I just learned that B-mann does sell a voltmeter and a track cleaning tool that uses pads.

The voltmeter is a rather simple thing that has three lights for high/medium/low voltage.

I am not sure if the track cleaning tool has abrasive pads or if you must use track cleaner with it.  Perhaps the B-Man can provide enlightenment.

Quote from: greeneri on January 12, 2017, 11:48:00 AM
my 2-6-2 was running great last week. now it stutters when going forward; but runs fine in reverse.

Miranda's Maxim as explained by ke applies here:  "The poor performance of many N scale steam locomotives is almost always attributable to poor electrical contact".

I am assuming that you have a recent version.

That locomotive has a front tender truck that is live, a drawbar that conducts electricity and a split contact post on the locomotive.

Turn the tender sideways so that the drawbar will come off the locomotive.  Make sure that the contact posts on the locomotive are clean.  I suspect that your problem may not be there, as the thing will operate in reverse.  Still, while you are at it, it does not hurt to make sure that the posts are clean.

Next, turn your attention to the drawbar.  On the latest version, there are two stiff wires soldered to foil on the drawbar.  In order to carry out this part of the fix, you may have to remove the drawbar from the tender.  To do this, you must unscrew the screw that holds in the front tender truck.  Take note of how the parts sit, as you must
re-assemble in the same way as you disassemble.  Once you have the drawbar out, make sure that the stiff wires are clean.  

YOU MUST CARRY OUT THE NEXT STEPS WITH UTMOST CARE.  The solder joints on the drawbar are EXTREMELY DELICATE and will break off easily.  What I often do is to hold them in a small to average sized pair of needlenose pliers, taking care not to clamp down too hard but hard enough to hold the wires.  Make sure that the stiff wires are clean.  You can file them, sand them (sanding sticks work well), even Life Like track cleaner might work, although I have yet to try that on B-mann drawbars.  Next, you want to make sure that the contact at the split post on the locomotive is good.  You pinch in the stiff wires.  DO THIS VERY CAREFULLY.   The solder joint on the stiff wires is extremely delicate and breaks easily.

Finally, turn your attention to the front truck.   There are contact tabs along the top edge of the wheel wipers.  In fact, when you pull off the front tender truck, take care that the contact wipers on the wheels do not pop out of place.  Make sure that the tabs are clean and bend them up slightly so that they will contact the foil on the drawbar properly.

Now, lay the drawbar onto the front bolster on the tender.  Then put back the front truck, taking care that the wipers do not pop out of the wheels.  Finally, screw back the screw and put the drawbar back onto the contact post.

After all that, I must tell you that there is a better solution.   If you will purchase a B-mann SPECTRUM USRA short tender, it will fit this locomotive, with a minimum amount of work.   The advantage of the SPECTRUM tender is that it is all wheels live and has needlepoint axle pickup, which lessens the drag on the locomotive.   The design of the live trucks on the SPECTRUM tender is markedly different from the design of the one live truck on the stock tender.  Thus, with one blow, you will improve the locomotive's runnability and its pulling power.   If you will take a peak at Spookshow's website, his review of this thing contains a brief explanation how to do the swap.   You must do a minimum of surgery to the tender deck to get it to work.  There are other tutorials out there, as well.

If you have an older version, there are still fixes to it.   In addition, you can still affix the SPECTRUM tender to the older versions, it simply requires a little more work.

Booster wires are simply connexions from power supply to track at intervals along the track.  What happens is that as the current travels through its conductor, the voltage tends to drop the further it travels from the power supply.   DC voltage drops faster than AC.  What the booster does is shorten the distance from power supply to track section, as the current travels directly from power supply to where the wire contacts the track section, instead of following the winding track.   

In addition, it has been my practical experience that the introduction of turnouts into the trackage can (but does not always) cause voltage drops.   The use of boosters mitigates the problem.  Do take care to make sure that there are properly placed gaps if the pike has metal frog turnouts.   

If you are going to solder the boosters to the track, again, do take care not to melt the plastic ties and push the track out of gauge.

Quote from: dutchbuilder on January 12, 2017, 06:04:13 AM
Aren't we forgetting something?  The bumblebee is 3ft narrow gauge and not standard gauge.

