Those old Mantua couplers were even worse than the X2F's.  It was rumored that you could pick up a train by the caboose and swing it around your head and they wouldn't come apart. When I got into the hobby in the early '60's the Kadees were becoming the de facto standard.  There were some folks still using the original MK Kadees.  These had a straight uncoupling pin that worked mechanically with a diamond-shaped ramp.  IIRC, these came out in the mid-50's.  Another coupler available was made by Devore.  It was a to-scale knuckle coupler that had a curved pin similar to today's Kadees but worked mechanically with a ramp to lift the pin, opening the knuckle.  They looked real nice, but their operation was spotty due to the mechanical friction of the cast metal. 

Aside from looking like nothing ever seen the real world, the X2F couplers are notorious for being pretty good couplers, but terrible un-couplers.  Have a train derail close to the table edge and its likely the entire consist will head for the floor.  Kadees are good, reliable, tough (in metal), and look like a real coupler. 

I guess the first question to ask is, did you clean all the wheel treads, especially those that pick up current?  Dirt and oxidation occur over time which will effect slow speed performance. 

Yes, the 1860's cars with the duck-bill roof come in green.  All Bachmann needs to do is swap out the roofs since I'm sure the bodies are all the same.

A suggestion to Mr. Bachmann - please do the old-time round-end roof passenger cars in coach green or Pullman green.  And maybe letter them Ma and Pa to go with all those nice 4-4-0's and 4-6-0's.  Please?

If it is painted, it should be no problem applying decals.  You can normally see if is painted by looking inside the body.  If its a different color, then it is painted.  If it is cast in colored plastic, I would give a quick bath with dish soap and warm water to remove any parting compound from the casting process before decaling. 

Just as an FYI, the Athearn units were/are about 10 scale feet too short.  The original version had rubber band "Hi-F" drive.

There was a company out there that made a full system for air-operated turnout controls.  Doubt that it is still around, but who knows?  IIRC, you could use "canned air" to power the system.  It took very little to operate a turnout so a can lasted a good while. 

This is also the reason a lot of roads put the loco numbers on the backs of the tenders.  Anyone out in the turntable area knew exactly which loco was where.

Here's another site to look at:  http://southern.railfan.net/images/archive/southern/steam/460/460.html
The Southern painted quite a few locos intended for passenger service in the "Apple Green" scheme.  More well-known are the Pacifics and Mountains, but they also had some Ten-Wheelers and Americans done as well.  Pacific No. 1401 is stuffed and mounted in all its green and gold glory within the Smithsonian's American History museum in Washington, DC. 

Be aware that virtually all of the Bachmann screws are metric thread.  Eyeglass screws are usually American 00-90 thread.  Best to check at a decent hobby shop where you should be able to find metrics. 

I haven't had time to look closely, but sometimes you can just make sure the offending wire goes over top of the drawbar when you hook the tender to the loco, taking up most of the slack. 

Well, I got the loco out of the box last night to run on a friend's layout.  We checked the programming to make sure the WOW momentum feature was minimized and changed the address to the loco number.  In general I was pleased with the operation of the loco, except that one of the signal wires from the tender to the loco was too long and occasionally caught on a frog or guardrail.  That's a minor fix.  I thought the whistle had a little too much reverb but the chuff was good and the driver rotation to chuff rate was real close.  Will give it some more exercise at the club layout on Friday.  So far, so good.

An educated guess on the movie:  The Professionals

I just picked up one of the updated Russians.  Have not had it out of the box yet, but wanted to know if anyone has run theirs and wondered if there were any special things to watch for.  I don't have DCC so I plan to take it to an operating session on a friend's layout next week, so I can get the decoder set up for the loco number and check for chuff sync with the drivers.  Any thoughts?