I have a DCC Sound Equipped C&O® H-4 2-6-6-2 Articulated Locomotive w/Vandy VC12 Tender and it was never very fast. The E Z system was the fastest and then my Dynamis was slower but I'm still using my Dynamis and it is very slow. The sound is like it is going fast but when it is as fast as it will go my Decapod will beat it when the Decapod is set to 20% velocity. The wheels appear to turn about once every second whereas when new it was a blur to look at.
I have used the light oil on the rods etc and all seems like there is no friction. The loco does not get hot, like it was overcoming a lot of friction either.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated - thanks.

Info that may help some - I bought the Freght station and the Passenger station, both of which come with an incandesant lamp inside to light the interior of the building. I wanted to mount the 2 units next to a piece of 9 inch straight so I cut a hole in the side of the track and 2 holes adjacent to the tracks. I then threaded the cable through the side hole and soldered 1 cable to each of the 2 rails by poking the wire up the little holes next to the nickel rail. The DCC constant voltage lights the 2 stations without the need to run cables from a separate aux power supply. I know some people will state that this will take power from the locos but I have numerous lights running from the DCC power and the locos still have enough available current. If current ever became an issue then I would probably buy a booster before I bought an external supply because of the ease of wiring. BTW - Dynamis 2.3 Amps with 4 or 5 locos running at once with LED's in 7 pass cars, 3 cabooses, 4 lit crane cars and 2 stations.

I have an EZ Command DCC controller and an EZ Command Dynamis controller and the same loco will operate at different speeds with each controller. The DCC 2-6-6-2 (with sound) runs faster under the basic EZ controller than it does under EZ Command Dynamis controller and, obviously, the loco has the CV's programmed the same for each test.
My test is with both controllers flat out. I do not, however, notice any difference in the chuff rate. The Dynamis shows 126/126 for velocity and the EZ is full clock on the control. I guess the thing to do is measure the voltage at the track but I do not have a dvm for the DCC reading. Has anybody got any theories or ideas as to why this is happening?

I have a sound loco that was never as fast as other steam locos but it seems to be getting slower and slower. The chuff speed is fast so I assume that the received DCC command is OK but the loco runs about one third of the other locos. I have changed numerous CV's to no avail so I reset #8 to 8 and it's still about half the out the box speed. Anybody else seen this or have advice on CV's or could it be lubrication? I have lubed the rods but I have been reluctant to remove the boiler. It moves on startup increment 1 and has linear velocity to input but at 128 it is so slow. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Just got one of these and DOA. Removed the tender and my Dynamis still immediately says "SHORT" with just the loco on the track.
Resistance across the wheels = 3.3 ohms - I can see why I'm out of current! My Diesel R = 144K ohms. So far I am not convinced that this loco was ever tested.
Anybody had the same problem with a new loco and, I suppose that I ship it back to Bachmann?

I bought a bulk pack of Kaydee # 5 and attempted to instal them on my Bachmann passenger cars. These cars have lights and the coupler housing is articulated so that it turns with the wheels around the curves. It seems that everyone loves the Kaydees but I have not got any to work. I don't know why you would need instructions but it seems that there is only one way to instal them: Remove old - hold coupler on place over the screw hole - lay the copper spring plate over the coupler - Place the plastic cover over all of the parts and screw in the screw. Now the coupler does not spring, feels tight and is about 5% as good as the original Bachmann couplers. What am I missing here? Not to mention the fact that the frustration of installing these things is enormous or is it my fingers are slightly bigger than a new-borns. I would contact Kaydee but I know that this board must have some feedback on how bad these things are.

I know this must be in here somewhere but I have just done the prerequisite 1 hour of searching and have not found a definition of the AC volts from the EZ Command. I am reading 16.4v and sometimes as low as 14.X with 3 DCC trains on a total of 3 separate loops of 36 feet each. The reason for my check is that my 2-6-6-2 (with Tsunami) runs about half as fast as my other two locos. I have a few DCC turnouts but they should not draw current if they are not being actuated.
I have read that people are getting 19.1v. I also have read about using more than one source track for the power. Right now I only have one wire from EZ to the 3 circuits and they all connect to each other via the turnouts. I do not see a great deal of drop with everything running except when I switch a turnout. It seems to me that the voltage would start to sag if my total load was getting low enough to be sucking too hard on the EZ?

I have 5 DCC turnouts in locations that I cannot  see their direction so I wanted to mount an LED on the turnouts so that I could tell, at a glance, as to which direction they were set. The DCC decoder decodes the command and actuates the solenoid so it must have knowledge of the command. It also assumes a toggle without feedback, I.E. it tells the solenoid to switch but has no feed back as to whether or not it happened. I will accept the no feedback situation but can the turnout decoder output a control signal that could be used to enable a toggle of a green or red LED to indicate that it was switched from its default position? I have seen the additional microswitches on the solenoid etc but with DCC it should be easy to utilize the "brain" of the decoder as a control line to the LED driver circuit.

I see lots written on the lamp being too dim but I still do not know how to fix it. This loco came in the NY Central set and is DCC. I can turn it on and off with F10 but I am gussing that the wires go from the tender directly to the LED? If that is the case then the resistor on the PC board needs to be changed or how do I know if the CV is set for full brightness? Bachmann don't give you any information with the set as to the specs, CV's or the model numbers of what's included. Sorry if this has been answered before but I really cannt afford 5 hours a day to read hundreds of posts. It would be so much easier if Bachmann had a knowledge base and gave the wiring specs and the PC board layout and schematics.

I have been reading lots of posts about getting the turnout back to parallel and my conclusion is a #5 with a 1/2 length of 22" radius. Does that sound correct?
I find it hard to believe that Bachmann design EZ Track with such odd angles and spurs and then don't give the dimensions and angles of either. I was going to ask, "What were they thinking" but it is obvious that the designer has never constructed a train set in his life and obviously cannot think. Wouldn't a "normal" person link a turnout with a complementary product to accomplish the easy implementation of a turnout to parallel track with a resulting common length?

I have the New York Central set and I bought the DCC controller, track, DCC turnouts, tall pier and incline pier set. Problems: The rear truck of the rear car always derails at the turnout. The incline is set at a greater than each track join so the incline is less of a pull than the manual states but the loco slips and cannot pull the 3 cars. There is no parts list with Bachmann sets so it's impossible to know what you get in the set but the couplers un-couple at numerous locations. I have read that these couplers are pretty bad but at least they shouldn't uncouple out of the box. The loco also sounds like the gears are slipping but it doesn't matter if it's up or down or on the level.
Everything I own is Bachman so at least I know who created the problems. Nothing I own is more than 3 weeks old.