The Gallopping Goose was narrow gauge, as well, but Con-Cor sold one in standard gauge. 

Indeed, the bumblebee prototype was narrow gauge and was a consolidated, not a mogul.  I do not recall that the drivers were silver, either, but they are on the Athearn model.   While the prototype was not standard gauge, that did not stop either MDC or Athearn from selling them in N scale standard gauge.

B-mann sells the nineteenth century wood passenger cars in N scale standard gauge lettered for Durango and Silverton.   The set comes with a USRA 0-6-0 for power.  The current Durango and Silverton operates on narrow gauge track of the former D&RGW narrow gauge lines.   As far as I have read, there never was a narrow gauge USRA locomotive of any type.

Even though the prototype was, and is, narrow gauge, it does not seem to stop the manufacturers from selling it as standard gauge.  It appears that people have bought and are buying it, as it is not easy to find the MDC/Athearn power or the C-C Gallopping Goose.   I have seen a few of the B-mann sets at shows and in hobby shops, but not many.  In addition, there is a line of rolling stock out there that is sold in plastic bags with a card hanger called either Rerailers or Rerailed (I forget which).   It is mostly older production and out of production B-mann rolling stock.   I have managed to find exactly one coach and one combine of the B-mann nineteenth century wood cars lettered for the Durango and Silverton.  I bought each one as I saw it.  I have not seen any others.   I would expect that there were more of them, but people snapped them up quickly.   Some of us who have the Athearn/MDC power want the passenger cars to run behind it, but do not need the tracks, power supply and other items and really do not want the 0-6-0 as power for the train.

In addition, many of us feel compelled to upgrade the tender on the 0-6-0 to a SPECTRUM tender, thus we want to avoid the additional expense.   The better SPECTRUM tender for B-mann's USRA 0-6-0 is really the USRA short, which does not come in Durango and Silverton, anyhow.

"Grades" of B-mann power

There is an old Standard Line, much of which is out of production.

There is a new Standard Line, most of which is pretty good.

There is the SPECTRUM most of which is excellent.  Some of the earlier runs of the SPECTRUM products had their problems, which
B-mann addressed in subsequent runs.   Some of what was SPECTRUM is now Standard Line.

There was a PLUS.   I had experience only with the F-7s on the PLUS power.  In theory, the design was pretty good, but the gears tended to crack after a short period of use.  B-mann did address the problem and upgraded them initially to SPECTRUM.   There was a third
re-vamping that included the addition of factory DCC and they are now Standard Line.  The SPECTRUM F-7s are allright, the Standard Line F-7s are better.  I would stay away from the PLUS.   If you do find a PLUS for a fire sale price or have one, the shells do swap among the PLUS, SPECTRUM and new Standard Line.  Do not confuse the F-7 with the old Standard Line F-9.  That one is out of production, although many are still out there at shows and at dealers as NOS.

The PLUS rolling stock was allright.  In fact, many wish that B-mann would bring back the PLUS shorty standard passenger cars.  B-mann has discontinued the PLUS line in N scale.  I do not know about the other scales.

MDC sold a 2-8-0 in Denver and Rio Grande Western Bumblebee.  Athearn bought out MDC years back, so the bumblebee 2-8-0 is long out of production.  You might find one at a show or a dealer might have one as NOS, but I would guess that by now they are not easy to find.  If one were to come up on FeePay, I would expect a real snipe war.

Athearn sold a 2-6-0 and 2-8-0 in D&RGW bumblebee.  Those might be easier to find, as they are of later manufacture, but, they too, are long out of production.  You might find one at a show or a dealer as NOS.   

There was also a black 2-8-0 from MDC and from Athearn.  There was a black with the Royal Gorge herald 2-6-0 from Athearn.

I am guessing that if they are not the proverbial hens' teeth, they are close to it.

The USRA heavy mikado is a Kato.  The eight wheeler and the consolidated are B-manns.  

Nice work.   You might want to add some grease or oil flows to some of the things in the junk yard, especially the motive power.   Also some grease and oil on the ground.  Junk yards tend to have grease and oil everywhere.  They also have small parts lying around as well as small parts half buried in the dirt.  Their equipment also tends to leak oil everywhere.

