Well when I wanted to hook up a long vandy tender to a heavy 4-8-2, I just removed the two wires going from the circuit board to the tender trucks, removed the board from the vandy tender, moved the board (still attached to the plug etc.) into the vandy from the rectangular tender and (dare I say it? ) soldered the two wires back in place. Just plug the tender and engine together and they work fine.

I'm gonna bet on the Bach Man on this one. Remember that there were more USRA copies than original USRA engines, and the copies had more variations. Even if original 2-10-2's didn't have a particular valve gear etc. doesn't mean later copies didn't.

4-4-0's c. 1880 certainly would have Stephenson valve gear...but some of those engines ran into the 1940's and had many changes over the years. I believe a few 4-4-0's were even built in the 1900's BTW. I've certainly seen pics of 4-4-0's with what appears to be Walschaert valve gear from say the Twenties or Thirties, late in their careers.

Quote from: rogertra on April 07, 2008, 08:52:35 PM
Kevin.

Have you tried to turn the tender's trucks around so that the wheels are on different rails?  The tender trucks have a habit of swivelling and if the + and - sides get swapped around, you have problems.

Remember K.I.S.S.

Look always for the simplest solution first, not the most complex, as in "Is the circiut board toast?"

Yup, I tried connecting the trucks to the DC power via alligator clips, nothing. When I opened up the tender, I tried connecting the clips directly to the wires coming from the circuit board, again nothing. Then I tried touching the DC power wires to the points where the truck connections are soldered to the circuit board, still nothing.

Quote from: kevin2083 on April 06, 2008, 09:39:27 PM
You might just try puting the PC board from the original tender in the vandy tender.

Yup that's what I ended up doing. For some reason even the original tender didn't work at first, but eventually it started working. I'm guessing something is either wrong with the vanderbilt's circuit board, or a wire is connected to the wrong connection on it or something. There were no loose wires or anything.

Actually it might work out OK, as the now-gutted rectangular tender has an opening in the floor for a speaker. I'll have to see if it will fit one of the other Spectrum engines I have that I want to add sound to. If so, I could just swap out the floor parts and make it a little easier to get a speaker in there properly. 

Well, I'm more familiar with the shorter earlier Walthers roundhouse kits, but they were designed to be 'modular' so you could put as many together as you wanted to, like three kits together to make a 9-stall roundhouse. I believe they're made to allow you to leave one wall off so they will all work together and all stalls will line up.

Otherwise, it wasn't uncommon because of space restrictions etc. for a turntable to serve two separate roundhouses. I'm sure you could find cases where a RR built a small roundhouse and a few decades later built a larger one separate from the first one for their newer larger engines. IIRC GN's Superior WI roundhouse had a fire or something and several stalls of the roundhouse were torn down, leaving a couple of open tracks between what was in effect two separate roundhouses.

One thing I've found with Athearn "blue box" engines is they need a decoder with Back EMF "cruise control", it really improves the running characteristics of the engine. However, I'm not sure if any diesel combined sound decoders have BEMF??

As it happens, I just bought a couple of MRC "sounder" sound-only decoders that are under $30 each, haven't had a chance to install them yet and try them out, but that with a regular decoder from Digitrax or TCS might be one option to look at.

Otherwise, you could just try the Soundtraxx LC decoder for EMD engines, it has a good first-generation sound and would work well in an F unit, although it doesn't have the Back EMF. I have a couple in Life-Like and Atlas units and like them.

Thanks, I'll keep testing it out. I've tried being sure everything is plugged in correctly - I have several Spectrum engines and usually there is no problem with getting things running.

I put the engine in a foam cradle upside down and found that with the rectangular tender connected, I could get the engine to run by using alligator clips to connect power to the tender trucks. Nothing when I tried it with the vanderbilt one. I looked inside and there are no obvious loose wires so perhaps there is an issue with the lightboard or something??

OK, I'm stumped.  I just bought an undec USRA 4-8-2 heavy. The undec version only comes with the rectangular tender, so I bought a separate undec long vanderbilt tender to use with it. The 4-8-2 heavy is available in decorated versions with the long vanderbilt tender, and the connections between the tender and engine are the same on both types of tenders, so there should be no problem.

So when I go to try it out, I hooked up the engine to the vanderbilt tender. Nothing, no movement, nothing. I then tried it with the rectangular tender. Nothing, but after about five minutes, I got it to start running. So I figure OK now it will work, so I put the vanderbilt back on. Again, nothing. So now I put the rectangular one on again, and now it's running again. 

Am I missing something?? I can't see any reason the engine won't work with the vanderbilt tender...of course after removing it a couple of times, I've probably loosened a wire or two in the plug, since it's so hard to get out!! 

Actually the term "hi-railer" refers to guys who run O scale (1:48) equipment on three rail track; except for the track, their layouts are 'to scale'. That term in that use has been around at least since the early eighties, and I suspect goes back farther than that. The advantage is you can run scale sized stuff on relatively sharper curves than you could with two rail 'scale stuff', which often uses 72" radius curves. Even the largest Lionel products (or MTH etc.) can take an 0-72 (72" diameter) curve, and some scale sized Lionel stuff can go down to 0-36 track.

Lionel began making scale sized products in the 1930's, and many scale layouts used Lionel's 4-6-4 Hudson, Milwaukee Hiawatha 4-4-2, and Union Pacific M-10000 models...often on the same layout!! (Although usually with outside-third rail trackage.)

Keep in mind that ore cars were built to haul extremely heavy iron ore, that little 24' ore car carried as much weight as a 50' boxcar loaded with 'normal' items.  Narrow gauge railroads usually ran on light rail and were not designed for hauling extremely heavy commodities like iron ore.

In Minnesota, mining companies did use narrow gauge trains to remove 'overburden' - the dirt layer above the iron ore - when starting a new ore pit. Small engines and side-dump cars were the norm, that might be interesting to model.

I would try it on DC first, if you haven't already. Many decoders allow the engine to still run on DC power, or at least can be set to allow that. So it could be it will run on DC as is. If not, you won't hurt anything by trying it. 

Rivarossi also made a streamlined Milwaukee 4-6-4 "Baltic" that looked good. With Walthers coming out with their Hiawatha passenger cars, would be nice to see a revamped model of that engine again.

CB&Q had some Hudsons too, included two that were streamlined with fluted stainless steel to match the Zephyr passenger cars.

BTW I rode behind a Hudson two days ago - CP 2816 (with Milwaukee 261 4-8-4). Would like to see models of both of those, since they could fit into a 1950's layout in regular service or a current one in fantrip service.

Ah!! That's what I was going to post when I read the first comment -  when I get a new engine, I always try to "break it in" by running continuously forward for about 15 min., then the same in reverse, usually at about 2/3-3/4 full throttle. 

I know at least at one time (in the last year or two) MDC's 60' Harriman cars were available pre-decorated in the SP Daylight paintscheme. They should work on your track. They don't have interiors, but the roofs come off easily so you can add your own.

Back in the 70's-80's all Bachmann stuff was basically toy-train quality. Their Spectrum line started in about 1988; the BL-2, GP-30 and Pennsy K4 were much better detailed and better running engines than their earlier products.

Bachmann Plus was originally meant to be somewhere in the middle - not quite as good as Spectrum, but better than the low-grade stuff.