bachmann 2-8-8-4 EM-1 engine that is either straining or slipping when pulling the same freight at the same speed up a 3% slope.  The EM-1 will absolutely pull the freight up the grade with some more throttle, but it slows without doing this while the Riverossi does not.  I have not looked real close to see if the EM-1 has traction tires, but I do not think it does.

I have the ability to put traction tires on the EM-1 with Bull Frog Snot, but my question is:

Are engines designed to slip at a certain load point to protect the motor from overload, or do they just slip due to low weight or poor traction.  I really think that adding traction tires to the EM-1 will enhance it's pulling ability, but don't want to overload it at the same time.

I am wanting to paint some boxcars, but don't know how good they come out.  Don't want to weather them right now, just change their colors.  Is this a mistake to spray paint them or do they take paint well.  Worried about chipping and/or nicks.  Do they need any special prep like light sanding or primers?  Once painted, should they be clear coated?

Is there any plans in the works for Bachmann to make curved turnouts or 3-way turnouts?

I am still in the process of designing my "permanent" layout, and I would like to do a double layer layout due to space constraints.

The lower level would be the turn table and yard while the upper level would be the main runs and some accessory sidings.

To really get the full view of the lower level, I need to use a full 4% slope with a fairly long transition run to seperate the two levels by almost 8 inches in height.  I would be assembling a train on the lower level using switchers and pulling it to the upper level with the main engines.  I would like to use about 10-15 cars in a train.  I will be using either the EM-1 steam engine or consists of 2-3 Bachmann and/or Bowser diesels.

I know when I was young, pulling anything up any slope was not a good idea, as the engines did not have great motors and all but the real expensive ones had rubber band drive.

Today's locos seem to have much more powerful motors and all have gear and u-joint construction.

Am I smoking Crayola Crayons to consider this or is this something that today's designs of engines can handle?

Also, is there any problems with using even more than a 4% slope in the downhill direction only?

Someone recently told me all you need to design a layout is a pencil, compass and paper.

I have pretty much completed the planning and trackwork for our Christmas layout and I am now in the process of designing my first large permanent layout.  Much bigger planning project than the first, as there is so much more I would like to do on this one, it's hard to make up my mind let alone determine if it will work!

I have an advanced CAD system for which I consider myself to be an extremely advanced user (25 years experience).  I wanted to experiment with different layouts before I started cutting wood and buying track.   I created all the track sections I needed for Bachmann EZ track, and still found creating and modifying layouts to be tedious at best.

I just found and tried a railroad software program called "Anyrail" and they have a free downloadable demo version.  The free demo version has all the capabilities of the full version, except you are limited to working with about 50 sections of track.  More than enough to get the feel for the system.  You can do everything the full version does, including save the layout.  It has track libraries for many track manufacturers.  

I use Bachmann, and it's Bachmann library showed every piece of track Bachmann sells in both steel and nickel-silver and it shows the piece of track by name as well as Bachmann part number, even DCC turnouts and the turntable.  Track pieces automatically snap together and align themselves just like the actual track does.  You can create and analyze slopes and it will show you the grade % slope as well as the height, but cannot render them in 3D.  

You can use the drawing tools to draw the platform itself and then place your tracks on the platform.   I have even created a 3 layer platform with interconnected tracks on each layer.  

I can print the layout to any Windows printer and start getting creative on your scenery with a pencil and erasure.  Trains are fairly particular about the track radius the run on but don't really care how sharp a road, stream or river turns, so sketching is easiest for scenery.

I liked it VERY much, and decided to purchase it ($59.00).  Now I am not limited to the 50 track sections and have revised my future layout plan several times, saving each of them for comparison.  When I'm done with the one I chose, all I need to do is count the Bachmann track sections for each type and make sure I've got them all.

Again, it does have libraries for most all track manufacturer, not just Bachmann, but the Bachmann library is very complete.  This allows you to interconnect other brands of track should Bachmann not have a solution for a portion you need to create.  It does have somewhat limited scenery and building libraries, but you can draw your own and save them as objects as well.  I don't consider that to be a drawback, as there are thousands on thousands of various buildings out there, and most of them are either home made or radically altered anyway.

I realize all you really need is a pencil, ruler and compass, but for 60 bucks, I find it extremely easy to use with Bachmann track, well worth it and lots of fun.

http://www.anyrail.com/index_en.html

Has anyone else tried it or have used any other good layout software?

I have installed my EZ Controller which replaced my faulty Dynamis.  I have not yet connected the Bachmann 5 amp booster to the EZ Controller.  I understand the EZ Controller is rated at 1 amp.

