What is meant by DCC Ready Tenders? The way I read it is that by using these tenders and wiring a decoder into them you can convert any suitable Bachmann loco to DCC such as 2-6-6-2, 0-6-0- Switcher, 2-8-0 Connie or
4-8-2 Light Mountain or am I misreading the info
I was wondering about that myself. The motor is in the engine, so if the decoder is in the tender, wires to the motor from the tender are required. Maybe the tenders have the space setup for a sound decoder and speaker? ???
Charles
If they are like the long distance and vanderbuilt, they have a circuit board in them with solder pads for a decoder and solder pads for the wires from the locomotive with maybe some diodes and resistors for lighting.
I think the biggest thing these hint to is upcomming retooling on the standard line loco's to make them DCC onboard. Also a revamping of the 2-8-0 to move the decoder to the tender, although I would rather have the decoder in the loco so we don't have to deal with a permanently connected tender and wires between the loco and tender but that seems to be the trend.
I could care less about the DCC ability, I am just happy to see these tenders available seprately and have all wheel pickup.
Kitbashers rejoice!!!!!
This is BIG news as well! I've always loved those little slope tenders but never could get a decoder entirely in one (the threaded screw posts got in the way, and I tried just about everything else with very limited success). Perhaps I can ressurect those 0-4-0s...or MAYBE Bachmann will retool those to match the quality of the Spectrum steamers (I hope I hope)!
Check the Nscale posts on TrainBoard & Atlas to find these tenders also used for other brands steamers. Improved pickup will help the Model Power steamers. Think of it as changing some old clunkers into Really Useful engines.
There's a lot of speculation if this also means Bachmann can improve on their standard line steamers with some DCC capable tenders. With enough variation, it's possible to make some road specific changes. For fantrip use, sometimes the smaller tenders were swapped out for larger ones.
Great news! Now I can buy a tender for the N&W Heavy Mountain that is pretty close to correct! (the medium USRA tender) ::). The C&O and N&W Heavy Mountains were built with USRA 10,000 gallon tenders (I believe the medium is a 12,000 gallon version) - close enough.
N&W's Heavy Mountains only had these (USRA medium) tenders for a few years - N&W equiped these with N&W designed 16,000 tenders by the mid 1920s. They were certainly gone on the C&O by the 1930s when C&O rebuilt them into the version that Bachmann offers with the vandy tender.
Hopefully Bachmann will make future runs of this great locomotive with the correct tender "as built".
Since the medium tender has already been in production for a while (Spectrum 2-8-0) it seems strange that Bachmann didn't offer it on the heavy Mountain already, where appropriate. The small tender is what's really new, and maybe we could speculate on what steam models Bachmann could make that would go with it. A larger 4-6-0? An authentic Prairie?
Anyone else wonder why they have never done a short Vanderbuilt tender to fit the N-Scale Spectrum 2-8-0 like the one they did in HO. SP, UP and GN modelers could sure use one!!!
Maybe the Bach Man has an answer or a hint of things to come?
I concur w H Lee.
I would like a short vanderbilt tender.
I just ordered 4 of the MP vanderbilt tenders to replace the rectangular coal tender on some of my SP steam engines.
My guess is maybe there were not that many road that used the short vanderbilt tenders.
I don't know the answer to that question.