Beau just arrived in stock. I preordered him from Trainworld, and will most likely ship very soon.

The Large Scale Toby's Museum Coaches are also finally in stock.

Moving shells from older, custom decorated or hard to find, locos to modern chassis is almost a hobby in itself.

Len

Quote from: Ralph S on May 31, 2024, 02:28:43 PMWow!  I know I'm an amateur in train modeling knowing that even with a ball park amount, 50 or more locomotives is way beyond my thought patterns.   I'm lucky to have 18 DCC loco's with 6 not by Bachmann.  I have 15 DC locos where 11 are not Bachmann, that is, Life-like, Tyco, Mantua, although they still work, they are all discontinued.  They are on my museum DC powered track.
There are 7 DC Bachmann's I want to convert to DCC, where 3 are MOW's.  This is where I run into a conundrum of either purchasing the Dynamis or purchasing the DCC decoders for the locos. I want to do both, but which to purchase first is where I'm at today.

I'd get the Dynamis and learn how to use it before I started converting locomotives to DCC. On older locomotives like the ones you describe, you'll have to hardwire the decoders, and you may have to completely rewire the locomotive in the process. It sounds like they are all low quality train set locomotives that were marginal performers on DC, and adding DCC isn't going to help them perform better. Locomotives like this have a single power truck, and traction tires on some of the wheels. The diesels will pick up power on only 4 wheels, two for each rail. DCC requires much better electrical contact to avoid problems, and these locomotives will not have it. Can they be converted? Sure. Just about anything can be converted to DCC. There are tutorials on the various DCC manufacturers website and you tube on how to convert almost anything to DCC. Will it be worth it? Only you can decide. To me, converting a Tyco using the existing drive has too many drawbacks. But me being a huge fan of the Alco locomotives I grew up around, I am currently in the process of rebuilding a Tyco C630 with DCC and a Hobbytown chassis. To me, after considering all my options, this seemed to be the one most likely to result in the locomotive I want.

I also have around 50 locomotives. But I basically started Model Railroading in the year 2007 after being out for 41 years.  Everything I had from 41 years before was destroyed in a fire a few years before.  So I basically started over in the DCC era. I have three DC locomotives, but they are all on hold waiting for decoders.

Presently, I don't run diesel locomotives, i'm modeling the 1930s, but I have around 15 I bought over time to run at some future time on another layout. The reality of model railroading today is that nothing is available very long, nearly everything is limited run in comparison to the days of yore.  It's a good thing I bought those diesels because none of them are available anymore.

I belive that DCC Thomas is one of trainworld top pre orders.

Now I have some DCC suggestions

James Gordon and Toby would be nice to see soon

A Thomas version of the DCC 2 engine set would also be cool
It would come with Thomas,Percy, green mail car , cream tanker (set exclusive re-release ) , and spikeful brakevan.

If it were available, I would be in the market for one.

Ted Wilton

I think that more characters receiving DCC and sound would depend on how the sales are for the upcoming DCC Thomas and Percy models.  If not, it would be nice to at least see Bachmann upgrade some of their models to be DCC ready similar to the models that are available in the UK or even introduce a few different modules for the different characters, similar to the one Bachmann made for large scale.

The user Redtender5 is a great person to reach out to if you need any assistance or pointers to add DCC and sound to your current collection of models if you would like to have it taken care of sooner rather than later.

Dear Scott,
The 2-8-0 tooling is still extant; a reissue is certainly possible if there is enough demand.
Let's hope!
the Bach-man

OK, i have investigated a little further this morning. I disconnected the motor wires from the decoder and powered the motor with a laboratory power supply. I set volts to around 5 and current clip to 500 mAh then connected the motor. Immediate current clip, the motor is toast.

Dapper indeed.
Thanks for the help.
Mark B.