Scatteredparts, the Niagara will run with the Rivarossi tender if you make a drawbar to couple them together, but of course the tender is completely wrong for the locomotive. Niagaras had centipede tenders, as you can see here:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=1560

There's a dealer at my local Greenberg show who has a tons of the older style Niagara tenders, but they're loose in a box and tend to be pretty beat up.

Hi Jeff. I've always wondered what type of motor Rivarossi put in those red box old-timers? I assume it's a decent can motor from your account. They didn't produce too many of them, so they usually go for a lot when they show up for auction.

IHC used the old Rivarossi tooling with minor changes like different sized screw holes. I have an IHC Reno that runs great.

There is a screw in the underside of the smokebox, another under the steam dome which will pry off, and a large screw under the firebox.

Be careful if you remove the plastic worm covers on the truck towers, because it's easy to crack them.

The smoke units in Bachmann steamers are particularly messy. They percolate the fluid through a steel tube with a heater coil wrapped around it, and spit the fluid as often as they create smoke. The engine has to be run near full throttle to produce anything visible, and it doesn't last very long. If you store the loco on its side, the remaining fluid will pour out into the shell. I don't know about Bachmann's fluid, but I've seen old plastic locos with smoke units whose boilers have turned brittle from exposure to smoke oil.

On balance, not a great idea.

Nelson

Bach-man,

Since we're all starting from scratch on this forum, does that mean all posts made before the system upgrade have been lost to the ether (net)?

Sorry. My first post, and already with the bad puns...