My take - you have a mechanical bind in the drive train.  It may be with one of the drivers or it may be in the gearing between the geared driver and the motor.

-John

On30 is O Scale (1:48).  But it also narrow gauge.  Narrow gauge equipment is smaller than standard gauge (eg. Lionel .. sorta).  The people are the same.  The buildings are the same.  The equipment is proportioned to stay on the narrower rail separation.

-John

Basically, you'll be swapping the factory decoder for a sound decoder and installing a speaker.

The factory sound decoders are based on SoundTraxx Tsunami sound decoders.  Whether you choose SoundTraxx or another brand, there will be some assembly required.  You'll need to open up the loco where the decoder is housed, unplug it, probably unscrew the circuit board and install the speaker, screw the board back on, and plug in the new sound decoder.  After that, you'll probably want to adjusts some of the control variables (ID, speed, acceleration, sound levels, etc).

-John

A 100 ohm 1/4 watt resistor will dim the light.  Inserting a function-only decoder will give you the ability to turn off the light.  The resistor would go on the output side of a decoder.

I've use this resistor value to dim headlights on Moguls and Porters.

-John

Mr Bach-man -

What's this fancy, new, non-speaker technology in the new Porters??

-John

Are you hand laying track? Or using flex?  If flex, are you looking at On30 flex or HO flex? 

What is the nature/theme of your planned railroad?

-John

My 2 cents. 

Centerline: 3" straight, 3.5" curve (yes you can go .5" smaller but that's smaller than finger width for me)

Radius: 22" minimum (24" minimum if you have the space)

Track: HO width rail separation is HO width rail separation.  Go with what looks right to your eye (and your wallet).  ME stuff looks nice but certainly isn't needed on hidden/less visible tracks.  ME has exactly two switches (LH & RH #5).  Consider spiking down or building your own.

Turntable: If you're going to run 4-6-0's and 2-8-0's, 12" is pushing it.  I've seen some nice turntable bashes that started life as Walthers 90ft HO turntables.

-John

Wow!  For as popular as On30 supposedly is, you'd have thought that there would have been at least one decent sized display layout.

Well ... maybe next year....

-John

Scott -

How many On30 layouts were on display at NTS?  I'm assuming Bachmann's display layout was there as a given. 

-John

Yes

-John

Here's Porter sn 1196 (built 1890).  This is the ex-Cortez Mines Porter rescued from Nevada and rebuilt.  As built for Cortez, this was a 30" loco.  During it's recent rebuild, it was regauged to 36".  This is a shot from its first post rebuild steam up Labor Day weekend 2009.


-John

You might want to open the tender and recheck things.  Make sure that nothing is shorting the speaker contacts and that nothing is shorting the sound board.  If you are getting flashing lights when a problem happens, this could be a diagnostic code.  Count the flashes.  As Bach-man suggested, contact SoundTraxx.  They are super helpful.

-John

It would be nice if someone would do a rtr on30 2-4-0.

-John

Accucraft/AMS has On30 Jackson & Sharp coaches already.

-John

There are a few sounds that are not present in the Bachmann (OEM) flavor of the Tsunami.  As was noted by Bob, the whistle selection is more limited.  Bell, Long & Short Whistle, Steam blow off, Water stop, Brake squeal, and Coupler release are there. 

Injector sounds are not present.  Nor are the random Fireman Fred sounds (coal shoveling, grease gun, wrench, etc).  Also missing is the 7 band sound equalizer. 

Since the Bachmann's don't need/have Fx5 and Fx6, these function key assignments have been replaced by sounds normally found on F9-F12 (on an open market Tsunami).  This allows all the available sounds to be accessible on DCC systems with as few as 8 function keys.

-John R