I have so far successfully ran 4 locomotives at once, 2 with sound, all with lights on and 3 Bachmann Alaska McKinley Explorer passenger cars with lights on, and everything ran fine!

Seems like I would be pulling much more that 1 amp with all this.  I started out with 1 Bowser diesel engine with Tsunami sound, added one Bachmann diesel without sound, another Bachmann diesel without sound and then the fourth engine was another Bowser diesel with Tsunami sound.  After that the McKinley Explorer passenger cars.  Did not just run for a minute or two, ran for about 20 minutes on a track which included a 2 degree incline .

Am I just really fortunate or is something amiss.  No overload, no drop in speed, no hot wires, nothing indicating a problem except the math.

I have 5 McKinley Explorer passenger cars.  I recently had horrible trouble with the Dynamis controller, the Pro-Box and the booster, which resulted in my scrapping the Dynamis and Pro-Box and going with an NCE unit and NCE 5 amp booster on my main layout and the Bachmann EZ Controller with the Bachmann 5 amp booster on our Christmas layout.  Just recently received all the components to power up the layouts.

Very impressed with the Bachmann setup.  I successfully ran FOUR DCC engines, with lights on, 2 of the engines equipped with Tsunami sound cards and 3 of the 5 McKinley Explorer passenger cars with lights on from the 1 amp EZ controller!  WOW, I didn't expect that.  Can't wait to see the performance with the booster on line.

However, the reason for the post, for the first time, I ran the McKinley cars with engines, and had a lot of trouble with the couplers.  They randomly misaligned with each other to the extent they frequently uncouple.  One, and only one combination works OK, but others are terrible.  Only 1 car will stay coupled with the engines.  All the rest uncouple from each other and from all 4 of the engines.  Two engines are Bowser and two are Bachmann.  All the engines couplers align perfectly.

Without power to my layouts, I could not test the cars well before, as I had another problem of the uncoupling wand (or what ever you call it) hitting the re-railer and in some cases the rails themselves on turns and de-railing the car.  Thought all I needed to do was get the Kaydee tool to adjust the height of the wand, as it looked like it was riding too low.  I have done that, and now I find the problem was never with the wand, but with the coupler height itself.

I ran a 15 car freight train with the engines and had no problems.  This evening, I tested the couplers with my coupler height gauge and they are almost all very low out of spec, and actually seem to be pointing downward.  Really surprised at this since they are about a $60.00 list car!  Guess I expected better quality control.

My question, are these couplers height adjustable or do I need to look for some Kaydee offset couplers and replace them?

I have all the McKinley Explorer (new set) of passenger cars.  Each car has a light bar inside, and they receive power from track power in DCC mode, so the lights are always on if there is track power available.

Question to the group:

If I install mobile decoders in each car and only connect the red/black to track power and the blue & white for lighting to the light bar, can I combine all 4 of the cars with the 2 engines into a consist and turn the lights on & off on all 4 of the cars and the 2 engines all at once with the engine light function key?

Is there a way to add a decoder to an existing remote controlled turnout?

The Bachmann turntable is listed as DCC ready and comes with an 8 pin dummy chip.  What decoder is necessary to make this DCC Equipped?

I would like to convert as many of my wheels from plastic to steel as possible, as the MRR club in my area does not permit plastic wheels on the club track.  I see there are 33" wheels, 34" wheels, 36" wheels and probably more, but I am not really sure of the importance of this or how to determine which wheels I currently have, can use or actually need.  I understand what the 36" means, but not how to identify them in HO scale.  Also, what are needle bearing wheels?  Is it just the axle going to a sharp tip or is there a bearing in there.  Seems awful small to have an actual bearing, but I have been really surprised at some of the things I have seen so far, especially in the mechanism on steam engines, so nothing can be "too small to be made and work"!

All help will be appreciated.

Hey Mr. Bach-Man

I have already purchased all of the McKinley Explorer (new series 89' cars with the names Talkeetna, Chena, Nenana and Eklutna) which come with lighted interiors.  I would like to have the rest of the series, which contains 3 cars, Kenia, Kobok and Knik (all of the cars in this line are named for Alaska rivers), but they do not come with interior lights, and they look odd when coupled with the lit cars, sort of like they are broken!  Seems Bachmann only used these 3 cars in the train you purchase as a set, and did not see fit to light these three cars, most likely to keep the price of the train set down.  

It looks to me like you can swap the shells on these cars with very little difficulty, but I would like to be sure that all you need to do is pop out the locking tabs in the vicinity of the trucks to remove the shells from the base.  I could then create lighted versions of these 3 cars for my set and actually offer 3 more unlit cars to someone with the unlit train.