....what Spookshow said.........................

These things always have been noisy.  The old ones, without the factory DCC were even more noisy.  There is nothing wrong with it, it is simply noisy.

The funny thing is that the decoder seems to absorb some noise.  I fried the decoder on one, so I had to wire around it.  The result is something that makes more racket than the newest version but still less than the old one.

They will run  nicely at slow to average speeds, and funny, but my old ones will pull six Rivarossi heavyweights, on Rivarossi trucks, up a one per-cent grade at thirty SMPH.  The prototypes would not do that.  I have not tried to see what the new one will pull.  They run nicely but noisily.

Quote from: Sundance69 on March 24, 2017, 11:51:25 AMI also have two Bachmann diesel engines with knuckle couplers.

Which ones are they and do you know approximately when B-mann issued them?

The B-mann dummy knuckle couplers and McHenry couplers are compatible with MTs.

Some of the earliest issues of B-mann with dummy knuckle couplers have the couplers at an incorrect height.  They will couple to the MTs, but might not stay coupled.  There are several possibilities to correct this.  You can substitute UniMates, or use the MT suggested conversion.  Most of these are 2004, but check with MT to be certain.

If you have locomotives with McHenry couplers note the external spring.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you remove this spring.  It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get it to go back (this assumes that you actually find the spring after it launches).  If you take out that spring, you will have to replace the coupler with something, as removal of the spring renders the couplers useless.

MT 1133 is almost universal for old B-mann.  If you are using sharp curves, you can use 1134, which is nothing but an 1133 with a longer shank.  These will work on the freight or passenger cars for B-mann.  If you are going to work with 1133/1134, buy the MT coupler tweezers.  They are indispensible to working with these particular couplers.

You can swap out the trucks on the Atlas freight cars.  MT sells trucks with couplers mounted for these cars.  They even come in ten packs.  There are Bettendorf, roller bearing, Andrews and arch bar, as well as others.  Most of the older Atlas freight cars will have Bettendorfs although some will have roller bearing.  One or two of the wood cars might look allright with Andrews.  Arch bar trucks are mostly nineteenth century, although it took until the 1920s or 1930s before AAR banned them in interchange service.  That ban was breached during World War II, as well, as the railroads were using almost anything that rolled then.

If you have some older Atlas passenger cars, MT sells six wheel trucks for the heavyweights and four wheel trucks for the smooth side or corrugateds.  If you flip over the car, you should see a screw that holds in the truck.  You will have to pop off the roof and hold the weight while you unscrew the truck.   If, however, you have a really old Atlas/Rivarossi heavyweight passenger car, you may notice no screw but the flat head of a pin that holds the trucks onto the car.  The pin is an extremely tight friction fit into the car weight and is almostimpossible to remove without causing serious damage to the car.  All is not lost, however.  There is a coupler that you can fit to the existing Rivarossi truck. The conversions for this are any of the following:  1049/1128/1129. It is not hard to do it.  You undo the metal clip on the truck, pull out the Rapido and the spring, then follow the MT directions to convert the coupler.

Oh, so it does not have to climb a hill.

Blinding the drivers is one way to get some of that power around a tight curve.  Even the prototypes did it.  The Pennsylvania blinded one of the middle driver pairs on some of its consolidateds.   The Athearn MDC 1880s 2-8-0 comes with both middle driver pairs blinded.  The 2-6-0 has the middle pair blinded.

I have managed to run the B-mann eight wheeler around a seven and something curve (the inner curve of the Kato UNITRAM) without problem.   Six inches in N scale is pretty tight.  That is equivalent to just over eleven inches in HO.  I seem to recall that the old HO Mantua
0-4-0T kit would go around an eight inch curve, but anything much larger than a small switcher would require modification.

Quote from: plas man on March 18, 2017, 04:22:15 PM
here you should see the 0-6-0 switcher and old timers on tight curves , use long couplers and slight trim to tender front/cab roof .

How do you manage to get that train up a grade with the stock tender?  If I use a SPECTRUM tender, not only will it climb the hill, it gets better electrical contact.  I must admit that the stock live truck and drawbar does not perform poorly, when you consider what it is, but the all wheels live and needlepoint axle pick-up on the SPECTRUM tender renders far better performance than does the stock tender.

Nice looking pike.

Somebody over on Trainboard did a rework of the old B-mann B&O 0-4-0T.  He changed the motor, did a bit of re-wiring, took the chassis from a SPECTRUM USRA standard tender.  The purpose of the tender chassis is to build a live brakeman's hack to provide some additional contact and a place to put a decoder.  It appears that he is cutting down an old MDC wood boxcar to make the shell for the brakeman's hack.

The thing creeps nicely on DC (he has not finished the brakeman's hack, so the decoder is not installed, yet)..

