The guy with the tar paper has one of the best and certainly cheapest methods. It is properly called roofing felt.  You can get a whole roll of 15lb felt at lowes or anywhere for I think around 15 bucks.  All you have to do is take a ruler and paint pen to do your lines.  thing I like best is you can cut out your curves with no seam as the roll is 4 ft wide.

Does not somebody make a sound decoder to add to the Bachmann dcc equipped and dcc on board locos?  Somebody must make them for Bachmann. 

Well that doesn't make any sense.  It runs faster on less voltage.  OK

Another funny thing it runs 30 percent faster on dc.  I guess dc supplying more voltage than dcc. 

I hear you don, no was factory sealed.  No foam either, I took it out when un packing.  Just not a fast machine, like I said it will actually run around 55 full open no load.  Not good, but you takes your chance when buying without seeing.  I had wondered tho, if anybody on this forum had one to compare, but doesn't seem like it.

I haven't messed with any values.  Just  out of the box, so I would think the default values are there.  I did some more checking, and paired it alongside a regular sound loco, and it is actually doing around 55.  Im sure that is what the company limited it to and it is what it is, even tho not satisfactory to me.

Just need to stay away from Bachmann locos unless there is a way to check them first.

Brand new factory boxed.  Yes level, no cars.  Just slow.  Full throttle, maybe 40. 

Just received this dog.  Pretty, but I doubt it hits 40 mph.  Anybody else have one of these turtles?  i suppose there is no way to turn it up.  Im very disappointed with this, i would think they could do better.  I wanted to add sound decoder because it is a beauty, but if this is the best it will run, Im going to just unload it.

Thanks but all that research and soldering etc. is way too intensive for me.  I need to find one that just should plug in.  If they dont make it, Ill prolly forget it.  I guess ill try calling Bachmann direct and see if they have anything.

Thanks.  Ill have to wait till it gets here to see what plugs it has.  I see two coming out of the tender that look flat in the picture.    I would like something that would be compatible just to plug in.  After it is in, do I have to do any fancy programming?  Im using Prodigy express

Thank you, Don, for the hospitality and the information

NOW, do you know if I can get a sound only decoder that will work with this?

Hi, newbie here.  Can anyone tell me if there is any difference at all between the Bachmann southern Pacific steamer 50201 and 50202?  Only think I can determine is different road numbers  4446 and 4449