I tried to look at larger versions of the photographs that you posted, but got only the perpetual loading.  I suspect it is more  a problem on my end than it is on yours.

Still.

You might want to make a careful cut and then cover job on the tunnels so that you can have access to the track under them.  If you fail to do that, you may rest assured that most of your problems will occur on the tracks in the tunnels, especially dirty track and massive derailments.   Murphy loves model railroading.  His law seems to go double when it is time to operate the railroad.

In most cases, the One Ampere output of most DC power supplies is sufficient.   You may have to add booster wiring if the original owner did not.  The MRC dual pack is a good one.  I use them.  They last forever.  I have one that is almost twenty five years old.   Mine is a 2800.   The slow speed control should be very good for most locomotives if you are using this power supply.

If your wife acquired this from an older gentleman, I wonder how much he operated it in the last few years.  What you might have to do is put the locomotives on the track and run them around it several times in both directions.  If you can pop off or unscrew the shells, you might take a Q-tip and put a little seventy per-cent or a little Life Like track cleaner onto the armature of the motor.  I have made balky locomotives that have been sitting for some time run just as they were supposed to run by doing this.

Your poor slow speed control may have its roots in the locomotives themselves.  How old are they and who manufactured them?   Much power manufactured during the early 1980s or before does not run well as it is.  Often they have only two speeds:  very fast and not-at-all.  Some do have three:  Very fast, still too fast and not at all.  Examples of this are Mehano (two speeds) or Roco (three speeds).   There is also some power that has decent slow speed control--when it actually will run.  These locomotives are finicky and will stall on less than professional grade trackwork.  Atlas/Kato power are examples of this.

For most of these, there is little, if anything to be done to improve them.  You can hardwire the Atlas/Katos in pairs.  That will eliminate the stalling problem.

The best of that era are the Con-Cor/Kato offerings:  the PAs, E-units and the Hudson.

If the thing is only two feet wide, the best curve radius on it is eleven, or so, inches.  That falls into the "sharp" category.  ("Conventional" is thirteen inches, "broad" is sixteen or better----I am scaling down the old HO categories and measurements, here).   Some of the curves are even more sharp than eleven inches.   Pretty much anything larger than a 2-8-0 is not going to run on an eleven inch curve, and, if it will, it will look pretty silly.  I can run the LL/Walthers 2-8-4 around an eleven inch curve, but it looks really silly on it.  It looks silly even on a thirteen inch curve.  On the nine inch curves, you will have a hard time with anything larger than a 4-6-0.  Even if something larger will run on the nine inch curves, it does look pretty silly doing so.

On the eleven inch curves, you pretty much are limited to four axle diesels and steam locomotives 2-8-0 or smaller.   Some six axle diesels will run on the sharp curves, but will not look their best doing so.   Further, there is a tendency these days to body mounted couplers on rolling stock.  Longer power and rolling stock, especially with body mounted couplers,  can cause derailments on sharp curves.  You m ight want to keep the rolling stock to sixty five feet or less.

Some of the wires may have come disconnected during the move.  I moved my pike four times before I finally took it down and re-worked it.  Every time that it moved, there were more than a few wires that came undone.   Have a volt meter to test continuity and to see where there are voltage drops.  You can buy inexpensive volt meters in many places. Check Micro Mark's website.   The volt meter will tell you where you need booster wires.   Life-Like used to sell a continuity tester that is two wires and a light bulb.  If the light lit, you were in good shape.  If it did not, you had a problem.   I still see them at shows and at some hobby stores.   The volt meter is the better buy, though, as it tests continuity and voltage at the same time.  If the needle moves (or the numbers light), you have a good circuit.  If the needle does not move, you have a problem.   If the needle pegs too fast or too high, though, you may have a short.

The pike looks like a pretty good one, it might just need the power and rolling stock that fits it.  The MRC power supplies are good.   Keep the track clean and do something about the tunnel access and you should be allright.

There are a several possibilities.