B-mann did sell a Pennsylvania 0-4-0 and tender some time back.  It is long out of production.  I have one, somewhere, but can not find it, now.  It might be viable to resurrect it, depending on how the tender compares to say, the tender on the ALCo mogul.  Further, it would be necessary to see if the motor that goes either into the mogul or the USRA 0-6-0 would fit the 0-4-0.  I seem to recall that it was quite small.

If any manufacturer did try to issue a tank switcher, it might be a good idea to include a live freight car, caboose or baggage car to aid with contact or to hold a decoder, for those who use DCC.

Does B-mann sell a GP-9 in N scale?......or did you buy GP-7s?

They are supposed to come with an instruction sheet.  Mine did.  I did not read the DCC part because I do not use it.  They run nicely on DC until you fry the decoder, that is.  Still, it is not difficult to wire around it once you fry it.

Some  steam locomotives that  I did forget to mention that will run on so sharp a curve:

MDC/currently Athearn sells some nineteenth century power:  a 2-8-0 and a 2-6-0.  These are excellent little locomotives that run well with a minimum of break-in time.  The 2-6-0 has its middle driver pair blinded.  The 2-8-0 has the two middle driver pairs blinded.

These are decidedly nineteenth century locomotives (the prototypes are about 1880s), but with a little work, you can "update" them.  The 2-6-0 is especially adaptable, as it has sixty-three inch drivers.  I "updated" one by removing the "mantle clock" headlight and replacing it with one mounted in the middle of the smokebox cover.  I put a generator over the opening left by removal of the "mantle clock" headlight.  I added a power reverse and pilot steps to make it look like an old locomotive that had been rebuilt over the years.


Of course, if you want to run nineteenth century equipment, you need not make any alterations.

B-mann sells an 1870s 4-4-0.  While some of the older versions were inconsistent, if you will buy one of the last that appeared in a cardboard box, or, best of all, buy the version that comes in a plastic box.  B-mann made some improvements to them, so they are pretty good.  Do understand that you must operate these on live frog turnouts (if you have any turnouts, at all), as their small footprint will make them stall on neutral frog turnouts.   This is not a flaw in the locomotive, mind you, it is just that these things are so small that their wheelbase does not allow for the best contact when you run them on track that has electrically neutral pieces.

Atlas sells an 1870s 4-4-0 that runs nicely.

Atlas sells an 1870s 2-6-0 that while it runs nicely, suffers from the limited pick up.

If your space is severely limited and you must use curves so sharp, you might want to consider nineteenth century equipment.  B-mann sells two types of passenger cars and several types of nineteenth century freight cars.  MDC sold and Athearn sells eight different types of nineteenth century passenger cars and several different types of freight cars.  Micro-Trains also sells several different types of nineteenth century freight cars.   The Micro-Trains come with a simulated "link and pin" couplers, but you can substitute 1023s for them, easily.

You can find the B-mann and MT equipment at most hobby stores and at shows.  The old MDC equipment is everywhere at shows.  Some hobby stores may have some as NOS.  The Athearns, which are copies of the MDC designs (although Athearn has made them available in more road names and paint schemes) can be found at shows, although some hobby stores might have them, as well.

The B-mann 0-4-0T and 0-4-0 with tender are out of production, as is the Rivarossi 0-4-0 with a tender that Atlas sold.

Life-Like sold an 0-6-0T, as did Atlas and at least one other manufacturer.  Those are out of production, as well.

Minitrix sold an 0-6-0 with a tender.  It is long out of production.

AHM sold a 2-6-4T manufactured by Lima.  It is long out of production and is JUNQUE.

All of them have limited electrical contact, which inhibits their performance.  Further, their construction methods are out of date.

The 0-4-0T is based on the Baltimore and Ohio 0-4-0T that worked Pratt St. and the Inner Harbour docks in Baltimore.  They were oil burners, as Baltimore had smoke abatement laws.  You could get the smoke abatement boys off of your case, back then, if you used oil burners (Hence Western Maryland's oil burning Pacifics).  At some point, B&O converted two of the things to coal burners and conventional configuration (added a tender and took off the water tanks and fuel bunkers).  The Rivarossi 0-4-0 with tender that Atlas sold is based on that conversion.

The B-mann 0-4-0 with a tender is based on a Pennsylvania Railroad prototype.

I am not sure of the prototype for the 0-6-0T

The TRIX 0-6-0 with a tender is based on a Pennsylvania B-6b.  


The AHM/Lima is based on a Reading Company prototype that worked Philadelphia suburban commuter trains before Reading electrified the lines.

Of all mentioned in this topic, the best of the bunch is the newest version of the B-mann USRA 0-6-0 (in a plastic box, with the motor that does not stick far out of the back of the cab), with the proviso that you swap out the stock tender for a SPECTRUM tneder.  The SPECTRUM tender is all wheels live and has up to date needlepoint axle pick-up that keeps down the drag on the locomotive.  The tender swap is not difficult.  If you will check Spookshow's website, there is a brief description of how to do the conversion.  There are other tutorials out there in cyberland, as well.   Later versions of the older motored B-mann USRA  0-6-0 are not bad, either, but you are better off with the most recent version.

