A friend gave me an HO Doodlebug with a detail or two missing but otherwise in good shape but I can't find a diagram for it in the Product Information section.  There is one for the N scale Doodlebug, but no HO scale unless I missed it and it's in the wrong category or something.  Is there a diagram and parts list for this item on line somewhere as all I got was the Doodlebug itself with no box or diagram.

Thanks

  Thanks for this engine and I'm sure it'll be up to the great standard you've set for the Spectrum line. It's an engine that has always been popular with both B&O and other modelers and I hope you are very well rewarded with great sales of this engine. I will be doing my part by purchasing four and possibly even five. Why? Because they are my favorite articulated after the Y6b brutes and the money I had been saving to purchase a brass engine or two with will now go to these engines.

  All too often companies respond to what modelers say they want only to be greeted with nit pickers and naysayers. I wanted to be sure you know that at least some of us really appreciate it when a company makes the extra effort required to do something actually new rather than releasing yet another one of the most common models.

  Thank you again, Regards

   I just thought I should thank Bachamann here on their board for making the CityScenes Building Kits available again.  I'll be getting three or four of them and given the reaction a few friends have had to the ones I've already gotten I think they'll be very pleased as well.

  Regards

  It would really be nice if users could come here and check on which of their Bachmann products had been registered and register those that they've missed.  I got a couple of engines for Christmas and filled the registration cards out then gave then to my son to mail  He took them and said, "Oh, I'll try to remember the other five or six card I have to mail as well and get them all sent off next week".   Well, little did I know that "five or six" of my engines haven't had their registration card sent in.

  Just a thought. Another thought is, MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!


   Regards,

      R Hume

   I really like my Bachmann steamers and haven't had problems with any of them as of yet.  I haven 't tried any of the Bachmann diesel units which are not Spectrum and come DCC equipped.  If anyone here can comment on how well they run or what quirks they may have, the FT units in particular, please let me know if you consider them competitive with other brands after running them a while.

Thanks

   As is now common, all these little steamers seem to have one powered driver with the siderods powering the other drivers connected to it.  I have an older brass engine, one I got used, that looks great, has only modest wheel wear as compared to most of my others, and it's worn the siderod mountings to such an extent that it's really sloppy.

   Has anyone put enough hours on Bachmann steamers, particularly Spectrum  engines, to have an idea of how much running it takes to have a similar problem on Bachmann engines?  Also, does anyone have a solution that avoids the problem altogether?


  Thanks,

  Regards

     I have quite a few older cars and engines I need to install couplers on so that everything can work with the Kadee and McHenry couplers I have on my newer cars.  Pretty much everything comes with a Kadee compatible coupler these days, which is a big step forward IMHO, but it means I have to buy about 100 pair of couplers.   Looking at the couplers I'd like to buy (Kadee semi-scale whisker style) and E-Z mate or others, I'd like to know if anyone has much experience with E-Z Mate on longer trains and on how well they work with the other brands.   To date I haven't had any problems with the E-Z Mate couplers that came on my Bachmann engines, but I haven't pulled many 25 or 30 car freights with them, either.  Some people have told me that all couplers other than Kadee have separation problems on trains much longer that fifteen or so cars, although I personally haven't had any problems with McHenry couplers on the 16 - 18 car freights I have managed to run on other folks layouts and on my test setups.

   Anyone who has a comment about the limitations or the lack of limitations with E-Z mate couplers please let me know your thoughts.  It's, for me, a good slice out of my model RR budget to purchase the Kadees even at the discounts that are available on the web.  McHenry is about half the price of Kadee, and E-Z mate can be found for less still.  If they're as good as the others, I might give up my desire to go to the "semi scale" ones.  After all, I was happy as a little clam with Kadee compatible until semi-scale ones were released.  (The semi-scale ones do look very nice, though)

    Thanks in advance,

  Regards

     Once or twice I've seen some large city style buildings on eBay that are listed as "Bachmann Downtown" or something similar.  I haven't ever seen these in anything other than an already finished state, so I don't even know if they came preassembled or were a kit.

  Will Bachmann ever run these or similar kits again or were they a one time run? 

    Thanks in advance

     I haven't broken in any engines since back in the 1970s, and these nice little steamers seem like they're a good bit better, right out of the box.  I'd like to know what kind of experience folks have had breaking theirs in.  I have 2-8-0s, 2-10-0s, 4-8-2s, 2-8-4s, and 2-6-6-2s, so whatever you have I'd like to know how you got them ready for layout use.  How did you break them in, how much difference did you see after breaking them in, and what kind of lubrication did you use before or after a break in?

   I have to say, the ones I have all run so smoothly right out the box that I don't expect the kind of dramatic difference you used to see if you took your time to work one in right.  I've only run mine around a loop once or twice in each direction at low speed to check that they arrived in working order.  To date, although I have one that sort of "growls" a bit, all have run smoothly and well.

     If you chose not to break yours in I'd like to know that as well, as maybe just regular use would be as effective as a break in period.

  Thanks

  R. Hume