So far, my rail trucks have been OK. (knock on wood) However, the Climax locos have been a nightmare with the couplings splitting just like others have reported with gears on other locos. I told you that story to comment on the fix with brass tubing. I did this with the Climax couplings and it has held up very well. Use some calipers to get the normal outside OD of the gear shoulder in question, then get the closest ID tubing you can. K&S has a great selection. You may find either brass or aluminum available for your size requirements and either should work. Once you have it all ready to go with a dry fit, add your CA adhesive between the split on the gear and then around the outside of the gear shoulder then press the tube on to hold it all together. I used the full length of the 12" tube to make it easier to handle then cut it to length later. I also used a taper reamer to ever so slightly taper the tube to make it easier to align the small coupling into the tube opening. Once dry, cut to length. A small drop of CA on the shaft and then press the gear (coupling) on and you are good to go. It hasn't split or slipped since. (at least not that I can discern)

It's worth a shot. Hobby town USA carries a good selection of the K&S tubing and it is pretty cheap considering it can save what are otherwise very nice Bachmann models from being relegated to static display pieces.

How about an MK 48?

Here is one on eBay, ending in 14 hours. No bids on it as of this posting....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thomas-Kinkade-Hawthorne-Electric-train-Christmas-Express-Caboose-illuminated-/170962673918?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27ce2b60fe

Good luck. This is the best time of year to "find" what you are looking for on eBay, but you may not get the best price at his time of year. Just sayin'....

Hi Clover - Just to clarify, this Heisler has been announced twice by Bachmann (yes, at the convention or in the timeframes you mention). The issue here is the lack of delivery of said announcements, not asking for new items. That said, we all understand delays and such but it just seems to some of us that this release is getting a bit dragged out.

My personal interest in obtaining the Heisler is that (I hope), it will be able to navigate a tighter radius than some of the other On30 offerings. The Porters and Davenports do well on anything I throw at them and the Shay will negotiate anything I need it to do on my layout as does the 4-4-0. The Climax and the Forney were disappointments (at least for me) as the plastic pressed fitting on the Climax trucks gets too much strain on tight radii and will slip or split in some cases. The Forney sticks it's back end out too far to keep much of anything behind it on the rails but other than that is a pretty good runner. The 2-8-0 Consolidations and 2-6-0 Moguls will handle exactly what I would expect for locos in their class. The Rail Trucks and Rail Buses will work marginally well on flat, level track but when it comes to any kind of a grade, fuhgeddaboudit. I'm lucky to get the rail bus to pull the trailer that comes with it. (I envision some sort of bash on those to get them to work better at some point in my future) Anyway, that's my rant on this Sunday morning and I'm sticking to it. 

Very depressing news. 

Chris, I believe they were first due Nov 2011. Then they got bumped to early 2012. Then they got bumped to Oct 2012. Now MicroMark apparently has been told sometime in 2013. These Heislers do not appear to be a priority for Bachmann, or at least that is my take on the persistent delays.

The NMRA flyer says "shipping in October 2012". Anybody heard anything new such as will the Chinese work slowdown affect this date? Not holding my breath, but may be hyperventilating just a tad.

I also had a Davenport with split gears about a year ago. It was that way right out of the box new. It just "thumped" down the track. I thought the side rods were hitting the ties or was just seriously binding or out of time to each other. Nope, turned out that the spur gears were split on the shafts which you can only see well by pulling the plate off the bottom. Thankfully, The Favorite Spot exchanged it for me with no hassles and no questions asked. I "did" drive over there for the exchange however. Nice folks to deal with. My new Davenport has been flawless.

Regarding the Shays, I can fortunately say that all 5 of mine have never had split gears. (4 of those 5 were bought at The Favorite Spot)