There is a gentleman named Mark Watson (?), who posted something on either Trainboard or The Rail Wire about how he upgraded the Life Like 0-6-0T.  He posted videos of it.  He did a pretty good job with the upgrade.

More than a few have re-worked the old TRIX 0-6-0 and tender.  It involves adding a better motor (the motor found in the old Atlas/Kato
GP-7/GP-9 or RS-3 seems to be the more popular) and in some cases a flywheel.  Further, you upgrade the tender to all wheels live.

You can find all of the out of production steam switchers at shows.  The caveat there is that many vendors have a high opinion of what they are selling is worth.

Some hobby stores may have some of the steam locomotives that I have mentioned as New Old Stock.

Here is my experience with B-mann (and other) steam on Kato UNITRAM.  The inner curve on those is seven and a half, or so, inches.  The turnouts are like eight inches or eight and a half.

USRA 0-6-0-The locomotive will operate.  I do not know what the stock tender does, but the SPECTRUM slope back and USRA short tenders will derail.

ALCo 2-6-0-The locomotive will operate and stay on the track.  It stalls occasionally on the turnouts.  On certain specific models, the mechanism binds on the curves.

Baldwin 4-6-0- The non DCC model will operate, but does stall frequently on the turnouts.  It does climb the curves and the turnouts.  The DCC versions stall, climb, derail and the mechanism binds.

SPECTRUM Baldwin 2-8-0-climbs and derails.

The 2-8-0 is the largest that I tried.

I tried the Model Power eight wheeler and mogul.  Both climbed and derailed.

The Atlas Shay works well.

The Walthers/Life-Like USRA 0-8-0 climbs, stalls and derails.

As Spookshow suggested, you use Elmer's, which does not damage the track.  You can use a nail here or there, if you want to do that.  Plas man has good advice on the use of a pin vise.  Do take care not to snap the pin vise.  The Elmer's works well, I have used it myself.   Once you are sure that everything is allright with the track and it is time to ballast, you will use Elmer's thinned with water which will add to the hold.

Elmer's does not attack plastic or cork.

Woodland Scenics sells pins that you can use to hold down the cork or the track until the Elmer's dries.

I am sure that I am not the only one who has noticed this, but I have been seeing the early stages of a trend by the manufacturers of getting away from DC only power.  Now that there are various so-called "smart" decoders available, more manufacturers will begin to offer only power with these decoders. 

The performance of these "smart" decoders varies wildly not just by manufacturer, but also, even in different models from the same manufacturer.  One of the major problems in runnability/performance is that every time the locomotive equipped with a "smart" decoder hits the smallest dead spot, it stops while the decoder re-sets itself.  On the DC models, one purpose of the flywheels was to allow the locomotive to coast over these dead spots and resume running once contact was re-established.

If you will read spookshow's website, you will see that he comments on older power, as well.  Much of this older power lacks a decoder.  Much of this older power is still out there.  You can find it at shows or at dealers as NOS.  There are various manufacturers out there that have offered some excellent power in the past, and, that continue to do so.  Some of it can be had for good prices.

You have choices.

If the rolling stock is all B-mann, the Micro-Trains 1133 is almost universal for B-mann products.  Thus, if your locomotives are older B-mann, the 1133 may fit those, as well.  Check Micro-Trains' website for the specific conversion for your locomotive(s).  If you have sharp curves, Micro-Trains does sell an 1134 that is simply an 1133 with a longer shank.

The easiest thing to do may be to buy Micro-Trains 1000s, which are Bettendorf trucks with a truck mounted coupler.  You put the MT truck on one end of the car.   For the other end, Micro-Trains used to sell a 1500, which is a MT truck with Rapido couplers.   I understand that MT has discontinued this one, but you may find some at shows or at dealers as NOS.   If you can not find any, send me a PM and I have some around the house somewhere.  I will look for them.  It is best if your trucks are from the same manufacturer.  Another possibility is to buy some Atlas freight car trucks with Repidos and some with Accumates.  If you go the Atlas route, be sure that you get the newer ones, as the first Accumates had a nasty habit of discombobulating.  Atlas has since addressed the problem.

B-mann does sell some dummy knuckle couplers, as well.

You might want to convert everything, power included, to knuckle couplers, as the manufacturers have been getting away from the Rapidos for some time, now.

Quote from: spookshow on January 21, 2017, 06:28:57 AMThis is the most recent version (actually a 2-6-2, but the internals are the same as an 0-6-0), and as you can see there's not much room for a decoder. So, it'd probably have to go in the tender.

..........at which point an upgrade to the SPECTRUM tender would be necessary.

You must remove the shell.  There is a driveshaft that goes from the motor to the front truck.