1,  Check for misaligned rail joiners.  This problem is not uncommon when using sectional track, especially.  It can occur with flex, as well, but it has more opportunities with sectional.   Usually, the misaligned rail joiners cause derailments, but they can cause disruptions to electrical continuity.  You can buy an inexpensive volt meter.  Life-Like used to sell something even less expensive.  It was a basic continuity tester that had two wires and a light bulb.  You touched one wire to each track.  Next, you turned on the power.  If the bulb lit, you had continuity.  If it did not, you had a problem.   It is likely that you could find the continuity tester at shows or some dealers may have them as NOS.  There are inexpensive voltmeters out there, as well.  Several tool vendors sell them.  Try Micro-Mark.

2.  Make sure that the track is clean.  Various vendors sell track erasers.  They are not expensive.  B-mann might even sell one.

3.  Make sure that there is proper contact on all contact surfaces.  The front truck on this locomotive is live.  There are two wipers that make contact with the wheels.  On top of the wipers are two tabs that contact metal foil on the drawbar.  Make sure that the tabs are making contact with the foil on the drawbar.  You might have to bend them up slightly.  Do take care when you do this.  You might have to loosen the screw that holds on the front tender truck or undo it entirely.  Do take care not to let the wiper fall out and take care to re-assemble in the same way as you disassembled.  Make sure that both the foil and the tabs are clean.  There are contact posts on the locomotive.  Make sure that they are clean.   There is a pair of stiff wires at the leading edge of the drawbar,  Make sure that they are clean and are making proper contact with the posts on the locomotive.   You might have to bend in the stiff wires a bit.  TAKE EXTREME CARE WHEN YOU DO THIS.  THOSE STIFF WIRES ON THE DRAWBAR ARE EXTREMELY DELICATE.  They are affixed to the drawbar in a very delicate manner.  If you pinch them too hard, they could pop off the drawbar.  what I have done is grip them midway with a pair of needlenose pliers across the two wires, then pinch in, but WITH GREAT CARE.

The best solution for this one is to purchase a SPECTRUM tender from Bachmann (or from a vendor/dealer who has one).  The Bachpersonn SPECTRUM tender has all wheels live and a needlepoint axle pickup.  In addition, the use of the B-mann SPECTRUM tender will increase the pulling power of this locomotive.   The design of the stock front tender truck is such that it places a tremendous amount of drag on the locomotive.   In addition, half wheels live tenders have proved somewhat less than efficient at collecting current.   Use the SPECTRUM tender and you will have more pulling power and much better runnability as the electrical contact will be markedly improved.  If you will take a peak at Spookshow's website, he explains how to do the tender swap.  It is not difficult.

It should not be derailing.  The first thing to do is check the track for misaligned rail joiners.  Misaligned rail joiners is not an infrequent occurrence, especially when using sectional track.

I looked at the description and photograph on this, the Bachpersonn website.   It reads that there are five pieces of straight, the turnout and the bumper.  The photograph shows a stubby siding that appears too small even for the switcher.  If the turnout does, indeed, measure six inches, it is one inch out of alignment.   The description reads that the turnout is Left Hand.  You could buy a corresponding Right Hand turnout and some additional track to balance it

Which Santa Fe locomotive did you buy?   Did it come in a set or did you buy it separately?   Are you using a different power supply from the one that you used initially?

While it seems odd that it would run with less voltage, at first than it does subsequently, it could be the factory decoder.  Many of these things with factory "smart" decoders do require a higher starting voltage.   Your power source could be the cause.  Some of these factory decoders do not always react the same way on pulse power.  Many of the "DC" power supplies sold, anymore, are pulse.

B-mann lettered and numbered its B&O 2-8-0 for an E-27, which was the most numerous and latest 2-8-0 on the railroad.  The B-mann locomotive does not look much like an E-27.  The most glaring difference is the cab., but there are others.  What is funny is that it does look much like an E-60, which was a Buffalo and Susquehanna locomotive.   The E-60s did migrate to the rest of the B&O.  When B&O sold the B&S in the 1950s, it retained the B&S locomotives that were on B&O property.

You can hear the gasolene engine on the Australian doodlebug.  Some of them had diesel engines.   The PRR doodlebug does seem to have more horn and bell noise than anything else, though.  Even when the dingy fences go off, you can not hear the engine too much.   RDCs make more engine noise.

Here is a PRR on Youtube CxvOOfgDUW0

The horn, the bell and the dingy fences drown out the sound of the motor, but it will suggest a few other videos to watch.

Here is one in Australia rGqUMijRk5E