I am new to this forum and i already have a question about the Bachmann 2-8-0 Consoloidation with smoke and also the HO Amtrak plasser EM80C track cleaning car. My first qusetion about the 2-8-0 is how do you get it to smoke, i called bachmann today and they said to run it about 2 hours and it should start to smoke so i did that and still it does not smoke,i brought this off of ebay and it was still in the box and it looked like it has not been run on a track so i hope someone can help me with this problem. Also i brought this track cleaning car and it came with nothing telling how to put the cleaning solution that you want to use in it so i was hoping someone out there owned one of these and could tell me how to get the solution in it top help clean the track. Please help if you can. I must tell you that the 2-8-0 i think is brand new .
Let's first determine which 2-8-0 you have. BTW, all Consolidations were 2-8-0s and all 2-8-0s were Consolidations, so one term or the other is fine.
Did your Consolidation come in a black box with gold lettering on it, with a foam interior, and the tender connected to the locomotive with two sets of wires, one with two wires and the other with four? If so, it's a Specturm (see box top) and does not smoke.
The other one came in a rectangular box with a pretty picture on the top and there are no wires between locomotive and tender. That did smoke, I believe. However, you do not want to use smoke. Check out numerous threads in this forum about smoke - especially for HO. It is not good for your track or your scenery.
There are many track cleaning theories. I like to use denatured 91% alcohol, followed by rubbing off the residue. I'm no at all familiar with the track cleaning car you aquired, but most have a screw top to add the cleaning solution.
I hope this helps.
Gene
No the box that i have is white with brown on it and itndoes not have any wires between the locomotive and the tenderand it say's that it lights and smokes.The item number on the box say's 0651 and it is a santa fe model.It may be a older model and it did come with smoke oil. It is a little smaller than a 4-8-4 if that will help.Sorry for the name change on here but for some reason it would not let me sign in under the other so i had to register again.
I have found that the smoke generators easily burn out if you run the Engine for any amount of time without oil in the reservoir and you only get any noticeable amount of oil if you run it at a unrealistic unprototypical high speed. Its best to do without smoke generators at HO scale on indoor layouts.
Dave
Have you tried putting smoke fluid into the smoke stack? ;)
But either way, I must agree with these two. HO Scale + Indoors + Smoke = Bad.
I'd recommend that you re-sell both the Colsol and the EM80C and buy yourself a Spectrum Connie with DCC & Sound. Now those are NICE!!! ;D
Sounds like you have the Bachmann Plus Consolidation. This used the same body shell but a much better mechanism than its predecessor. It used a large worm gear/flywheel and a can motor to provide near silent operation. Some ran well, some waddled down the track. They did not have a switch to turn off the smoke generator which typically burned out in a few hours if run dry. I worked on quite a number of these and the first step was to remove the smoker. In my opinion, these were good, reliable locomotives, even the ones that waddled. They were replaced by the Bachmann Spectrum Consolidation which was even better. But don't let the existence of the Rolls Royce spoil your enjoyment of your Ford.
So is it better to run this without the smoke,i just brought it and it really is a nice little engine and it fits my layout just fine.I really can not see selling it because i really do like it and i throught when i brought it that it would smoke but if it does it does and if not well i will have fun just watching it run. Thanks for all your help.
It is really better to run it without smoke. I agree, it's a nice looking locomotive and a model of the largest 2-8-0 ever built, IIRC.
Gene